Metro West Mid-Season Review

<p>As the Metro West added 3 new schools this year, the 2nd half of the season is going to be very exciting to watch. When will we see a front runner?</p> <p><strong>Preseason Projected Standings</strong></p> <ol> <li>Benilde-St. Margaret’s</li> <li>Chaska</li> <li>Robbinsdale Cooper</li> <li>Orono</li> <li>Waconia</li> <li>Bloomington Jefferson</li> <li>Chanhassen</li> <li>New Prague</li> <li>Bloomington Kennedy</li> <li>St. Louis Park</li> </ol> <p><strong>Standings as of 1/29/22</strong></p> <ol> <li>Benilde-St. Margaret’s (6-2)</li> <li>Robbinsdale Cooper (5-2)</li> <li>Bloomington Jefferson (5-3)</li> <li>Chanhassen (5-3)</li> <li>Waconia (4-3)</li> <li>Orono (3-3)</li> <li>Chaska (3-5)</li> <li>New Prague (2-4)</li> <li>Bloomington Kennedy (2-6)</li> <li>St. Louis Park (2-6)</li> </ol> <p>This conference is wide open in my opinion. Good teams losing to not so great teams and vice versa. </p> <p><strong>BSM- 10-6 (6-2)</strong></p> <p>Benilde is interesting to me. Some games they seem to be together and clicking however, sometimes not. Within the conference they lost to Orono and Cooper both good shooting teams. Orono by 5, Cooper by 4. However, some of their players haven’t lived up to the hype they were expecting preseason. With all conference games down the stretch it will be interesting to see how they play it out. They will play all opponents one more time and New Prague two more. </p> <p><strong>Robbinsdale Cooper- 8-4 (5-2)</strong></p> <p>Cooper hasn’t played as many games as the other Metro West teams so they’ll play one non conference game to wrap up the regular season. Led by senior [player_tooltip player_id="958641" first="Davion" last="Evans"], that team runs through him. Projected as one of the top 5 players in the conference, he will be the guy to beat coming down the stretch. Cooper will play Chanhassen twice while all the other teams once. </p> <p><strong>Bloomington Jefferson- 9-5 (5-3)</strong></p> <p>Jefferson has been a surprise this year for basketball watchers. In 2/3 Metro West losses, it was less than 5. Waconia beating them by 17 though is why the Metro West is so exciting this year. Sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="1151197" first="Daniel" last="Freitag"] has been amazing to watch and he is putting up numbers. Once even putting his team on his back when he scored 64% of their points. Still yet to play SLP, Jefferson still is eyeing that conference title.</p> <p><strong><br /> Chanhassen- 8-6 (5-3)</strong></p> <p>Chanhassen is most definitely the biggest surprise in the Metro West.  Tough non-conference losses to Edina, EP, Buffalo is something to take into consideration when looking at their record. Beating Chaska for the first time in 6 years was something to check off and they know what they can do now. With losses to Jefferson, BSM, and Orono it’s all about how well the offense plays. In those 3 conference losses, they didn’t score more than 54 points and that won’t win games for you. Led by sophomore [player_tooltip player_id="1288716" first="Maxwell" last="Woods"] and junior [player_tooltip player_id="962274" first="Braden" last="Barger"], the Storm run their offense through them. Senior [player_tooltip player_id="1155893" first="Jaxon" last="McDonald"] has been helpful off the bench with an eye for the 3-ball. With winning back-to-back the storm have momentum going into this final stretch. </p> <p><strong>Waconia- 7-8 (4-3)</strong></p> <p>Waconia is a tough team to scout. [player_tooltip player_id="1144097" first="Noah" last="Bonnick"], [player_tooltip player_id="1223098" first="Ty" last="Miller"], and [player_tooltip player_id="1268469" first="Joe" last="Meath"] have been the producers to this wildcats offense. They like the 3-ball but can get crafty with their offense. Their transition defense could use some work but have been playing teams well on that end of the floor. Losing 3-straight and still to play Chaska twice is something they are looking to get better at in this final stretch of conference play. It’ll be interesting to see how they respond and how well those 3 click together. </p> <p><strong>Orono- 10-4 (3-3)</strong></p> <p>Orono is very interesting. One of the top teams in AAA and have put up close games in the Metro West. They can very easily go on a win streak and jump spots with those other top teams. Beat Chanhassen by 20 after shooting the lights out but lost to Chaska by 2. Losing to SLP as well but by 1. However their 13 pt loss to Cooper will hurt. [player_tooltip player_id="958716" first="Sebastian" last="Loder"] and [player_tooltip player_id="1189958" first="Isaiah" last="Hagen"] lead the team averaging 17+ ppg. Needing to play Kennedy twice down the stretch they can pose as a threat to the MW.</p> <p><strong>Chaska- 4-12 (3-5)</strong> </p> <p>Chaska has had a tough year. Starting off the season with very tough opponents, they got off to a slow start. However they have gotten good, must win conference wins. Winning 3 out of the last 4, they seem to be on a little bit of a roll. However, they still play Waconia twice and the tougher part of the conference too. Matthew Kallmann and [player_tooltip player_id="850714" first="Brady" last="Nicholson"] take charge of this Hawks team whose bench is very young. We’ll see if they can keep this stretch running.</p> <p><strong>New Prague, Bloomington Kennedy, SLP</strong></p> <p>These 3 teams are still in their rebuilding year but have gotten some good wins still. New Prague beat Chaska by 1, while SLP has beat Orono and Cooper. Kennedy beating SLP and New Prague still trying to find an identity. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>The top 6 teams in this conference can fluctuate at any game depending on who decides to show up and play their best basketball. All teams will have to coming down this final 10 games!</p>