East knocked off JM, Remains Big Nine #1
Mankato East knocked of Rochester John Marshall 72-65 Friday with the type of performance that screamed “title contender”. The question you may ask is “which title”? The answers are several. First of all Mankato East is undefeated in Big Nine…
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Continue ReadingMankato East knocked of Rochester John Marshall 72-65 Friday with the type of performance that screamed “title contender”.
The question you may ask is “which title”?
The answers are several. First of all Mankato East is undefeated in Big Nine play through ten games. East is also a section contender although they did lose a game to Waseca (the second ranked team in Class AAA basketball). If the Cougars can avenge the Waseca loss in March they are certainly a team to consider for the state title game.
How and why would you say Mankato East Head Coach Joe Madson and the Cougars are in this position? The best answer would be a combination of chemistry of coaching, talent, and chemistry as a basketball team.
When a team faces Rochester John Marshall that means having to game plan for Matthew Hurt ,the McDonald’s All American and the leading Player of the Year candidate. Hurt is averaging 35.7 points, 11.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 2.4 steals and two blocks a game for Rochester JM.
Coach Madson’s defensive gameplan started with putting 6-foot-2 senior worker (and college football prospect) Ryan Kuechle on Hurt as a physical defender. Giving up several inches Kuechle wasn’t going to shut down Hurt but the game plan was to force every shot Hurt took to be tougher.
When you face Matthew Hurt you are going to lose a lot of battles (Hurt shot 11 of 24 from the floor) but you want to win the war (win the game). To do that you want a certain percentage of Hurt’s shot attempts and to be from longer distances and shot over several arms. Kuechle did that, but he of course had help.
“We executed our defensive game plan well,” Joe Madson said. “It’s constantly at least two, maybe three guys going to Matthew depending on where he is on the floor. He’s on the block and he’s on the elbow and those are the spots he’s at the most.
“Ryan Kuechle, he is going to play football at St. Cloud State because he is a tough, physical kid. When we have our scout sheet and look to do our match-ups, it’s Ryan first and then the others meaning he is going to have the toughest match-up.
“Ryan is a leader, he a worker, and a smart kid (and a good passer as Ryan had six assists). What I love about him is Ryan is going to play football in college and he is really good in baseball, but he acts like this is his number one sport. And that is good.”
Jax MadsonMankato East put two guys on Hurt every time Matthew touched the ball on the perimeter. The Cougars allowed Matthew to shoot threes but those shots were contested. When Hurt touched the ball inside Kuechle was joined by three teammates for a quadruple team.
This meant that East challenged the Rocket guards and wings to beat them and when I looked at my stat sheet with 4:38 to go in the second half, the starting JM guards/wings had only taken two shots.
Was East physical with Matt Hurt? Absolutely. That’s the plan any good coach would use in this situation. Did the officials let East beat up on Matthew more than they should of? The answer is “without a doubt”. East fans won’t agree because they are Mankato East fans. But Hurt surely left Mankato with more scratches and bruises than any other player. That’s on the officials though, not East. They did their job well.
Coach Madson’s gameplan worked on defense, and offensively the team has become quite polished.
Junior guard Jax Madson leads the team with 18 points per game. That said, the Cougars are a balanced basketball team. East was up 31-24 at the half and Jax Madson had only taken three shots.
Why? Because the halfcourt execution of Mankato East led to high percentage scoring opportunities for several other players.
“We had a clunker against Owatonna last weekend,” Coach Madson said about his team’s recent road win. “I told these guys we had to get back to the way we were playing against JM earlier in the year (when East beat JM 67-54).
“We have a lot of options and we know several guys can score. If players get taken away we know other guys are open to score. I just think tonight we handled that well.
“The strength of this team is that we pass the ball very well. Jax was getting denied as they respect him a lot and he didn’t force anything. Sometimes with that shooter’s mentality Jax will force but tonight he didn’t at all.
“Joich (Gong) when he shoots the three like that (made four) he is pretty unguardable. He doesn’t that every time but when he does it makes us really tough to guard.
“This is a good shooting basketball team and we haven’t always had that here.”
The Rockets don’t have the type of athletes that can rotate defensively several times on a possession and manage to get into position to stop guards as quick as junior Joich Gong and sophomore Pal Kueth. The slashing of this pair scored 38 points on 19 field goal attempts (Gong had a team high 24 points on 8 of 10 field goal shooting). Gong’s quick first step and threat as both a slasher and shooter make him one of the most versatile offensive players in the junior class.
The strength of Rochester John Marshall is their size. The much improved – and continually growing – 6-foot-8 Lincoln Meister gets better every day. He caught three Matthew Hurt passes for dunks and Meister scored 16 points with eight boards. Now recovered from a knee issue plus three inches bigger, Meister is starting to look like a legit scholarship prospect in the 2020 class.
Meister’s size gave the Rockets an advantage but East countered with Jordan Merseth‘s shooting range . At a strong 6-foot-5 Merseth hit a pair of threes plus took Meister out of the paint an attacked him with a couple scoring attacks (Jordan had 14 points for the game). In the second half Jax Madson put up double figure numbers resulting in an onslaught that Hurt could not counter.
Matthew was still impressive Most highly ranked star players facing this type of attention would finish a game shooting about 30 percent with frustration getting the better of them. Fighting four guys inside, doubles outside, and contract all night Matthew still went for 31 points.
It’s amazing how so little of Hurt’s game is forced, all or most scores are within the team concept. He also moved the ball producing high percentage chances for many others, those attempts just didn’t fall (the starting backcourt scored six points combined).
Mankato East is now 13-1 on the season with an 11-0 record. They are behind chased by Austin (one game back at 10-1), Mayo (9-2), Northfield (8-3), and JM (6-4). East has winnable games with Owatonna and Red Wing coming up followed by a huge game with Mahtomedi at the Breakdown Community Clash next Saturday.
East is looking for a Big Nine championship. When we interviewed both Jax Madson and Joich Gong both pointed to the lack of league titles on the banner hanging in the gym. It’s been about 40 years.
“The last time we won one here was 1978 and that was shared four ways,” Coach Madson explained. “Other than that, there are just two up there. It’s something that’s been even more vacant than our section titles. We are one of the smaller schools in the league and to win the league would be quite an honor. We have a chance.”
JM has a tough list of games coming up playing at Northfield on Tuesday, at Winona on Friday then at Austin and against Rochester Mayo the following week.