Ten Best: Cretin-Derham Hall vs Iowa City West
Cretin Derham-Hall picked up an impressive 85-72 win over Iowa City West on Saturday led by the 29 points and 14 rebounds of Daniel Oturu. The #1 ranked ICW squad did not have the size up front to stay close.…
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Continue ReadingCretin Derham-Hall picked up an impressive 85-72 win over Iowa City West on Saturday led by the 29 points and 14 rebounds of Daniel Oturu. The #1 ranked ICW squad did not have the size up front to stay close.
MVP. Daniel Oturo. The game looked closer than the score indicated. The Raiders were up 20 plus in the second half led by Oturu’s 29 points on 13 of 25 shooting. Daniel changed the game late in the first half when he had an open floor dunk and two drop step low post finishes in a four possessions span. He also hit another baseline jumper but mostly it was lay-ups and dunks as ICW did not have an answer for his agile size and length. The Raider junior recently committed to Minnesota.
Offensive MVP. Connor McCaffrey. It’s easy to tell that Connor is a coach’s kid (Iowa head coach Fran McCaffrey is his father and Connor will play for his father next year). Connor’s read of the defense for a back-cut, his ability to move off screens to space, and the way he used a dribble to shift a defense for his own offense or a quick pass for a teammate attempt. Connor is also a tough kid with good muscle to him. Physically competes every possession. Made 7 of 15 shots including two threes for his 22 points and six boards.
Defensive MVP. Sy Chatman. This was the best I’ve seen Sy play. This may not have been his biggest number game but the junior did a lot of hard working things like help over and block followed by a floor run to score. He blocked a few shots, contested others, bothered ICW forwards to the point of little production plus grabbed ten boards and most of them were defensive rebounds. Had a nice game of 9 and 10 and everybody enjoyed his quick bounce to board, block, contest, and finish.
Best Underclassmen. Patrick McCaffrey. At 6-foot-7 the brother of Connor (also a son of Fran McCaffrey) screams potential. He’s long, has pretty form to his jumper with range, and he totaled a dozen points in a losing effort. The memorable play was a feet set catch and finish off a pass from his brother. McCaffrey is a sophomore.
Top Under the Radar Performance. Jake Prince. We may name this category for Jake. Prince is always on the move working off the ball on the one end and battling to defend and board on the other. He’s a fantastic support player for a good team because he works hard and produces some good point production but doesn’t need a lot of shots to do it.
Top Under the Radar Performance 2. Hakeem Udunsi. The 6-foot-6 junior was on the floor for much of the second half because of his effort. Knocked a couple threes down, had a team high eight rebounds, and played quite actively.
Speedracer’s Favorite Player. Ryan Larson. Ryan is definitely one of the state’s fastest players and he’s more athletic than you know. ICW didn’t have a guy that could stop his pace push either on turnovers or long boards. Ryan had 18 points, eight assists, and five assists against a couple turnovers. Shot 7 of 11 from the floor and controlled the pace of the contest.
Best vs the CDH JV. Izaya Ono-Fullard. The ICW senior has a pretty shooting touch that is deadly if he catches with feet set in space. Knocked out four jumpers (two treys) and late in the game when the CDH JV was on the floor he made a couple of those shots to get back on track for games next week.
Best Story Going Forward. 4AAAA? What do you make of 4AAAA right now? Who is the favorite? Who deserves the one? Is there really a difference between the one, two, three, four, and five teams? Because of the way the QRF is it seems like North St. Paul will have the five so good luck to the team that falls to that draw. Also, Tartan won’t get ahead of the SEC teams because of the QRF (the Metro East league has a lot of AAA teams so that brings the QRF total down considerably) so I would guess they will be the three or four. Before today East Ridge was actually on top at the one. CDH just beat the best team in Iowa today while Woodbury really struggled with Hopkins. If CDH plays like this I would have to say they along with Tartan are the favorites.
Other. Jaeden King. King just kills teams because they work hard to stop CDH and then the ball is moved and there is the sophomore Jaeden King ready to unleash a deep three or attack space to score. He had four buckets including a three and a long runner.