Division Two: First Round Recap and Friday Night Preview
First Round Recap: This year’s ten versus seven games have sowed the seeds for postseason Cinderellas. Ditto for the eight versus nine and eleven versus six matchups. Here’s our current Cinderella starter pack, or at least the teams that won…
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Continue ReadingFirst Round Recap:
This year’s ten versus seven games have sowed the seeds for postseason Cinderellas. Ditto for the eight versus nine and eleven versus six matchups.
Here’s our current Cinderella starter pack, or at least the teams that won versus a higher seed in round one: 10-seed Green Bay West, 10-seed New Berlin West, 11-seed Ashland, 9-seed Messmer, 9-seed Slinger, and 9-seed Ashwaubenon.
But, the round one wins are in the rear view for these guys, and cruising to the bookends of the bracket means they’re going to be mired in the rough patches. Each of the “upset teams” will be playing either a one, two, or three seed next round.
History says the road ends there.
The traditional narrative for division two underdog stories, when it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Of the 11, 10, and 9-seeds that won their first-round matchup last year, none survived till sectionals.
Friday Preview:
There are some doozies in round two, it’s clear now that every game is becoming a little more competitive.
Best Games –
4-seed Grafton versus 5-seed Milwaukee Madison – If we’re really optimistic with this preview, we can call Grafton the best loser in D2. At 13-10-1, their record looks middling, but they’ve played close with the best, and that’s who they’re going to be playing on Friday in Milwaukee Madison. MM is 15-5 through a schedule of twists, turns, and top-tier teams. They’re battle-tested for a postseason with lots of elite opponents. And if worst comes to worst, they can hop on the back of Kyran Gaines, a guy who deserves the greenest of lights on offense after a dominant season scoring the ball.
Key Grafton Players: Alex Huibregtse (20.5 ppg), J.P Benzschawel (10.1 ppg)
Key Milwaukee Madison Players: Kyran Gaines (25.1 ppg), Brandon Leach Jr. (16.3 ppg)
3-seed Elkhorn versus 6-seed Burlington – After playing just two weeks prior, the familiar conference foes are pitted against each other in round two. They’ve played each other twice already, and as I’ll likely make mention to again, some form of a scouting report helps out the lower seed in engineering an upset.
This matchup really grabs my attention because of the sectional both teams are in. The one seed isn’t one of the D2 superteams like Nicolet or Milwaukee Washington, and the top seeds aren’t as obviously opposing as in other sectionals. So, when I say that the winner of this game could make some noise in their bracket, I’m looking at it from the optimistic perspective of an underdog. The winner will probably lose the next game, but in likely the weakest sectional, there’s potential for an underseeded team like Elkhorn or Burlington to do some damage.
Key Elkhorn Players: Luke Umnus (12.5 ppg), Nick Brown (11 ppg)
Key Burlington Players: Joey Berezowitz (12.4 ppg), Dylan Runkel (12.3 ppg)
Potential Upset –
Looking at the aforementioned “upset teams,” Ashland stands out. Last game they upended 6-seed Rice Lake, winning 60-43. Their next game would be versus 3-seed River Falls, who they already have experience playing against. That’s a huge plus, as most teams come into the tournament blind, never actually seeing their opponent play (which usually ends up in them assembling a sketchy game plan that’s relayed through other, unreliable sources). Ashland will have the benefit of prior experience, and I can’t stress enough how impactful that can be in laying the framework for a potential upset.
Not to leave out, Ashland played close with River Falls in their prior meeting, only losing by ten points.