Northfield at Eagan thoughts

Jameson Parsons

Prologue
6-0 Eagan hosting Northfield in a boys/girls doubleheader.  Eagan girls win handly in a game that I was glad to see end.  Not fun.  But Northfield with an interesting mix of the 5 out Forest Lake style motion and the shuffle offense.  Instead of having the point down screen the post as in the shuffle, the point makes the triangle offense cut to the strong corner and the post steps up and sets the screen that the point normally sets in the 5-out and then pops out.  Interesting continuity.

Game Time
Eagan out quickly.  Matt Hentges with a putback and a bank for a 6-0 lead 1:50 in and Northfield calls a quick timeout.  Bad to worse for the Raiders.  Jameson Parsons double clutches for 2 and then nails a 3.  Adam Carl for 3 and the lead is 18-6 at the 12:40 mark.  Northfield tries to stay close but they get no closer than 6.  Parsons goes for 16 in the half on 6-9 shooting.  41-30 Eagan at half.

Tanner Kimber with a pair of free throws to cut the Eagan lead to 46-40 with 13:43 left.  Timeout Eagan.  Out of that, they run a set for Parsons who nails a three, then 2 more to push the Eagan lead to 59-45 with 10 minutes left.  A Parsons free throw with 5:12 left extends the lead to 67-49 and this one is over.  Eagan gets sloppy late with their bench.  74-65 Eagan wins.

For Northfield, guard Adam Hadro again leads the way as he finishes with 23 points (3 triples).  Center Otto Pfefferle with a nice first half of 8 pts, 4 board and 2 blocks but nothing in the second half.  He finishes with 11, 7 and 3 blocks.  The Raiders fall to 0-5 and open the Edina tournament with Eden Prairie to start a difficult schedule stretch.

For Eagan, Jameson Parsons with 30 points on 9-14 shooting with 5 triples.  3 of those in a row in the 2nd half to break it open.  The Wildcats played 11 kids with the only 3 seniors on the roster included.  Look for this club to be very dangerous in the Lake next year (if not this year where they currently lead the league).  Point guard Ben Sicoli in foul trouble all night but he's a productive player along with Matt Hentges.  Both are juniors as is Parsons.

White Board
A couple of plays to draw up that I saw tonight that were really effective.  1 from each side.  First for Eagan, in a 1-4 high set, the ball was entered to the high post opposite Parsons.  He'd then dive to the low block weakside and get a down screen from the other high post.  This generated great looks all night.  Really tough to defend as you could run Parsons all the way to the box for a post up which would be really hard to defend.  The defense gets forced low and its tough to get over that down screen.

For Northfield, a triangle set with Pfefferle in the middle of the lane, both blocks filled and a guard at the top of the key.  You can throw it up to Pfefferle at 6'7 in the middle of the lane.  If not, he has a 2 way go to either baseline depending on how he's played.  The inbounder then comes high and on ball reversal away from Pfefferle, he gets a baseline flex screen for a post up.  They never got the post, mainly because he got 2-3 makes and great looks on the baseline jumper (and he can shoot it).  Normally you'll see this type of set run for a guard.  I remember Braham running something like it for Isaiah Dahlman.

Jameson Parsons photo courtesy of MNPhotoNet.net