Holiday Tournament Preview: Top 12
This week the holiday events will be played with events spreading games out from Monday through Thursday. So what are the best events to go to for a big high school hoops fan? NHR gives you your best dozen options…
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Continue ReadingThis week the holiday events will be played with events spreading games out from Monday through Thursday. So what are the best events to go to for a big high school hoops fan? NHR gives you your best dozen options for hoops over the holidays.
- Granite City Classic (Tues, Wed). This is by far the top event and it’s not even close. It’s two scheduled days of games that includes the major battle of Apple Valley vs Maple Grove, there is a next day Apple Valley vs Wayzata, Wayzata vs Champin Park, Champlin Park vs Minneapolis North, Albany vs Monticello and several other local games (some of which are league games), and so much more including Rogers, St. Cloud Tech, Rocori, Orono, and others.
- Rotary Classic (Tues, Wed). They are hosting four four-team events over a two day span. The selections of who is versus who is a scattering of interesting match-ups. The two event will be Rochester JM vs Prior Lake and Rushford-Peterson vs Woodbury on the other side. Also there will be Cooper, Lake City, Byron, East Ridge, and others.
- Augsburg Holiday Classic (Tues, Wed, Thurs). Six teams in the event, each team has three scheduled games in a non holiday format. Best games are: Hopkins vs Eastview on Tuesday, Johnson vs Minnehaha on Wednesday, and Hopkins vs Minnehaha on Thursday. For the most part this is the same teams that it has been for years also including Chanhassen and Sibley.
- St. Cloud Cathedral Tournament (Mon, Tues, Wed). Traditional event of three games in three days in tournament format. Many good potential match-ups. The brackets are like this: Braham vs Concordia Academy and Pierz vs Litchfield on the top, huge Watertown-Mayer vs Melrose game Monday and the winner of that plays winner of St. Cloud Cathedral vs Mandan (a talented but young team from big school North Dakota basketball).
- Eden Prairie Tournament (Tues, Wed). One of the best bangs for the big as a really good St. Francis team plays Shakopee and on the other side of the four team event is Chaska and Eden Prairie. Two good semis and a really good final.
- Bethel Tournament (Mon, Tues, Wed). This is two four team events with one of them played Mon-Tues and the other Tues-Wed. Mahtomedi vs Mounds View is a really good game for Monday night, the possible Minnetonka vs Totino-Grace game is very interesting Wednesday as Robert Ware has the Eagles off to a hot start and he used to coach at Tonka as an assistant for several years (was runner-up to Chris Carr for Tonka job before taking Eagles job). Jefferson and Roseville are amongst others playing.
- Tartan Tournament (Mon, Tues, Wed). Tartan is the host, the two other two teams (Chisago Lakes and Lakeville South) play in the first round on the other side. Carmel Catholic is from Illinois, they are also here as is Centennial and others. Should be a very good final game.
- Lakeville North Tournament (Tues, Wed). You get a really solid Northfield vs Armstrong game followed by North vs Holy Family. One good semi-final and then a really good final Wednesday night.
- Russ Smith Holiday Classic at TRF (Tues, Wed). Love the pairing of Norther Freeze (Cole Dahl) against Red Lake and then the host Thief River Falls against a solid KCC team. That is four games overall and they should all be fun watches with good teams.
- Perham Tournament (Mon, Tues). If Spring Grove beats St. Peter and if Perham beats Maranatha Christian there will be a fantastic Spring Grove vs Perham game.
- St. Louis Park Tournament (Tues, Wed). Love the Edina versus Delano game on one side and the winner of that will play the host who will beat struggling Mound-Westonka. A really good semi-final and a decent final.
- Winona State Tournament (Tues, Wed, Thurs). This looks like games spread out over three days although I’m not sure, it’s tough to tell. Austin versus Caledonia is good (current Packer coach Kris Fadness guided Caledonia to a state title in the 90s), Washburn vs Austin is good, Simley vs Winona is interesting, Winona vs Washburn, Caledonia vs Simley, Heritage Christian is playing, Tri City is, and five others.
****Extra. The Bethany Lutheran event started on Saturday and continues Monday and into Tuesday. It’s a traditional eight team event. The semi-finals are Maple River vs NRHEG and Fairmont vs St. Croix Lutheran plus St. Clair and Loyola are on the other side.