Minnesota Playoff Central – Huskers Upset Albany

<p>Northstar Hoops Report and Prep Hoops continues Minnesota Playoff Central keeping you updated on all the key happenings.  Holdingford was the team of the night on Thursday. </p> <p><strong>The Big Stage</strong>. Osseo High School. Interested in the game of the night?  That would be Hopkins vs Wayzata and I really hope you don’t have to work today or live right down the block because it’s a 5pm north metro tip-off and traffic on a Friday will not be fun.  </p> <p>After starting the season a very, very surprising 2-12 the Trojans have won 9 of 13 games.  On the flip side, Hopkins blew out the Trojans twice already (78-48 and 89-63).  <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="532358" first="Kerwin" last="Walton"]</strong> was the game high scorer in both of those victories.  The winner of that game will likely stick around to see the 2/3 game, Robbinsdale Cooper (18-5) taking on St. Louis Park.  The Orioles are 12-15 on the season but is playing better basketball.  Cooper and StLP recently played a four point game won by Cooper.</p> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>!   The upset of Thursday evening was Holdingford knocking off 5 seed Albany 78-68.  It was victory number 12 for the Huskers on the year plus they avenged a 68-25 loss to Albany from December.  That’s right, Albany scored the exact same amount of points in the first game as they did the second, but Holdingford found a way to improve by 53!  </p> <p><strong>Right on Schedule.   </strong>  One of the seeds that we thought was ridiculous - and still do - was Hastings getting the 7 and playing Lakeville North while big loss total South Suburban schools matched up with one another in other round one games.  How did the Raiders do?  They didn’t exactly help their case much.  The game was reasonably close in half one before the Panthers exploded for 47 seconds half points while leading the Raiders wondering what happened.  North junior <strong>Cooper Laufenburger</strong> scored a career high 28 points in the victory. Laufenburger was named a third team all state 16u player last summer.  </p> <p>Speaking of those South Suburban teams, 3 seed Rosemount picked up their 11th win over the year drilling Burnsville 71-43 while Apple Valley grabbed win number eight with a 66-51 win over Eagan. Eagan finished the year 9-18.  </p> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>.    Last night Nicollet lost a battle to third ranked Waterville-Elysian-Morristown 71-66.  <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="846185" first="Riley" last="Hulke"]</strong> had 22 points in the loss ending his outstanding career.  Hulke did as much playmaking on a daily basis as just about any player out there this year.  Riley made 41.3 percent of his threes this year scoring 24.5 points per game plus he also dished out 9.2 assists a contest.  He was responsible for roughly 44-45 of the 73 points his team scored per game.</p> <p><strong>Where’s the Czar?  </strong>Desmond Lugo and A’Kei Pippins are Humboldt seniors. Jessye Lewis and Romelle Bell are Hiawatha are freshmen. </p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/tchoopsczar/status/1235753181830942720[/embed]</p>