Minnesota Playoff Central: Mueller Tops 1,000, beats Hiawatha

<p>Class AA and Class A basketball took over the playoff scene last night and there were a ton of headlines including Madelia upsetting another opponent.  Here is Minnesota Playoff Central. </p> <p><strong>Playoff Central.</strong>    First of all, tonight is a light night of games with two 6AAAA contests and six contests from Class AAA.  Everybody else is preparing for a monster Saturday while letting the girls section championship games take center stage.  Last night there was a mountain of small school playoff games: 44 Class AA games and the low seed won only five of those games, 46 Class A games with the low seed winning nine.  </p> <p><strong>Upset City</strong>.   Madelia has done it again!  Last night Madelia evened their season record at 14-14 with a 73-57 controlling win over Mankato Loyola, the two seed.  Madelia is the Cinderella story of this year so far.  Last night<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-poiln3 r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0"> Ja’Sean Glover scored 28 points with 14 boards, 11 assists, four steals, and three blocks. [player_tooltip player_id="958664" first="Hayden" last="Jones"] supported the Glover triple double with eight threes for 24 points. Madelia is headed to the sub-section title game to play Mountain Lake who upset Martin County West.  Madelia and Mountain Lake play this Tuesday for state. </span></p> <p><strong>The Big Stage.  </strong> The big stage is Minneapolis South vs Hopkins.  7pm tonight at Hopkins.  Huge semi-final game between a pair of teams that are currently in our Power 25 as two of the top 25 teams in the state regardless of class.  The guard match-up of Jerome Williams vs Max Wilson, and the big man battle of [player_tooltip player_id="1284106" first="Chiang" last="Ring"] vs [player_tooltip player_id="850704" first="Elvis" last="Nnaji"], this should be a great game.  South will be quicker, Hopkins will be bigger.  Hopkins with more veterans, South has been playing better basketball down the stretch while Hopkins has struggled. </p> <p><strong>Top Performers</strong>.  Last night I watched Watertown-Mayer’s [player_tooltip player_id="1188850" first="John" last="Mueller"] scored 34 points on 14 of 24 shooting with nine rebounds and five assists.  Mueller scoring at the cup didn’t surprise me, it was the comfort and improvement of his perimeter touch that caught my eye.  John made four threes, he scored from 15 feet a few times, and his pull-up jumper was really good.  Loved his post attack and the transition dunks, but he also scored on the move around the basket.  Really enjoyed seeing the improvements to his game plus he scored his 1,000th point in this contest. [player_tooltip player_id="1339998" first="Wyatt" last="McCabe"] of Watertown-Mayer is a fantastic passer.  Like Mueller, McCabe is a junior and I love the way he makes others on the team comfortable when they shoot the basketball.  Jessye Davis Jr is a strong lead guard for Hiawatha Collegiate but last night McCabe was the talent that did best job in creation.  McCabe had 11 assists and scored 12 points on a seven shots. </p> <p><strong>Tip of the Hat to the Career</strong>. Today we look to Minneapolis Edison’s [player_tooltip player_id="1288752" first="Liban" last="Tushar"].  The senior guard was a big part of the Minneapolis Edison program going from "guaranteed win" in the opponents minds to a team that you have to battle with every step of the way.  Edison has had a program resurgence and Tushar’s 20 points a game was a key part of that. </p>