Minnesota Playoff Central – It’s Saturday! Get to the Gym!

<p>Today is one of the best days in high school basketball as Section semi-finals will be played all around the state.  Find a gym today and enjoy!</p> <p><strong>The Big Stage</strong>. Eden Prairie High School. There is no doubt that today the biggest games are at Eden Prairie High School.  At high noon #1 and undefeated Eden Prairie takes on #9 Prior Lake led by McDonald’s All American <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="532352" first="Dawson" last="Garcia"]</strong> who has been at his very best the past several weeks.  Then at 2:30 the state’s number three ranked Shakopee program faces number four ranked Shakopee.  Yep, three of the top four teams in the state, four of the top nine, all on one court in the section semis. I know that right now reading this you are thinking "64 team field" but let’s just enjoy these games for now. </p> <p>There is a lot more than just that sectional double-header today.  At Hastings there is the Tartan vs East Ridge/Woodbury vs CDH pair, St Anthony vs Totino-Grace/Columbia Heights vs Minnehaha Academy will be fun, there are always games at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester, and I really like that Holy Angels vs South St. Paul game at 1pm.  Mound-Westonka at Waconia will be a good night cap. </p> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>!   The Fridley Tigers won a second playoff game and then sang on the bus all the way home (I made that up).  With a two point win over Monticello the Tigers next face Delano for the section crown.  How did they win?  Balance, and team play.  Senior <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="721946" first="Isaac" last="Burns"]</strong> has been Fridley’s top all around player for a couple years now and last night he had one of his better games with 21 points and 7 assists.  Junior guard <strong>Christian Crockett</strong> and one of the better senior stories this year <strong>Yoal Ruei</strong>, both had big games as well leading Fridley to the next round. On the game winning play (seen at the bottom of this page) junior Terrell Davis received the assist from Burns on a great play drawn up by Coach Jim MacDonald.  </p> <p><strong>Right on Schedule.   </strong>  The Hopkins Royals are the defending state champions and now they are looking at a section where the odd seedings took Armstrong out first, and then Hopkins handled their business last night defeating Wayzata 66-56.  <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="532358" first="Kerwin" last="Walton"]</strong> was his usual self scoring 30 points improving his candidacy for Class AAAA Player of the year with a massive second half (Walton, Garcia, and [player_tooltip player_id="846105" first="Ben" last="Carlson"] lead the AAAA Player of the Year talk right now).  The Royals overcame an 11 point halftime deficit to earn the victory.  </p> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>.    <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="549346" first="John" last="Sutherland"]</strong> of Grand Rapids was a mid-state All Class AAA State member for a reason, because he is one of the most productive senior bigs in the state. He averaged 32 points and 13 rebounds a game at the Class AAA level and next year he will be at Minnesota-Duluth starting what we think will be an excellent career.  GR is good but Princeton is just way too deep of a basketball team scoring 77 points while Sutherland scored 44 of his team’s 66. </p> <p><strong>Where’s the Czar? </strong>The Czar has more from the Hopkins game in the tweet below!</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/tchoopsczar/status/1236084831924170752[/embed]</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/coachRPetersen/status/1236134078128238592[/embed]</p>