Don’t Go! (The Minnesota HS Basketball Teams Hurt Most by Graduation)

Don&#8217;t Go! (The Minnesota HS Basketball Teams Hurt Most by Graduation)

Ryan James June 11, 2020 @ 03:29 PM

It’s June and that means my daily workload includes writing the Breakdown book. One thing that is obviously looked at closely is teams most hurt by graduation. Here are five from each class of basketball. When I say "Hurt Most" that’s just a shorter way of saying, the senior groups that will be the toughest to replace. Let’s start with Class AAAA.   Class AAAA One. Eden Prairie. This goes without saying but, EP has to refill a massive percentage of it’s production in all categories and doesn’t have the type of experienced players to do it in a similar way. Two. Prior Lake. The Lakers lost a McDonald’s All American in [player_tooltip player_id="532352" first="Dawson" last="Garcia"], a D1 player in [player_tooltip player_id="721843" first="Tyree" last="Ihenacho"], and several other pieces. [player_tooltip player_id="850712" first="Malcolm" last="Jones"] will pick up some pieces but there are a lot of them. Three. CDH. The Raiders surely aren’t going to fall greatly because they have [player_tooltip player_id="850701" first="Tre" last="Holloman"]. That said this team lost eight of it’s top ten contributors to graduation. Four. Spring Lake Park. The cupboard isn’t bare but four seniors have been lost to graduation. Five. Shakopee. The 2022 group is strong which means they barely make the list but so much of the Sabers was the senior group.     Class AAA One. St. Cloud Apollo. The Eagles have [player_tooltip player_id="958643" first="Thomas" last="Diew"] to keep building with but the rest of the rotation has graduated. Two. St. Peter. The Saints not only lost [player_tooltip player_id="721847" first="Wyatt" last="Olson"] to Bemidji State, they also lost three other starters. Three. Delano. The Tigers often played just one guy off the bench and sometimes, not even that. [player_tooltip player_id="532583" first="Trey" last="Longstreet"] is back but four starters have to be replaced by non-experienced players. Four. Minneapolis Henry. The Patriots had a very nice core of seniors last season that provided a big percentage of the production. Several new players will be in the line-up. Five. Waconia. The Cats won’t slip a ton because there are good players but do they have the big production talent available like they had with Hayes and Schwob? A lot of role guys need to be replaced too.   Class AA One. Jackson County Central. Let’s keep it simple, JCC only played seniors this year. A good team, a good program, but everybody on the court next year will be inexperienced. Two. Lake City. Most of the top Class AA teams bring back most of their line-up but not Lake City. The Tigers lost scholarship talent and only have one returning starter, and little back from the bench. Three. La Crescent. The Lancers lost their top playmakers from a very good team and the rebuild will come from a solid 2022 group. Four. Minnesota Valley Lutheran. The Chargers surprised a lot of people this year by improving on last year’s record . That will be tougher to do next season. Five. Eden Valley-Watkins. Josh Streit will keep this team quality but he is going to have a nearly a fresh new group of varsity players competing around him.   Class A This is simple, the best of Class A basketball - and when I say the best I mean the top ten teams in our Class A rankings - lost nearly all of their top players. Sure there is a talent here and a talent there but none of the top ten has their top guys back and most teams don’t have their best 3-4 players returning. The one exception is BOLD who has [player_tooltip player_id="567070" first="Drew" last="Sagedahl"] back. One. Henning. Two. Southwest MN Christian. Three. New Ulm Cathedral. Four. Ada-Borup. Five. Springfield.