2018 Mr Basketball Final 5 Commentary

The Mr Basketball Committee has announced their 5 finalist for the 2018 Mr Basketball award.  Here they are alphabetically.

Tre Jones - Apple Valley
Gabe Kalscheur - De La Salle
Owen King - Caledonia
Daniel Oturu - Cretin-Derham Hall
Calvin Wishart - Delano

Jones, Kalscheur and Oturu are absolutely no surprise and obviously deserving.  You know the Gopher commits would be highly represented on this list and we get 2 of them.  Caledonia's Owen King had a big year and the Warriors lost to the top 2 teams in AA by a total of 6 points.  Not to mention high level wins against St. Cloud Cathedral, Lake City and Byron.  King was terrific in the Minnehaha game.  He's very worthy as well.   All 4 were dominant factors for their teams.

Now for the 5th spot.  Calvin Wishart had a monster year for Delano and is definitely their difference maker.  Fantastic individual numbers there.  The knock is the team record.  The season has not matched high expectations with only a 15-11 record and 5-5 in their tough league.  Plus some of those big games were blowout losses, see Edina and Eden Prairie just to name a couple.  This is for a team that came into the season as a team mentioned in the same league with De La Salle, Orono and Austin for best in AAA. 

I think the same argument of team success applies to Michael Jones at Woodbury despite not having the level of expectations.  His season was fantastic carrying the offense.  Ugly blowouts to start the year vs Lakeville N and Wayzata started a pattern of not winning big games.  But they did get a big one over North St. Paul and with the gang up vote of the Suburban East coaches got the 3 seed.

Sy Chatman and Matt Todd are victims of better options in front of them.  CDH already had Oturu in the final 3 so I wouldn't put another player from there.  Matt Todd a big season but I'd take Jones against a big school schedule.  Odell Wilson part of a loaded roster and also had a terrific season but he's not at the level of my 5th pick.

That leaves Jarvis Omersa would have gotten my 5th vote.  Orono making the late season run with 15 straight wins.  That includes a sweep of the very tough Wright County East schedule that includes Delano.  Plus they beat Monticello and Matt Todd.  They have no bad losses on the schedule and they had plenty of chances to win the CDH and Minnehaha games.  Obviously the Gopher resume helps but he has the double double numbers with team success to back this up.