The Race for Mr. Basketball: The Watch List

<p>The Mr. Basketball Watch List was named recently for the 2022 class of Basketball players.  The honored seniors in the state of Minnesota.  </p> <p>Now, everybody feels there are going to be snubs, and we will throw out a few but there weren’t many.  In fact I would say all the deserving names in the state of Minnesota in terms of top Minnesota seniors players, are on this list.  There are likely a few extras as well but that’s okay, always nice to have the ten person Mr. Basketball panel have a few too many as opposed to a few too few (when it comes to a watch list).</p> <p>I’m not going to list all the names, there are 57 of them.  You can look at the tweet at the bottom of the page though to find the list.  The first thing I want to do is point out some players that are having a great senior year that you may not have heard about as they don’t go to schools that are big names or schools that have been recent traditional winners. </p> <p>Ja’Sean Glover of Madelia.  Glover is the player that earlier this season had the quadruple double.  His team had to pull out of a couple big games this year taking away the chance for Glover to play in front of a lot of people.  But as I said last year and this summer when Glover was with the Southwest Minnesota Stars, Glover is a scholarship level talent with a lot of ability. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958693" first="Carmello" last="McNeal"] of Twin Cities Academy.  Carmello - who is the age of a junior in high school - is scoring 25 points a game for his 7-3 team.  McNeal had an excellent summer for Gain Elite and is having a standout senior season this far.  He’s a combo guard that has the ability to ball pressure with the best of them. </p> <p>Rob Issa of Holy Angels.   Rob has been a great story.  He was a solid reserve last year scoring three times a game.  Started the year slow with a couple single digit scoring games and then had five straight games in the teens as he started to get going.  He gained confidence with a career high 21 against DeLaSalle and then exploded with games of 31, 31, and 35 in January.  </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="1184630" first="Donavan" last="Clinton"] of St. Paul Como Park.  If you follow Max Wagner at Fresh Coast Hoops you have seen Clinton as he’s been featured 2-3 times this winter.  Clinton has scored 22 points a game and helped Como Park to a 6-4 record which is much better than I think most expected them to be. </p> <p>Ishmael David of St. Paul Johnson.  David has scored in the teens in every game this season averaging 17 points a game for the 4-3 Governors out of St. Paul.   David is a slashing wing. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="1288752" first="Liban" last="Tushar"] of Minneapolis Edison.  Liban and [player_tooltip player_id="1142942" first="Micah" last="Young"] (who I need to say sorry to, I’ve written that Micah is a senior this year about ten times since the fall) have led Edison into the Class AA top ten rankings this season with an outstanding year.  Tushar is scoring 27 points a game and has had some explosive shooting games. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958799" first="Thomas" last="Menk"] of Lewiston-Altura.  Menk might just be the best senior that metro fans haven’t heard of, been should have.  Menk was that dark haired shooter/scorer for the Lightning that helped them win so many games last year.  He’s the main reason Lewiston-Altura has been ranked all year and he is coming off a 24 point game against number one Caledonia and he recently had 32 against Waseca. </p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Snubs?</strong></p> <p>The biggest one to me is [player_tooltip player_id="960333" first="Sam" last="Zilmer"] of Rockford. Sam has had an excellent senior season and will likely be a strongly recognized All State Class AA player this year over other names on this list.  Zilmer is averaging a double-double this season on a balanced Rockford team that has been ranked. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="850732" first="Erik" last="Hedstrom"] of Alexandria is pry next on my list as he’s a top scorer for one of the best teams in Class AAA basketball. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958639" first="Johnny" last="Tennyson"] is of STMA is another one.  He’s scoring 20 a game although his team has struggled this year so that is likely a part of it. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958671" first="Theo" last="Liu"] of Blake is the second leading scorer of the Bears who have been in the top ten most of the season. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958661" first="Drew" last="Berkland"] has been a key part of Wayzat’a success for three years.</p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="1268453" first="Puolrah" last="Gong"] of Mankato East is a developing player that has really come along.</p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="958684" first="Blake" last="Rohrer"] of Woodbury is scoring 21 points a game and his Royals squad has been better than expected. </p> <p>[embed]https://twitter.com/MrBB_MN/status/1483212813879287811[/embed]</p>