Alexandria 74 Bemidji 30: Five Things to Know

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Alexandria earned their 21st win of the season tonight beating Bemidji in a running time effort. Here are the five things to know from the online viewing. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>One. Cardinal Defense</strong>. Whomever has to play Alex at section and maybe state, be prepared that the Cardinal defense looked outstanding. The zone pressure back into the zone, the straight man, the zone pressure back into man (I think I may have seen that) all looked fantastic. Their ability to cover ground and then cover the backs of one another when they double, take chances, etc, it's very high level. I'm not sure I have seen a scarier looking defense to deal with than what Alex did tonight. They have a load of pestering guards, some tough and agile 6'1/6'2 wings, and then [player_tooltip player_id='1572690' first='Chase' last='Thompson'] and [player_tooltip player_id='1284138' first='Grayson' last='Grove'] with size and smarts behind them. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Two. [player_tooltip player_id='1284138' first='Grayson' last='Grove']</strong>. I believe [player_tooltip player_id='1284138' first='Grayson' last='Grove'] has taken an on again, off again approach since returning from his latest injury. Basically Grayson's played a game and then sat a game. My guess is that will change come playoff time if possible but I cannot pretend to know his injury. What I do know is that Grayson made a huge impact in beating St. Cloud Tech and tonight he was very solid in his 16 minutes of play. Grove does an outstanding job of getting post position and when the Cards got the ball to him on the block tonight it was four field goals, two trips to the foul line for points, and three assists to cutters out of the post. That is 17 points right there off post touches to Grove who played half of the game. This is all obviously important because what Grove can do off of injury is of great concern to those that will have to deal with this team in section and state. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Three. [player_tooltip player_id='1572690' first='Chase' last='Thompson']</strong>. With Grove being out or taking breaks I have seen [player_tooltip player_id='1572690' first='Chase' last='Thompson'] do a lot more in the paint and he is doing it very well. We all know Chase is a fearless stretch four and that is going to be a huge part of his game in the future. Tonight though, he did a ton of work around the paint. Chase grabbed 14 rebounds and I would say roughly half of them were offensive boards. He also passed the ball very well for a team high in assists and scored six times for his dozen points. Thompson's frame looks much stronger than it did last summer as he has quickly turned into a more matured prospect. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Four. Cardinal Balance</strong>. This team can hit you from so many different directions. Sophomore [player_tooltip player_id='2118449' first='Mason' last='Witt'] is a great shooter and the right person to run this offense. But Alex gets so many turnovers and pushes off of long boards that several players have a chance to push the ball and they have many that can. I really like the physical attack to the cup of [player_tooltip player_id='1450112' first='Dawson' last='Roderick'] and the versatile guard play of [player_tooltip player_id='2025473' first='Bralyn' last='Steffensmeier'] plus there seems to be zero let up from the Alex bench. Every Cardinal reserve defender seems to step right into the defensive format and there is no let up. Thompson and Witt each had a doze points, Grove and Steffensmeier had 11 and Roderick had nine. Great balance. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p><strong>Five. Bemidji</strong>. They found no rhythm the entire game. This is not some pushover, the Lumberjacks have won 11 games. That said Alex did a great job keeping their one pass hand in front of [player_tooltip player_id='1560797' first='Jaxon' last='Boschee'] with his defender limiting their help. He had one field goal for the game and the other scoring option [player_tooltip player_id='1434060' first='Braden' last='Luksik'] only had two. Opportunities for good lucks were few and far between so the team shot just 9 of 42 for the game. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->