The Mid-Week High Five: Upsets, Milestones, Buzzer Beaters, Award Drama, Oh My
The Minnesota High School basketball scene needed to get back to hoops and last night was a full slate of basketball. The Mid-Week High Five runs you through the important factors.
Top Five Big Performances
- Since my last High Five article Brad Davison has become the 22nd player from big school basketball in Minnesota to topple 2,000 points in his career. The Maple Grove guard made a jumper and went over the mark last weekend.
- Logan Rezac surpassed the 1,000th career point mark for Andover with a 43 point night in a 73-58 win over Coon Rapids.
- Michael Jones exploded for 23 points for Woodbury in the first half on his way to 32 in a win over Park.
- Dakota Matthees broke a school record at Winona by making ten three-pointers in a blowout win over lowly Albert Lea.
- Huge night for Jake Larson scoring 30 in a big win for Forest Lake.
Top Five Big Wins
- Chaska avenged an earlier loss to Bloomington Jefferson tying the teams in the Metro West standings. Myles Hanson had a big second half o his way to 24 points and 11 rebounds (numbers from Czar Stats Inc.).
- Minnetonka will not go out without a fight. They are 10-10 right now (better than I expected) with a nice win over St. Cloud Tech in overtime.
- Ada-Borup with a two point win over Norman County East/Ulen-Hitterdahl in overtime
- Springfield and Red Rock Central are a pair of Class A ranked teams and in that key clash Springfield won away 60-53. They are a legit threat in March with their multi-talented scorers and decent size.
- Prairie Seeds and Cristo Rey are fighting for position in 4A and it was the Lycans who won 80-78.
Top Five Upsets
- Easy number one here, Nate Kallenbach knocked out the game winning three to lead Fairmont past one loss Waseca 80-79. Nate had 15 points, Sam Schwieger scored 15.
- Forest Lake beat CD by nine last night throwing the balance off in the league standings and likely helping some others with seeding in that jam packed NSP/East Ridge/Tartan/CDH/Woodbury section.
- Griffin Doughty nailed a buzzer beater and Barron Holtz scored his 1,000th point as PEM got a huge win over St. Charles.
- Remember when we just moved Mahtomedi up to second in state and they fell to St. Thomas last night? We also remember thinking about St. Thomas for that last Class AAA top ten spot but went with Big Lake who also lost last night to Rogers on the road. Cadets are top ten worthy!
- Lourdes beating Lake City on the road is a mild upset considering Lake City was considered the favorite and was at home.
Top Five – Also Noteworthy
- Go-CI-Go was in full affect at the C-I Rangers crushed rival Pequot lakes 79-53.
- New Prague knocked off Delano 80-73 sweeping the season series.
- Braham 93-16. Goodness.
- Sibley East 99-St. Peter 85. Sibley East is one of the best teams flying under the radar.
- Nevis 74 Verndale 47. I am so on that Nevis bandwagon right now.
The Basketball Award Drama
- Ken Lien stepped down today and I think that was the right thing to do for all going forward.
- What happens next? I’m not sure. It sounds like the other guys are going to go forward with the Mr. Basketball committee. Is that a good thing? I’ve been on the committee in the past and I can tell you that there are several good men in that group that will work hard on taking this forward. What will be their plans going forward? Let’s wait and see. Somebody needs to take charge and be visual with their plans in the days, months, and years to come. There is trust that needs to be earned back statewide so they need to be visual.
- Love the award name from the MBCA “McDonald Award” and I like the John Wooden concept.
- Naming an award is one thing but actually putting in the work is another thing. How they handle it remains to be seen. Hopefully the association has big plans for this because it would be cool for our state to have a guy holding a trophy and saying “The McDonald Award Winner”.
- We need to keep the attention on the people that matter, the student athletes that deserve the recognition. We can argue all day and night who should be on a final five but what we can agree on is that a final five is needed. Kids deserve that honor, they put it on their hoops bio for the rest of their lives. Regardless if it’s Mr. Basketball and/or the McDonald Award, it needs to be done right to honor our players. Both as an award winner and as final five honorees. Do it for the players that have earned the right to be final five finalists as well as the winner who has also earned the right.