Minnetonka vs Sibley Thoughts (AAAA Final)

Total 4 day tournament attendance 69,637 and 11,663 on Day 1 at Mariucci Arena. 6,953 for the A and AA finals. 10,272 for the AAA and AAAA finals. By contrast, the total attendance for the 3 day Wisconsin tournament was 94,100. Noah Kaiser guarding Anthony Tucker. Sibley starts out on a 12-0 run thanks to an offensive rebound dunk by Mike Bruesewitz and then he finishes the run at 12:36 with a monster 1 hand dunk driving from the left wing and 1. CJ Erickson finally gets Tonka on the board at 10:26 with a layup to make it 12-2. I could never imagine that Tonka team going scoreless for 7:34. Bruesewitz all over the glass in this game. Maurice Hernandez hits a sick stepback 3 on UT Udo @8:07 and its 22-4 Sibley. Tucker counters with an NBA 3 to make it 22-7. Hernandez makes a great hustle play which leads to an offensive rebound + 1 for Kavon Martin and holy mackeral its 33-11 Sibley with 3:16 left in the half. Peter Leslie is on the bench with foul trouble and Tonka goes on a 9-0 run capped by a buzzer beating 3 by Andy Burns and after all that its only 33-20 Sibley at the half. 6-24 shooting for the Skippers with 12 turnovers. Anthony Tucker with 7 points. Kavon Martin with 7 points in a very productive half.

Tonka carries the momentum of that 9-0 run to the 2nd half with the 1st couple of buckets of the 2nd half. But Hernandez and Bruesewitz counter and its 37-24 with 16:17 to go. Chris Halvorsen picks up his 4th foul with 16:02 to go. Now Anthony Tucker goes nuts. He gets 2 straight buckets and then a sick dribble move to get a 3 and 2 more with 12 minutes to go and its 41-36 Sibley. Marcus Garcia makes 1 of 2 to make it 42-36 with 11:41 left. Andrew Latzke gets a tough hoop, then a steal leads to a breakaway dunk for CJ Erickson and Tucker steals the inbounds and knocks down a cold-blooded 3 and out of nowhere its 7-0 in 20 seconds and Tonka leads 43-42. Sedrick McBounds gets a steal for 2 and Andy Burns knocks down a 3 after Bruesewitz misses 2 FTs and its 48-42 Tonka with 9:31 to play. All totaled its a 37-9 Tonka run over 12:45. Sibley gets the next 2 buckets from Martin and Leslie to cut it to 48-46. Tonka gets 10 of the next 13 to make it 60-49 with 4:10 left (17-24 FGs for Tonka in the half so far). Amazing how explosive they are offensively.

But Sibley doesn't go away. They get the next 6 points but hurt themselves with missed FTs (missing 6 in a row at 1 point in the 2nd half). They're within 5 after a Peter Leslie bucket, but then he goes down with some head or eye injury with 2:13 left and doesn't return. That's unfortunate as Chris Halvorsen pulls Sibley to 62-59 with 1:40 left and you don't have Sibley's floor leader out there. Especially when he led them in scoring with 17 points. But Tucker hits 6 of 6 from the line late and Tonka wins 68-59.

Anthony Tucker with 20 in the 2nd half to finish with 27. Kevin Lynch made the comparison to Dell Curry during the game. Could he be a Stephen Curry for Iowa in the future? Mike Bruesewitz played well on the big stage, gotta like how he can handle it and shoot it. The more I watch the more I like him and on the must see list for next season. He finished with 9 points, 14 rebounds and 5 blocks.