Ten Best: Kennedy vs Hill-Murray
Saturday afternoon marked the end of the nasty snow storm and the start of the Metro East vs Metro West Challenge. Game one was Kennedy vs Hill-Murray. The Metro East vs Metro West Challenge was shortened by two games (Chaska…
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Continue ReadingSaturday afternoon marked the end of the nasty snow storm and the start of the Metro East vs Metro West Challenge. Game one was Kennedy vs Hill-Murray.
The Metro East vs Metro West Challenge was shortened by two games (Chaska vs North St Paul, Mahtomedi vs Cooper) because of the weather. The other three games were played. Who was right? Who was wrong? Not sure I have an answer. The roads were bad enough to force two travel re-directions on may way from Waconia to Mendota Heights as well as seven cars in the ditch and two accidents.
So entering the building I got more first look at the excellent new facility. They have an excellent practice gym/alternate gym and the new St. Thomas main gym is bigger and actually has chair backs on one side of the gym. Chair backs in high school!
Game one was Hill-Murray against Bloomington Kennedy, or shall I say, the much improved Bloomington Kennedy (now 4-1 on the season after being winless a year ago). The Eagles were already the favorite to win but with the Pioneers missing leading scorer Simeon Davis the Eagles became a huge favorite.
A motivated Hill-Murray bunch fought to a 19-12 lead but were bombarded from that point on as the Kennedy Eagles just had to many agile playmakers for them to defend. The biggest issue was that Josh Bryant and Krystian Tolliver are too big and too agile at 6-foot-5 for any Pioneer to deal with. And when Markel Aune went on a late first half run of production the game seemed to be too much for the Pioneers.
Hill-Murray won 83-62 led by the 25 points from Josh Bryant, the 19 from Tolliver, and 17 from Markel Aune. Conik Runyon had 20 for Hill-Murray.
MVP: Josh Bryant. Bryant had 25 points making 12 of 17 shots plus dished out seven assists and grabbed seven boards. Showed a nice mid-range face-up touch and was simply highly efficient with everything he did. Plus he left late in the half with what like a bad injury but came out fine in half two. Excellent showing from him.
Best Offensive Performance: Conik Runyon. Strictly talking offense from start to finish the senior worked his way into space to catch and hit jumpers all game. The Pioneers got 20 from Runyon who people need to locate in the future.
Best Defensive Performance: Markel Aune. Kennedy defended fine as a group for most of the game (after giving up that first 19) but Aune’s ball pressure and trapping during the first half run was memorable as it led to several Eagle open floor scores.
Best Guy Off the Bench: Lance Meniboon. Came off the Pioneer bench to attack the rim for four scores plus grabbed four rebounds. A nice slasher that gave his team some effort scores. Lance is a junior.
Best Under the Radar Performance: Ryan Vimr/Isaiah Stone. Ryan had 11 rebounds as a 6-foot-4 junior small forward. Finishing was tough against the Eagles agile length but Ryan missed a double double by one point giving all out effort to chase down boards. Stone, a 5-foot-10 Eagle guard, hit a couple threes and scored 11 points giving the team four in double digits.
Best Underclassmen: None. I don’t believe either team used an underclassmen. Both teams have two on their roster but they must play JV.
Best Story to watch Moving Forward: Will Kennedy Maintain? They are 4-1 so far and have winnable games with Humboldt (pending the re-schedule) and Mound-Westonka in the near future. We will find out how good they really are in the next three weeks as they also have Chaska, BSM, Jordan, and St. Anthony plus the Rochester holiday tournament.
Best Aspect of the Environment: The Event. Love these one day conference events. Hopefully they do this again and other conferences do this again.
Best Prospect: Krystian Tolliver. Tolliver had 17 points and 15 rebounds and many of them were on the offensive end. His bounce, agility, length, and overall effort make him a very interesting prospect because if he becomes more skilled he has the chance to really be an interesting prospect going forward. He’s a 6-foot-5 power forward with the agility to guard small forwards.