The Race for Mr. Basketball

<p>The Race for Mr. Basketball in South Dakota is entering the home stretch. We have a third party in the race!</p> <p><strong>The Favorite. [player_tooltip player_id="732175" first="Matthew" last="Mors"]</strong>. This week Mors was nominated as a McDonald’s All American nominee, the lone nominee from South Dakota (some states have one nominee, some have five, some have a random group of 40, some states have players nominated that don’t even play, it’s an odd deal).   South Dakota is one state that seems to take this nomination seriously and they nominated the Mr. Basketball favorite, Matt Mors. Mors has one focus, a state title. And this weekend his Bucks have a big game with Mitchell in preparation for the playoffs. Mors is coming off a 36 point, 10 rebound game against Watertown.</p> <p><strong>Top Contender. [player_tooltip player_id="732179" first="Paul" last="Bruns"]</strong>.   Dakota Valley wants a state title and that goal is still in front of Paul and the rest of the Panthers. The Panthers have had a couple setbacks recently but Bruns is still having an outstanding season with everything yet in front of him. Paul is averaging 28.6 points, 11. 2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and three steals a game shooting an impressive 51 percent from the floor and 40 percent at the arc. Last night Paul had 21 points and 20 boards in a win over Sioux City East (IA).</p> <p><strong>Top Contender 2. [player_tooltip player_id="975516" first="Jakob" last="Dobney"]</strong>. The performance of the year? Considering the big game circumstances I would say that Dobney’s 32 points on 11 of 18 shooting including five threes and six assists versus Bruns and Dakota Valley (Bruns had 18 and 15) is certainly nominee number one. Dobney followed that with 29 points against Madison and 22 in a win over Flandreau. Dobney is going head to head with Bruns for Class A Player of the Year. Considering that Vermillion is number one in state, undefeated, and Jakob outplayed Bruns in their head to head game, I’d say Dobney is the current leader. However, there is a long ways to go.</p> <p><strong>Final Five</strong>.</p> <p><strong>Mors, Bruns, Dobney, [player_tooltip player_id="975500" first="Brady" last="Fritz"], [player_tooltip player_id="757827" first="Connor" last="Libis"]</strong>.   Fritz committed to, surprise surprise, DWU! Brady pushed the Warriors to 17-2 recently with an overtime win over Platte-Geddes. Fritz scored 27 led by his five threes. Brady has been especially hot lately and he’s shooting 41 percent from the arc this year.</p> <p>Speaking of hot, [player_tooltip player_id="757827" first="Connor" last="Libis"] and St Mary are back in the top five ranked fourth in the state with a few recent big victories. Libis did the job of rebounding (7) and assists (6) helping [player_tooltip player_id="975607" first="Ashaun" last="Roach-Valandra"] score 39 and then Connor followed that up with 27 points in a three score loss to Canistota. Libis was also nominated for the Prep Redzone 9-Man Player of the Year in football.</p> <p><strong>Next Up.</strong> The next group of seniors looking to step into that top group of five contenders includes [player_tooltip player_id="975518" first="Sam" last="Aslesen"] of Howard, [player_tooltip player_id="975543" first="Zane" last="Alm"] of Mitchell, [player_tooltip player_id="975509" first="Kelton" last="Vincent"] of Sioux Valley, [player_tooltip player_id="734065" first="Eli" last="Williams"] of Sioux Falls Washington, [player_tooltip player_id="975508" first="Tyce" last="Ortman"] of Canistota, and [player_tooltip player_id="975502" first="Gradee" last="Sherman"] of Viborg-Hurley.</p>