Preseason Team Rankings: 5 Earned It, 5 to Prove It

Ryan James October 2, 2019 @ 04:17 PM

Very soon the Breakdown books will be in hands of Minnesota basketball fans and the preseason rankings will be known. Who earned the benefit of the doubt and who has things to prove?   5 Groups That Earned It Maple Grove. The Crimson have been to state the past four straight seasons and at it this point they will be picked to make a trip to the state tournament every year until somebody beats them. The Crimson also have enough talent (and the rest of the section has a lot of questions) returning including Sean Bergstrom, Lovell Williams, RaShaun Parker, Terence Larmouth, DJ Miller, and Caden Boettcher Minnehaha Academy. I'm not spending much time here, it's simply obvious. Minnehaha Academy has more talent than anybody in the state and they have won three straight state titles, so obviously they will be picked to win state titles until they don't. Austin. The Packers have been to state three times in a row, and six times in the last eight years. To make them an even bigger favorite, everybody in their section is a long ways from knocking them off. In fact the only team in their section that had a winning record last year was Winona, and Winona lost a lot. Henning. The Class A state champions not only bring back three starters, the way they play team basketball assures the Hornets to be preseason number one. Henning defeated all their opponents at the summer state tournament in July as well. Waseca. The Jays will be the preseason number one in Class AA. They return six of their top eight players from a year ago plus moved a class down after playing in last year's Class AAA state title game. The Jays have something to prove as Caledonia beat them this summer, and Malik Willingham is at Minnesota State Mankato, but the talent is there.   5 Groups That Must Prove Something Lakeville North. Usually North would be in the other category but there are so many unknowns as only two players (Josh Kamara, Carter Patterson) return from last year's varsity rotation. Don't overlook the Panthers, they will be good. That said, there is little know about the guys coming up as they haven't played much varsity. East Ridge. The Raptors have the talent to make a deep state tournament run but the lone player with a lot of experience is Wisconsin committed Ben Carlson. Six-foot-4 forward Brody Kriesel played in most games while Drew Adams and Kendall Blue were the 9th and 10th men. However, the Raptors didn't always go that deep. Before a section title prediction can be made the Raptors new varsity line-up has to beat some top teams first. Hopkins. Hopkins? They have to prove something? Well, yeah. I know they won the title last year but Kerwin Walton is the lone returning starter (Zeke Nnaji at Arizona, Andy Stafford is at SMSU, Jalen Dearring at prep school, Dane Zimmer is at MSMU). The Royals always get their transfers though (Sawyere Shrake from Chicago, Cornell Richardson from Osseo) plus they always have young talent (Andre Gray, Elvis Nnaji, Jalen Treml). The Royals will be good but too many new guys to make them preseason number one, two, or three. Rochester Mayo. The Spartans were 13-5 at one point last year with only one senior offering heavy contributions. Things were looking good until they lost four games in a five day span followed by a one score win over a terrible Red Wing team and then two more losses. There is stuff to prove but the talent is there to win section 1AAAA. DeLaSalle. The Islanders will be the second ranked team in Class AAA but why aren't they the preseason number one in a class they have won seven of their last eight seasons? 1) Minnehaha Academy. 2) The Islanders scored 78 points a game last year and 59 of those points a game graduated. The talent is solid but as a unit Cade Haskins, Keijuan White, Jalen Travis, Amir Whitlock, and company still have some growing to do.