Minnesota Playoff Central: Incredible Thursday

So many big time players stepped up and made big time plays for their teams last night. We had 15 games last night, 16 tonight! Playoff Central. What a Thursday! [player_tooltip player_id="850701" first="Tre" last="Holloman"] continues to live in the East Ridge nightmares. [player_tooltip player_id="754315" first="Eli" last="King"] goes wild late again! [player_tooltip player_id="962218" first="Nasir" last="Whitlock"] vs [player_tooltip player_id="958636" first="Alonzo" last="Dodd"] makes us think Lamar Grayson vs [player_tooltip player_id="958636" first="Alonzo" last="Dodd"] last season. Devin Yeager game winner! Mekhi Elmore with the clutch foul shot. It was March Madness! Totino-Grace wins a slugfest meaning of the top seven in Class AAA only the Eagles, DeLaSalle, and maybe Princeton will make the Class AAA State Tournament. Tickets Punched. AAAA (Eastview, Cretin-Derham Hall, Park Center, Wayzata, Andover, Moorhead), AAA (Mankato East, DeLaSalle, Totino-Grace, Mound-Westonka, St. Cloud Tech), AA (Caledonia, Morris Area, Pequot Lakes), and A (Hayfield and RTR). Upset City. I really have a hard time calling upsets on these as these were good teams beating good teams and in a lot of cases ranked teams beating ranked teams. That said.... Cretin-Derham Hall over East Ridge meaning the two seed (a 19 win team) beat the one seed. The Raiders have now knocked the Raptors out in this game four of the last five seasons. [player_tooltip player_id="850701" first="Tre" last="Holloman"] did it once again. When we put CDH as the second ranked team in Class AAAA this year it was with the expectation that CDH would be led by Tre with a whole new team around him. There were some rough early losses but the Raiders are back at state and it was the 12 foot jumper from Holloman with one second left that has put them there. DeLaSalle over South St. Paul. It was the two seed over the one seed in a top five match-up of Class AAA teams. [player_tooltip player_id="962218" first="Nasir" last="Whitlock"] has been simply incredible since the Islanders had a mid-season problem and he stepped into an even bigger role. He was incredible last night scoring 32 points and making a big time game winner. Mound-Westonka knocked off Orono by a point. [player_tooltip player_id="1144113" first="Jake" last="Dallman"] continues to grow physically and as a player who has stepped into the point guard role and done an excellent job. Whitehawk big Max Swanson scored 18 and [player_tooltip player_id="796950" first="Jason" last="Spaeth"] had 24. Spaeth is now 26 points from becoming the school’s all time leading scorer. Totino-Grace was the two seed going into Columbia Heights but the Eagles came out with a 48-44 win. [player_tooltip player_id="958638" first="Demarion" last="Watson"] did a great job defending [player_tooltip player_id="850729" first="Muja" last="Burton"] plus he scored 16 points and [player_tooltip player_id="962198" first="Taison" last="Chatman"] came up big scoring a game high 17. The Eagles now head into the state tournament as the likely one seed for Class AAA. The Big Stage. There are a couple spots tonight hosting a pair of games if fans want to see a pair of games. Those sites are Anoka-Ramsey Community College, the Mayo Civic Center, and the Taylor Center at Minnesota State-Mankato. The Civic Center has Owatonna vs Farmington and Winona vs Austin Anoka-Ramsey Community College has Legacy Christian vs New Life Academy and Concordia Academy vs Minnehaha Academy. The Taylor Center hosts Maple River vs Glencoe-Silver Lake and Mountain Lake Area vs SESM. Top Performers. We’ve stepped into top performers some already so we are going to use these next two spots for a mini Race for Mr. Basketball update. [player_tooltip player_id="850701" first="Tre" last="Holloman"]’s game high 18 points and his game winner taking him back to state puts him right back in that Final Five spot and if the Raiders make another run... could push himself right back into the leaders conversation with... [player_tooltip player_id="850710" first="Braeden" last="Carrington"] and [player_tooltip player_id="754315" first="Eli" last="King"]. Carrington led his Park Center team over Osseo in a surprising blowout win. It wasn’t a surprise that PC won of course, it was the way they dominated led by Carrington. [player_tooltip player_id="754315" first="Eli" last="King"] had another incredible late game performance. PEM was up eight points with about 90 seconds to go and then Eli scored seven points in the final 11 seconds to send the game into overtime. He scored 30 points for the game and at one point was fighting cramps. [player_tooltip player_id="850706" first="Jackson" last="Loge"] had 27 points and 10 rebounds leading Morris Area back to the state tournament for the second straight season. [player_tooltip player_id="958638" first="Demarion" last="Watson"] had a big time defensive performance against Columbia Heights limiting [player_tooltip player_id="850729" first="Muja" last="Burton"] to eight points. Tip Of the Hat to the Career. [player_tooltip player_id="958636" first="Alonzo" last="Dodd"] had 34 points on 13 of 21 shooting including two threes, he grabbed nine boards, dished out three assists, and hit 6 of 7 foul shots. And had only one turnover. Dodd surely should have his jersey retired at South St. Paul and if this was a pro team Dodd would have a statue made for what he has done at that program. [player_tooltip player_id="958715" first="Pharrel" last="Payne"]’s Park team was overwhelmed in the backcourt losing to Eastview in a blowout. Payne scored 17 points and had nine rebounds playing his final game in front of Ben Johnson. Payne continues to improve and we have to start wondering if this four star talent is the top prospect in the 2022 class. It’s become quite an interesting argument with Holloman, King, Watson, and Carrington all looking like top 150 prospects nationally.