The 2024-25 regular season is in the books. Now
the playoffs are here. That means its time for the 2025 Better
Than Chalk Section Predictions.
Once again here are the rules. Any
fool can pick nothing but top seeds (aka chalk) and
claim they were something like 306-13 on their picks. My mission is to
do better than that bracket. I also pick all games at the start of the
playoffs rather than going round by round to increase the challenge. I
don't get any chance to make up for my mistakes by picking day by day.
Not
happy with how I picked your team? Use the hashtag #ShockTheCzar on
twitter and on your locker room/virtual whiteboards to express your
outrage. We'll pick games for every metro team that I previewed. That means 15 full sections plus bonus selected games from 5 other sections. So without delay,
here we go.
Section 2A (Bonus)
Mayer Lutheran wins their 5 vs 12 game over Sleepy Eye St. Mary's on Tuesday. Then they bow out to Madelia late Thursday in St. Peter.
Section 4A
Monday Pigtail Round 1: 18 Lincoln International at 15 MTS, 17 Prairie Seeds at 16 International School of Minnesota/Chesterton. Rule of pigtails applies here, take the home team. ISM 2 double digit wins over Prairie Seeds. MTS and ISM move on easily.
Tuesday Pigtail Round 2 (6 PM): 14 Community of Peace at 11 Ubah, 13 Exploration at 12 Parnassus, 10 West Lutheran def MTS, 9 CHOF takes out ISM. Parnassus is a bad draw for Exploration so give me Parnassus in that one. COPA vs Ubah is an upset watch game but I'll take Ubah to survive. Ubah very reliant on the 3 point shot and can be up and down but I think they force enough turnovers to win.
Thursday Pigtail Round 3 (6 PM): Parnassus at 5 Trinity, CHOF at 8 New Life, West Lutheran at 7 Higher Ground, Ubah at 6 United Christian. Trinity and United Christian move on without trouble. Let's take West Lutheran over Higher Ground. CHOF lost at home to New Life in January. I can see CHOF winning this game but New Life moves on.
Saturday Quarterfinals (High Seeds): New Life at 1 Liberty Classical , West Lutheran at 2 Heritage, United Christian at 3 Avail, Trinity at 4 Hope. Top 4 move on with no trouble with Heritage, Avail and Hope winning rematches. All of those rematches were regular season double figure wins. Trinity should keep the game at Hope closer than the 24 point blowout in last meeting.
Tuesday Semis (7 PM High Seed): Heritage takes out Avail. Hope and Liberty should be a high scoring affair and Gideon Horne of Hope is a major problem for Liberty to deal with. Liberty survives.
Friday Final (5:30 PM St. Thomas Academy): I picked Heritage at the start of the season and am a bit surprised they weren't the 1 seed. Gotta stick with my pick so I go Heritage here.
Section 5A (Bonus)
North Lakes beat Maple Lake at Target Center in December to get the 8/9 rematch at home on Monday vs Maple Lake. They win again and then bow out at 1 seed Upsala on Thursday.
Upsala should then get the winner of Thursday's PACT vs Swanville 4 vs 5 game. Very close matchup in that game. 5 common opponents with very similar results. Swanville worse record but better point differential and they're on the road. Let's take the 5 seed Swanville here and then they bow out to Upsala in the early game at Hinckley on Saturday.
Section 4AA
Tues Pigtail Round 1: 11 Mounds Park over 14 High School for Recording Arts. 12 Math & Science easily takes out 13 Lakes International Language Academy.
Th Pigtail Round 2: 5 St Croix Prep over Math & Science, 6 Humboldt over 11 Mounds Park, 7 St. Paul Academy over 10 Nova Classical. 9 Twin Cities Academy over 8 Washington.
Sat Quarterfinals: 1 Minnehaha vs Twin Cities Academy, 2 St. Croix Lutheran vs. St. Paul Academy, 3 St. Agnes vs St. Paul Humboldt, 4 Concordia vs St. Croix Prep. Minnehaha and St Croix Lutheran move on easily. St. Agnes holds off Humboldt. Concordia gets the 3-0 sweep over St. Croix Prep.
Wed Semis: Minnehaha and St. Croix Lutheran advance. These 2 are just at a level above the rest of a weak section.
Fri Final (8 PM St. Thomas Academy): Minnehaha over St. Croix Lutheran. Minnehaha won the regular season meeting at home. Its a sneaky good section final as both teams just jumped into the most recent state rankings. St. Croix Lutheran can be tough defensively while Minnehaha is more offense oriented. SCL hasn't lost since the week before Christmas (18 straight wins). I think the offense outdoes the defense here. Minnehaha maintains their dominance of the section.
Section 5AA
Monday Pigtail Round 1: 17 Metro Schools College Prep at 16 Cristo Rey. I'm going to violate my rule of pigtails here and go with MSCP. I think they'll force turnovers and win. MSCP will have a run or 2 in them, how CRJ responds to that will be key.
Tuesday Pigtail Round 2: 9 Watertown-Mayer over MSCP, 13 Dassel-Cokato at 12 Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted, 15 Brooklyn Center at 10 Maranatha, 14 Providence at 11 Eagle Ridge. Watertown-Mayer and Marnaatha no problems. Give me HLWW in a coin flip, teams split winning on the road. I'll take Providence in an upset over Eagle Ridge.
Thursday Pigtail Round 3: 8 Jordan over Watertown-Mayer, 6 Hiawatha over Providence, 5 Holy Family over HLWW. 7 Rockford vs Maranatha is a game that could easily be a round later. Anybody else and I'd pick Maranatha and not think about it. Here I'll take a brief pause as Rockford has been good but I'll still take Maranatha.
Saturday Quarterfinals: 1 SW Christian over Jordan, 2 Breck over Maranatha, 3 Blake over Hiawatha, 4 Mpls N vs Holy Family. SW Christian and Breck too much in their games. Blake is a bad matchup for Hiawatha as they have 2 bigs to throw at King James. Blake moves on. The 4 vs 5 game is really interesting. Holy Family coach Joe Burger will have something cooked up but the game will be at North which is tough. North doesn't have any size to bother the Fire with which helps the Holy Family cause. Give me the Fire here in a mild upset.
Tuesday Semis (at Minnehaha 5/7 PM): SW Christian over Holy Family. Breck over Blake for the 3rd time.
Friday Final (Augsburg): Breck over SW Christian. Can't pick all 1 seeds and I picked Breck beginning of the year.
Section 6AA (Bonus)
Osakis beat Legacy by 1 at Alexandria a month ago. Now they get the rematch at Osakis in the 8/9 game Metro bias here, give me Legacy on the road and then they'll bow out on to Albany on Super Saturday at St. John's.
Spectrum got the 7 seed and they'll get a couple of rematches. They'll beat Kimball but bow out to Mora.
Section 2AAA (Bonus)
Hutchinson gets a Wednesday rematch at St. Peter in the 3/6 game. St. Peter won the regular season meeting by 14, I'll take them again here.
Section 3AAA
Monday Pigtail: 9 Simley at 8 Como Park. This is a rematch of last year's pigtail game. Como Park won that one. While they lost this year at Simley, that was early. Simley's time will come but not this year. Cougars have won 4 straight while Simley has lost 8 in a row. Give me Como Park here.
Wed Qtrs: Top seed St. Thomas takes out Como Park. Roosevelt won't be happy about getting the 5 seed but 4 seed South St. Paul is a bad draw. Give me the Packers at home. Give me Harding 2 seed to get revenge for losing at home to 7 seed Highland Park during the regular season. Minneapolis South at Two Rivers in the 3/6 should also be compelling. Let's have some fun here and take South.
Sat Semis (noon): St. Thomas wins another very close game vs South St. Paul. Harding takes out Minneapolis South.
Th Final: St. Paul Harding makes up for last year's early exit with the state trip this year. Their athletic wing play will be too much of a disruption.
Section 4AAA
Monday Pigtail: 9 Minneapolis Edison at 8 Columbia Heights. Columbia Heights defense will force a ton of turnovers for easy buckets.
Wed Qtrs: 1 De La Salle over Heights. 4 North St. Paul over 5 St Anthony, 7 seed Camden gets a rematch with 2 Johnson. Johnson won that holiday game by 15 and they'll eventually pull away and win here too. But not an ideal draw for Johnson. Mahtomedi takes out Hill-Murray for the 3rd time in the 3 vs 6 game.
Sat semis: De La Salle over North St. Paul. Johnson and Mahtomedi both playing well. Always tough to go into Johnson, but I feel an upset here Give me Mahtomedi.
Thursday semi: De La Salle over Mahtomedi.
Section 5AAA
Tues Qtrs: 1 Totino-Grace over 8 St. Francis, 2 Monticello over 7 Big Lake, 3 Becker over 6 Princeton. I see no issues in those games. 5 Fridley at 4 Zimmerman should be entertaining but Zimmerman survives at home.
Fri Semis (STMA 6/8 PM): Totino-Grace over Zimmerman. Monticello holds off Becker for a 3rd time.
Th Final (STMA): Totino-Grace over Monticello
Section 6AAA
Wed Qtrs: 1 Benilde-St. Margaret's vs 8 Bloomington Kennedy, 2 Orono vs 7 Robbinsdale Cooper, 3 Richfield vs 6 Holy Angels, 4 Mound-Westonka vs 5 Delano. Top 2 seeds in blowouts. Holy Angels cost Richfield a share of the Tri-Metro title with their season split. Rivalry games always dangerous and CJ Armstrong didn't play in Richfield's finale vs Minneapolis South. Richfield survives though. Mound-Westonka just knocked off Delano and Max Iversen has been out of the Delano lineup. Regardless, Mound-Westonka survives and advances.
Sat Semis (2 PM): Benilde-St. Margaret's vs Mound-Westonka. Orono vs Richfield. Low seeds hang around but the top 2 seeds at home are just too good.
Th Final: The big game that we've all waited for and will be the toughest section final ticket (Czar screams internally, MOVE THE GAME BACK TO CHANHASSEN!). Nolan Groves with the 3/4 buzzer beater for Orono at BSM in last year's final. BSM has gotten it done in the regular season but this group has fallen short the last 2 years in section. Not this year. Orono has gotten very little outside of their big 2 in the 2 regular season meetings. Another TJ Stuttley vs Nolan Groves match up is must see TV. BSM moves on.
Section 7AAA (Bonus)
Wed Qtrs (6 PM): The locals go up north and bow out. 8 seed Chisago Lakes loses at top seed Duluth Denfeld. Too much Ray Brau as Hibbing takes out North Branch in the 2/7 game.
Section 1AAAA
Wed Qtrs: 1 Rochester John Marshall over 8 New Prague, 2 Lakeville North over 7 Rochester Century. 6 Owatonna will give 3 Lakeville South a headache but South still moves on. 4 Farmington has rebounded after some struggles post Cole Wilcek injury. Give me the Tigers at home over Rochester Mayo.
Sat Semis (7 PM): A couple of very entertaining ones here. JM took out Farmington over Christmas, they do it again. The Lakeville squads split 2 close games with road wins. Lakeville North squeaks by.
Fri Final (Mayo Arena): Picking against John Oxton in a section 1AAAA final seems totally foolish with Lakeville North's recent history of completely owning this section. The only thing that is constant is change. I don't think North has enough firepower here and JM has enough size to counter them.
Section 2AAAA
Wed Qtrs: 7 Chan at 2 Prior Lake, 4 Eden Prairie at 5 Chaska, 6 Waconia at 3 Minnetonka. Chaska just lost by 5 at EP so this rematch should be fun. Max Lorenson is capable of 40 on any night. Solid perimeter play both ways. Tray Lenzen on the front line needs to have a big game if Chaska is going to win. He had 8 points in the first meeting. Eden Prairie survives and advances. Minnetonka over Waconia, Prior Lake over Chanhassen. Chaska knocked off Waconia by 20 this week to move up to the 5 seed, but Waconia was 2 games better in league and won the other meeting. That was arguably the most discussed coaches seeding decision of the week.
Sat Semis (noon): 1 Shakopee vs Eden Prairie. A rematch from a week ago. Shakopee won that by 6. Sabers have lost only once this calendar year. Give me Shakopee here in a close one. Prior Lake beat Tonka by 13 in December. That was Tonka's 1st game and Prior Lake's 2nd. Prior Lake's size is a problem. Isa El-Amin has been oustanding for Tonka and Tonka is stronger on the perimeter. Tonka shocked everybody last year, let's pick that here.
Wed final: Shakopee over Minnetonka. Shakopee too hot right now. They won the regular season meeting by 10 in December.
Section 3AAAA
Tues Qtrs: 8 Bloomington Jefferson at 1 Apple Valley, 7 Burnsville at 2 Eagan, 6 Eastview at 3 Hastings, 5 Park at 4 Rosemount. Top 3 seeds move on without trouble. 4 vs 5 game shows a hot Rosemount team vs a Park team that has struggled. Rosemount with 6 straight wins (both Lakeville schools included) along with a close loss to Apple Valley and a win over Prior Lake just before that. Peyton Gholson vs Anthony Giadyu is a fun matchup there. Rosemount moves on.
Fri Semis: Rosemount at Apple Valley, Hastings at Eagan. Apple Valley continues their run and moves on. In the other game, both teams trending the wrong direction. Hastings had won 12 of 13 before losing 3 of their final 4 games. Eagan has lost 7 of their final 9. This will be a grind it out, run your stuff affair. I'll take Eagan here as I think they matchup favorably with their size.
Th Final: Apple Valley over Eagan. Teams split the regular season but AV won the last meeting big. Camare Young is a tough matchup on the wing. Trey Parker and Justin Cowan are bucket getters. That's enough to push Apple Valley thru.
Section 4AAAA
Wed Qtrs: 5 St. Paul Central at 4 Stillwater sees Stillwater advance thanks to home court. If Central shoots it like they did on Saturday in the Twin Cities game, they can pull the upset. 7 Woodbury at 2 Tartan, 6 White Bear Lake at 3 E Ridge see high seeds move on without trouble.
Sat Semis (7 PM): 1 Cretin-Derham Hall advances over Stillwater but Ponies hang around for a while. Tartan vs East Ridge may be the best AAAA semifinal. Kyle Frendt's interior work presents problems for Tartan. Tartan has a bunch of guards to throw at Cedric Tomes and still matchup with the other guards. This should be a fun tactical, grind it out affair. Give me Tartan in a close one. Props to the 4AAAA coaches for getting this one right and giving Tartan the home game. Traditionally the Suburban East coaches have ganged up and voted Tartan down.
Th Final: Cretin-Derham Hall over Tartan. No good matchup for Tommy Ahneman, CDH moves on.
Section 5AAAA
Tues Qtrs: I like the top 4 seeds here. 1 Champlin Park over Irondale, 3 Park Center over Roseville. 7 Osseo pushes 2 Maple Grove again (6 pt reg season game) but Maple Grove moves on. 4 Mounds View took care of 5 Spring Lake Park in the regular season, I'll pick that again.
Fri Semis: Champlin Park too much fire power for Mounds View. Another tough draw for Maple Grove with the other district rival Park Center. MG survives another close one at home
Wed Final: Champlin Park and Maple Grove split with Maple Grove winning the league game. Maple Grove can struggle to score and that's not good against a high powered Rebels squad. Give me Champlin Park here.
Section 6AAAA
Tues Qtrs: 5 SLP at 4 Washburn, 7 Armstrong at 2 Wayzata, 6 SW at 3 Edina Cooper Carlson sat out the Twin Cities Game. Washburn won the regular season meeting. Too much Curtis twins and St. Louis Park moves on. Wayzata and Edina advance easily.
Fri Semis: 1 Hopkins over St. Louis Park. Wayzata over Edina. No issues for either.
Tues Final: We get the much awaited Hopkins vs Wayzata 3rd meeting and the drama of last meeting revisited. Wayzata is rolling right now but Hopkins has only that 1 loss at Wayzata. Best section final in AAAA and right there with BSM/Orono for top overall. Wayzata has been the kryptonite for Hopkins and I'll pick it again. Wayzata advances in another high scoring fast paced game.
Section 7AAAA
Wed Qtrs: 8 Cambridge-Isanti at 1 Anoka, 7 Duluth East at 2 Blaine, 6 Forest Lake at 3 Centennial, 5 Coon Rapids at 4 Andover. Top 4 seeds move on without trouble
Sat Semis (highest seed): Anoka over Andover but closer than expected due to 3rd meeting and a rivalry game. Blaine and Centennial is also a 3rd meeting and rivalry. Teams split the regular season. Blaine won the last meeting by 10 a month ago. 1st meeting was beginning of December. Give me Blaine here.
Th Final: Anoka won both regular season meetings though Blaine only lost 2nd meeting by 6 in late January. Anoka was far and away the best team in this section all year, have to take them here.
Section 8AAAA
Mon Pigtail: 9 Sartell at 8 Elk River. Elk River gets the home game due to the holiday head to head win. They move on.
Wed Qtrs: 1 St. Michael-Albertville vs Elk River, 7 Rogers at 2 Moorhead, 6 Bemidji at 3 Buffalo, 5 Brainerd at 4 Sauk Rapids-Rice. Top 4 seeds move on.
Sat Semis (2 PM): Now it gets fun. You could have put the top 4 in a hat and picked them in any order and been able to defend it. Sauk Rapids-Rice lost at STMA by 11 in early January. Jeremiah Johnson vs Keller Hanson at the point is just 1 notable matchup. STMA has the size to matchup with SRR and home court. Give me STMA here. In the other semi, Buffalo beat Moorhead by 5 at home in December. Now they have to make the trip. Guard dominated game here. Buffalo heavily reliant on the 3 point shot. I like Moorhead at home.
Th Final (Neutral): Moorhead lost at STMA by 6 in early January. STMA size with Jack Thelen is a problem here so give me the Knights to advance. Jordan Holm is an X factor for STMA.
