2013 1st Open Weekend Preview

Its the 1st open April weekend of the 2013 recruiting season.  Teams off to the 4 winds, here's what catches my eye.

Sanford Pentagon Tournament Series Session 1 (Ames, IA)
14 teams from the midwest have banded together to form their own league.  The league has 14 teams from Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota.  Minnesota's reps include the top teams from the Comets, Select, Heat, and Fury.  Pulley's 2nd team, Suns and EOTO's top team round out the Minnesota group.  Dakota Schoolers, ECI Prospects, the top Omaha Crusaders team and All Iowa Attack round out the league. 

Session 1 of 3 is hosted by All Iowa Attack in Ames.  The Comets have a difficult weekend ahead with games against ECI, OSA and the Schoolers on Saturday.  They close out with the Heat and Fury top teams.  All of those teams looking for top half finishes in the league.  A sweep of the weekend would be huge for the Chris Lewis crew.  The league does the same thing for the 15s and 16s. 

Pump N Run Spring Classic (Bloomington Jefferson and Kennedy)
Thanks to a new Adidas deal, the top D1 Minnesota crew will be in Dallas at the Adidas VIP Exclusive run with all the other Adidas clubs.  The 15s and 16s for D1 Minnesota will play up again this week.  Looking forward to see who comes out to see Henry Ellenson for the D1 MN 16s.  Pool A has a noteworthy game between the SW MN Stars and WOTN on Saturday morning at 9:40.  The Stars have been very high on their group for a while.  After again making the stupid decision to stay out of the Comets tournament, the Stars will open this weekend.  Minnesota Warriors should make a run out of pool D.  Grassroots, Fury Anderson (2nd team who beat the top Fury team last week), the top WI Starz team and KC Premiere Preps make up a deep Pool E.  MN Phenom highlights pool F.  EOTO is some how listed in both this tournament and in Ames.  Look for another group of seniors to come out.  KC Premiere should be a favorite out of pool G.  MN Basketball Academy will also play up again this week in Pool H.

Its a simple setup with 3 pool games.  Winner plays 8 team championship bracket, 2nd place same thing in the silver.  Others get 1 friendship game Saturday night.  My picks in the title bracket are as follows.

Quarters
MN Basketball Academy over SW MN Stars
Grassroots over MN Warriors
D1 MN 16s over KC Premiere
Phenom over Pumas (MO)

Semis
Grassroots over MN BB Academy
D1 MN 16s over Phenom

Championship
Grassroots over D1 MN 16s

In the 16s there are 36 teams split in to 12 pools of 3 teams.  Pool L has a highlight matchup of Heat Bui vs Phenom West at Kennedy 6 PM on Friday.  Pool G looks deep with WI Starz, SW MN Stars and Hoopmasters.  Hoopmasters guard Jack Mugford with 38 vs Get Shook last week and they have big Justin Dahl inside.  Speaking of bigs, sounds like Sean Hjelle will be back for TC Runnin Rebels, they are in Pool H.  There are a bunch of WI Blizzard 16s in the bracket but the top team is across town at NY2LA.   Sleeper team is the 2nd MN BB Academy 16s of Larry Witthus in pool A.  Minnesota Fury Altenhofen is in pool H of the 15s coming off their Comets Shootout title. 

NY2LA Spring Extravaganza (Hopkins and Minnetonka)
Not too big of a local group there.  In the 17s, TVA, Net Gain, Comets Schmidt represent.  In the 16s, GetShook and the 2nd Comets group.  Comets 2nd team and Net Gain represent in the 15s.  Tons of other talent there though.  IBA Select (Sean O'Mara), Iowa Barnstormers, KC Run GMC, Madison Spartans, Ray Allen Select, Quad City Elite (UW commit Ethan Happ and Jalen Jones), TP Elite, Texas Select, WI Swing, Milwaukee Runnin Rebels (top 10 star Kevon Looney).  In the 16s, Young Legends look to have soph star big Diamond Stone.  The loaded WI Blizzard-Pronchinske squad with Cody Schwartz et al is also in this group.