The 2019-20 Season - Top Five Storylines

The 2019-20 season is here and with it comes more excitement! Minnesota basketball is in the midst of an incredible stretch of talented players and depth of teams so today we look at the top storylines entering the year. Number One. Minnehaha Academy, The Season of Four Straight OR The Season of High Entertainment Value? Let's face it, the Redhawks of Minnehaha Academy are going to be more than just a basketball team going for a fourth straight state title this season. The Redhawks are a team that has eight guys with division one offers including two five star talents in Jalen Suggs and Chet Holmgren plus another in Prince Aligbe who is knocking on the door. Terry Lockett has returned to handle the ball, Kaden Johnson will take a break from splitting tailbacks to play as a top defender, and Chase Carter is now on the squad as another high major offered big. The Redhawks schedule includes not only some of the best teams in the state, but also some of the best programs in the nation. Minnehaha Academy games will be sold out, every highlight will be on Twitter seconds after it happens, and let's be honest with ourselves, this team is not only going for a fourth straight state title, they are looking to grab the national attention (rankings and everything else). Number Two. Class AAAA is Wide Open Again. The 2018-19 basketball season at the Class AAAA level was so much fun because it was a wide open season of top teams battling other top teams. Nobody had a firm grip on exactly who would win the gold but on the final day of the season it was Hopkins besting Lakeville North in the Target Center. This year's number one? That's Park Center, the squad that finished 30-2 at third in state last year after holding the number one ranking for much of the year. The Pirates have the deepest roster at the Class AAAA level but they are still replacing three starters therefore far from a certainty to win gold. Eden Prairie, Prior Lake, Hopkins, Wayzata, Champlin Park, Shakopee, Eastview, Cretin-Derham Hall, East Ridge, and Chaska could all make cases for why they could be playing in the title game next March. All of these teams will do battle with one another several times during the regular season meaning we will have a nightly gauntlet of Class AAAA action. First place to see the action? The Breakdown's Big XII Classic which is November 30th at Champlin Park High School as eight of the mentioned 11 teams will be in action versus one another. (https://www.breakdownsportsusa.com/big12classic). Number Three. How Many Teams will Repeat? If you had to pick one team that will repeat it's Minnehaha Academy. The Redhawks return a full starting line-up from last year plus added three transfers (Lockett is returning to the team for his fourth varsity season as a Redhawk). DeLaSalle will obviously be posting bulletin board material all season about how they - the defending Class AAA champs - are instantly being talked about as the number two team in Class AAA basketball. That said, the Redhawks beat DeLaSalle 79-71 last year and return even more talent where as the Islanders lost their top two guys (Terry and Battle) to quality college basketball programs. Henning might be the next most likely to repeat returning three starters plus their top guys from the bench. Henning won the Breakdown Summer State Tournament facing other top Class A teams so you know they will be in the thick of the race. That said, Class A basketball is even more wide open than Class AAAA basketball so the state tournament could include several surprise teams. Remember, Henning was picked third in their section to state last year. Finally Hopkins. The Royals lost four starters but did get a pair of senior transfers (Shrake and Richardson), they return a top player in the state in Kerwin Walton, and their is young talent on the team ready for bigger roles. Obviously Class AA will have a new champion as Minnehaha Academy moved up to Class AAA. Number Four. The Outstate Talent is Building Rapidly. With all but eight Class AAAA teams being from the metro it's hard to include many teams from the outstate in this conversation but Rochester Mayo has a pair of signed high major players in Mason and Gabe Madsen, Moorhead continues to produce scholarship players (Drew Hagen), and of course Rochester JM continues to be a pipeline to D1 basketball with Matthew Hurt now a freshman at Duke (Keep an eye on Lincoln Meister too from JM). At the Class AAA level three of the top five teams in the state are from outstate Minnesota, the top three teams entering the season in Class AA are from outstate, and the entire top ten from Class A are outstate squads. Five outstate players (Madsens, Jacob Jennissen of Sauk Centre, Nathan Heise of Lake City, and Noah King of Caledonia) have already signed with D1 teams and Agwa Nywesh of Austin should be next. Then when you look at the junior class the top player Chet Holmgren is from the metro but after that Andrew Morgan (Waseca), Will Tschetter (Stewartville), Joshua Streit (Eden Valley-Watkins), Bryce Lance (Marshall), and Broden Lien (NCE/U-H) are all top ten level players from the outstate (and Treyton Thompson was from Alexandria before he left for prep school). Number Five. Basketball in Minnesota Still Ranks with the Best. The run of five star talent in Minnesota has made high school hoops a load of fun. Tyus Jones, Rashad Vaughn, Amir Coffey (before he was injured in high school), Gary Trent Jr, Tre Jones, Matthew Hurt, Jalen Suggs, Dawson Garcia, and Chet Holmgren. All of those names rank with the nation's best. This year there are eight nationally ranked top 250 seniors that Minnesota fans can get out to see plus Chet in the junior class and a sophomore group of talent that has five different players with high major offers (Tre Holloman of CDH, Camden Heide from Wayzata, Aligbe and Carter from Minnehaha Academy, and Elvis Nnaji from Hopkins) plus Eli King from Caledonia isn't far behind. Talent in this state is thick so get out to games when you can (you can see good high school basketball in this state nearly every day of the week).