08-09 Season Previews are half done

The Conference Previews portion of the season previews has completed. A couple of items I should note. Once and for all, Thomas Cunningham is with Minneapolis North. I'm done changing that, seriously. That leads me into the standard disclaimer that goes with all of the previews. They are based solely on what I saw last year and what I followed. Since I'm not an insider, transfers and such are prone to be missed (especially since I didn't have the Breakdown to cheat with). I see many teams and players, but I can't see everyone so mistakes are bound to be made.

I'm taking a break from the previews for the weekend and I'll pick back up with my previews of the 11 metro area sections starting next week. Nothing like the Crown Prince making a cameo appearance in the Kingdom for the Packers-Vikings game to get in the way of seeing games this weekend. Before that, I'll be doing a ranking of my own over on the MN Preps Premium Message Board. I think you'll enjoy that. I'll put the link to that up when I finish it.

For humor value, here's a review on how I did on last year's conference predictions.

• Minnetonka - 1/2 point (co-champs with Hopkins)
• St. Thomas - finished 2nd to Sibley who was my other team to watch in the league
  
• Eden Prairie - correct
• Minneapolis Henry - correct (I give myself the full point because they beat Washburn twice head-head). Washburn was my other team to watch.
• Maranatha - correct. Trinity was the worst pick I made all season. I did manage to recover with SW Christian as a pick.
  
• Holy Angels - finished 4th so I totally botched that pick, 2 games back of the 3 way tie for 1st. I did get Shakopee and Prior Lake right as teams to watch.
• BSM - correct. I got the top of this league right by also mentioning Cooper and Spring Lake Park. Totino-Grace was not the surprise I thought they'd be.
• Osseo - correct. Totally overlooked Champlin Park. Underestimated Blaine and over ranked Elk River.
• Mounds View - 3rd, 2 games back of the 2 way tie for 1st. I did get CDH and Stillwater in the teams to watch. Park didn't surprise.
• Johnson - 1/2 point (tied with Johnson). Got this largely correct.
• Concordia - 2nd place. Should have picked St. Bernard's
• De La Salle - correct - got this division correct all the way around.

So I got 6 outright champions correct with 2 ties for 1st. The teams I got wrong were 2 games out. It should be very interesting to see how predicting each league top to bottom turns out. As we get into sections, we won't even begin to get into how bad I messed up section 4A.