Minnesota Playoff Central: Malcolm Jones Explodes for 35/10

<p>Upset City has a new major candidate as Prior Lake pulled off a big victory.  That and more... in Minnesota Playoff Central!</p> <p><strong>Playoff Central.</strong>   Big school basketball took over Wednesday night with 31 games in Class AAAA and AAA combined.  How many upsets?  Six upsets out of 31 games.  There were three 5/4 upsets and three 6/3 upsets.  Tonight the focus is shifted back to the small schools as there are Class AA and Class A games all across the state (in addition to 7AAAA quarters being played).  Most games are at single contest venues but there are a few spots with quality double headers.  </p> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>.   The two biggest upsets were Minneapolis Henry knocking off St. Paul Johnson and Prior Lake handing 8th ranked Minnetonka their season ending defeat.  Just last Saturday St. Paul Johnson was battling Minneapolis City champion Minneapolis North wire to wire in the Twin Cities Championship game.  Four days later Henry pulled off the upset 74-70.  The box score at the Hub doesn’t show anything for Henry but the important thing is Henry will play at Columbia Heights this Saturday. </p> <p>The Skippers are very talented by quite small.  Their opponent - the Prior Lake Lakers - have a 6’9 center named [player_tooltip player_id="850712" first="Malcolm" last="Jones"] that is signed with Minnesota State-Mankato and is a top 20 player in the state.  Jones put 35 points on the Skippers around the cup along with ten boards and often times there wasn’t much Tonka could do about it.  Eric Dueffert had 21 supporting Jones. </p> <p><strong>The Big Stage.  </strong> There are eight locations hosting double headers this evening: four in Class AA and four in Class A.  Best location?  It will be hard to beat what is at Lake Crystal-Wellcome-Memorial.  Mountain Lake Area takes on Martin County West and both are 20+ win teams.  The second game is Madelia and their March Madness superstar Ja’Sean Glover facing Mankato Loyola.  It won’t get much better than that tonight.  </p> <p><strong>Top Performers</strong>.  Bloomington Jefferson superstar [player_tooltip player_id="1151197" first="Daniel" last="Freitag"] scored 40 points helping Jefferson get past Burnsville.  Jefferson and Freitag next face [player_tooltip player_id="958715" first="Pharrel" last="Payne"] and Park of Cottage Grove. </p> <p>[player_tooltip player_id="962306" first="Michael" last="Kirchner"] of St. Thomas Academy hit five threes and scored 23 allowing his team to defeat Two Rivers in one of those 5/4 upsets from last evening. </p> <p>Donavon Clinton of St. Paul Como Park kept his great season going last night hitting a huge clutch shot late as Como Park knocked off Simley.  Clinton had 21 points in the win. </p> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. Today we tip our hat to [player_tooltip player_id="850714" first="Brady" last="Nicholson"] who had an excellent for year varsity career at Chaska.  Brady scored 24 points a game for Chaska in the post this season completing a very impressive career.  </p>