Twin Cities Boys Hoops

Rest of the Conference Realignment

Here's the realignment for classes 3A and down.

3A

The North Suburban picks up the left overs of the old Classic Suburban
Spring Lake Park
Totino-Grace
Fridley
Columbia Heights
North Branch
Chisago Lakes
Hill-Murray
Mahtomedi

Absolutely loaded for football

The Missota gets the short end of the stick as its the leftovers
Hutchinson
Holy Angels
Red Wing
S. St. Paul
Benilde-St. Margaret's
St. Louis Park
Northfield
New Prague

I hate Hutchinson in this league and Red Wing had nowhere else to go. BSM and AHA would be fun games. St. Louis Park might be too big for this league. Still loaded for football.

In 2A, the Tri-Metro stays the same, except the 3 smallest schools move down to 1A conferences.

Blake
Breck
De La Salle
Minnehaha
Brooklyn Center
Concordia (Roseville)
St. Croix Lutheran
St. Paul Academy
St. Anthony

De La Salle fits well here size wise, but I wouldn't mind seeing them in the Minneapolis City to balance this league and that league at 8 teams.

Where are the rest of the Tri-Metro teams? They move down to 1A leagues, an east/west split of the MCAA.

New Life
CHOF
St. Bernard's
St. Agnes
Mounds Park
Trinity
Bethany
Concordia (Bloomington)

Good basketball here with Bethany/Trinity/New Life and St. Bernard's

In the west half we have
Rivers Christian
Meadow Creek Christian
Maranatha Christian Academy
West Lutheran
Heritage Christian
Providence Academy
Southwest Christian
PACT
Spectrum

For football these would combine for 1 league as most of these schools co-op with a big school co-op with each other or don't play. In basketball, they'd be separate. CHOF, PACT and Spectrum are de facto MCAA basketball members anyway since they play just about everybody in the league for non-conference games so add them in and play a real home and home schedule on each side.

I didn't deal with the issue of Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity. They would move west somewhere, just like I should have done with Hutchinson

4A Conference Realignment

As promised here is my proposal for realigning the metro conferences. Main factors.

1) Size, none of this 3A school playing a 1A nonsense (that's you Tri-Metro).
2) Rivalries, existing rivalries need to be kept.

So here we go

Split the Northwest Suburban into these 2 leagues

Andover
Anoka
Coon Rapids
Blaine
Cambridge-Isanti
St. Francis
Elk River

Maple Grove
Osseo
Park Center
Champlin Park
Armstrong
Cooper
Wayzata

Gotta have Armstrong/Cooper and maybe Cambridge-Isanti vs St. Francis could be something in addition to the Andover/Anoka rivalry.

Stillwater
Forest Lake
Roseville
Centennial
Mounds View
Irondale
North (St. Paul)
White Bear Lake

I'd like to see each pair of teams here become rivalries. Stillwater/FL, Roseville/Centennial and especially the last 2 including Mounds View/Irondale. Irondale/Centennial might evolve too.

The Suburban East stays largely the same

Tartan
Woodbury
Park
Hastings
Cretin-Derham Hall
Henry Sibley
St. Thomas Academy
Simley

Existing rivalries + the addition of Sibley/STA.

Split the Lake Conference and add in the suburban Missota schools that have outgrown that league

Burnsville
Prior Lake
Eagan
Rosemount
Lakeville N
Lakeville S
Apple Valley
Eastview
Farmington

We stay south of the Minnesota River for these schools to add Prior Lake and Farmington while keeping the Apple Valley and Lakeville rivalries.

For the rest of the lake we have the following
Hopkins
Minnetonka
Eden Prairie
Chaska
Shakopee
Jefferson
Kennedy
Richfield
Edina

Hopkins, Minnetonka, EP for basketball, OUCH! And I didn't even mention the other tough hoops teams in the league. Minnetonka/EP in football is huge We keep Kennedy/Jefferson and add Richfield/Edina and Shakopee/Chaska which should be nice rivalries. I wanted Hopkins to play with their other Classic Lake rivals (Armstrong et al) so that we'd have 8 teams in both instead of 7 and 9, but the Hopkins/EP/Minnetonka rivalries were too much to pass up.

Due to rivalries and tradition, the St. Paul City and Minneapolis City do not change, but I was tempted. Roseville and/or CDH in the St. Paul City were considered.

Restore the Catholic Spirit

The Catholic Spirit Christmas tournament is always one of the top events of all the local holiday tournaments. In the past few years, its gotten away from its private school roots. So here's my proposal for restoring it.

East Division
De La Salle
Hill-Murray
Totino-Grace
Cretin-Derham Hall

West Division
Holy Angels
Benilde-St. Margaret's
Breck
St. Thomas Academy

I would almost take these 8 teams and make them a conference, but Cretin is too big for any of them and Breck isn't big enough.

New coaches on the north side

I find it interesting that both Minneapolis North and Minneapolis Patrick Henry are looking for head coaches now. Brett McNeal at North looked really disinterested last year and in the last couple of years they haven't done nearly the amount of run and jump that I saw previously. Like all the standout city teams, they depended on their defense due to the mickey mouse offense they ran (see also Johnson, for the St. Paul equivalent). When was the last time North actually won a big game excluding the rivalry game against Henry. North plays a tough schedule, but look at their record over the last couple years against the premier teams on their schedule, not good. A team that had PJ Hill (going to Ohio St) and Romain Martin (Ohio Valley frosh of the year last year) should have been much better than it was.

But at least North tried to run something that looked like offense. Henry is still the class of the Minneapolis City, but I hope they get somebody in there who actually knows an X from an O. I once saw the Henry JV team inbound the ball and not touch it with no pressure with under 30 seconds to go and a 1 pt lead in a game. But at least we didn't have listen to Larry McKenzie yank guys and scream at them for the most minor of mistakes.

All that being said, there's a lot to be said for relating to players and I think McNeal did that well at North. It will be interesting to see what the schools do for new coaches. North gets the advantage of not having game 1 until after Christmas, but they also are in tough section 6AAAA with Hopkins and Minnetonka

Look for these posts before the season

No I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, but the summer is a quiet time. Before the season starts, look for my posts on the following.

Conference previews for all of the metro conferences (except the Metro Lakes, because quite frankly, who cares).

Schedule analysis including games you won't to miss.

My preseason predictions for the metro sections

My conference realignment plan for the metro area.

And as a potential bonus, while I'm realigning the metro, I might just realign the sections too.

Why gopher hoops isn't hopeless.

Dan Monson did wonders for running this program into the ground. But Minnesota isn't as bad a job as you might think. Here's why

1) After Detroit and Chicago, what's the next best recruiting area in the Big Ten. I would contend its the MSP area. Are there enough good players here? Ask Northern Iowa and Bradley about that since they raid this area. Ask Bo Ryan and Tom Crean if local kids are good enough to play big time D1 ball. Even NDSU steals players from here.

2) Williams Arena, do I need to say more.

3) With Iowa, Northwestern and Wisconsin as recruiting opposition, where would you rather go to school and play? I think the metro could be a big advantage there.

Minnesota Conference Websites

Abbreviations Key

Abbreviations by Conference. Note that the most schools that start with a city name followed by a school name usually are referred to by school portion of the name only. Ex: Armstrong and Cooper for the Robbinsdale schools, Kennedy and Jefferson for the Bloomington schools and of course all of the St. Paul and Minneapolis schools. North = Minneapolis North, NSP or North (St. Paul) is used to reference the other North high school.

Classic Suburban

Henry Sibley ->Sibley
Hill-Murray -> HM
North (St. Paul) -> NSP
St. Thomas Academy -> STA
South St. Paul -> SSP

Lake

Apple Valley -> AV
Eastview -> EV
Eden Prairie -> EP

MCAA

Concordia (Bloomington) -> C-Bl
Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity -> LP/HT
Maranatha Christian Academy -> MCA
Meadow Creek Christian Academy -> MCCA
New Life Academy -> NLA
Southwest Christian -> SWC
West Lutheran -> WL

Missota

Academy of Holy Angels-> AHA

North Suburban

Benilde St. Margaret's -> BSM
Columbia Heights -> CH
Totino-Grace -> TG

Northwest Suburban

Maple Grove -> MG
Park Center -> PC

Suburban East

Cretin-Derham Hall -> CDH
Forest Lake -> FL
Mounds View -> MV
White Bear Lake -> WBL

Tri-Metro

Brooklyn Center -> BC
Concordia (Roseville) -> Concordia
DeLaSalle -> DLS
Mounds Park Academy -> MPA
St. Bernard's -> SB
St. Croix Lutheran -> SCL
St. Paul Academy -> SPA

Others

Christ's Household of Faith -> CHOF
St. Michael-Albertville -> STMA

The Czar's Basketball Library

Here's a list of basketball materials that are in The Czar's basketball library.

Videos

Books

Jamie Angeli, Primary/Secondary Break Pass Option Offensive Attack System
Dave Arseneault, The Running Game
Don Casey and Ralph Pim, Own the Zone
Mark Dudzik and Katie Roberts Dynamite Drills
Bob Kloppenburg, SOS Pressure Defense (4th Edition)
Jim Larranaga, Coaching Basketball's Scramble Defense
Al McGuire, Humpty-Dumpty Offense
Al McGuire, Mosquito Defenses
Lason Perkins, The Set Play
Michael Podell, Perfect Practice Drills
Dean Smith, Basketball Multiple Offense and Defense
Stan Watts, Developing an Offensive Attack in Basketball
Fran Webster, Basketball's Amoeba Defense
Tex Winter, The Triple-Post Offense (Sideline Triangle)

Winning Hoops Coaching Reports

Backdoor Offense
Buzzer Beaters
Ferocious Full-Court Presses
Lock Down Defenses Part 1
Lock Down Defenses Part 2
Out-Of-Bounds Strategies
Pressure Beaters
Scouting the Opposition
Stoppers! Time-Tested Defensive Drills
Swarm Defense
Zone Busters

Contact The Czar

You too can contribute to this blog and there are many ways to do so. Here are just a couple of examples

If you saw a game and want people to know about it, write up a report on the game and email it to me. If I like what you wrote, I'll post it giving you credit for it. While I do reserve the right to edit the post for clarity, my intent is to leave the spirit of your text intact. Click here to see an example. My goal will be to post as many of these as possible, but I make no promises.
Is there an event that people don't know enough about that you'd like to make known (ex: a team camp, scrimmage, showcase event like the East Metro Showcase)? Email me about it and I'll gladly try to spread the word.

And of course, if you enjoy reading this, spread the word to others who may also enjoy it.

Questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, broken links, news items, events to cover or anything else? They are always welcome. You can click here to contact me.

Editorial Policy

As the blog title states, I focus almost all of my attention on the Minneapolis/St. Paul high school boys basketball scene. That includes anything from regular high school games to spring/summer AAU games that include local players. It also includes recruiting info, interviews, rankings, coaching changes etc. I do make a trip back to Wisconsin each season to see at least one game, but I try to do that outside of the local boys season. For the top Wisconsin players and teams, I may comment on them here especially if there's a local connection. I will go watch the local high school girls play when the boys aren't playing, but I won't write much about it.

I cover the following Twin Cities sections

2AAAA, 3AAAA, 4AAAA, 5AAAA, 6AAAA, 7AAAA
3AAA, 4AAA, 6AAA
4AA
4A

I cover the following conferences (102 teams + metro area independents)

Classic Lake
Classic Suburban
Lake
Minneapolis City
MCAA
Missota
North Suburban
Northwest Suburban
St. Paul City
Suburban East
Tri-Metro
Metro area independents like CHOF, Minnesota Transitions, Spectrum etc

Writing Schedule
From mid-September until the start of the season I follow the multitude of fall leagues in the metro.

I do section and conference previews in late October and early November leading up to the start of practice around Thanksgiving.

During the season my week looks something like this.

Game coverage every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and most Mondays and Wednesdays (when there are games). Saturday usually will have 2 or 3 games that I cover. My posts usually are done late night on game days. I do lots of abbreviating because writing is painful. If any of the abbreviations are unclear, check out the abbreviations key. I go to all of these games as a fan first and a writer second. That means I keep all of my own statistics and notes by hand as I sit with the fans and cheer like anyone else.

Sundays are a recovery and catchup day. I write my weekly column for MinnesotaPreps.com and update my season totals with all of the different sights, sounds and tastes from the week.

As the regular season ends, I preview the sections and give predictions as I try to keep up round by round.

I also cover the spring/summer AAU scene by attending the local events and tracking some of the teams and players as they travel around the country. This may even include a road trip or 2 as I covered our local travel teams in Denver and Chicago in 2009.

The Czar's Profile

The Twin Cities Hoops Czar

Mike Fratello
I'm originally known by my TCHoopsCzar moniker (Twin Cities Hoops Czar) on the Minnesota Preps and Minnesota-Scores boys basketball forums. Its a tribute to the one and only Czar of the Telestrator, Mike Fratello (pictured). It comes from the early 90s when I feel he should have won the NBA coach of the year award in Cleveland. It also notes the fact that I can't walk by a whiteboard without drawing up a play on it. While there are many variations of the blog title and moniker used, (e.g tchoops, tc hoops czar, tc hoops blog, twin cities hoops blog, etc etc) very often it gets simplified to The Czar.

I'm a rabid high school basketball fan with no affiliation or allegiance to any metro school. I focus mostly on the boys basketball scene in the Twin Cities, but I may comment on the girls game or Wisconsin action if there's nothing going on with the boys. My perspective is that of a fan first and foremost. I combine that with my 3 seasons of experience as a player and 5 years as a manager. I also consider myself to be a basketball purist and student of the game. What I write here is best described as a diary of what I see and think as I follow the different teams and travel to the 120+ varsity games I see each season. I hope that you'll find the site to be an interesting source of opinion via my posts and also a valuable place to find free information on local players and teams via the many links to other sites that I've provided. If you do enjoy it, please pass the word on to others. In addition to writing this blog, I also write a weekly basketball column for MinnesotaPreps.com under my real identity, Kevin Alsteens (see my real picture here).

Details of how I cover the season can be read here. If you have corrections, suggestions, ideas or want to contact me, you can always contact me by clicking here.

The Cast of Characters and other stuff you should know

While I do take basketball seriously, it is only a game. Therefore, in the spirit of The Czar character, I use a royalty theme from time to time to lighten the mood. Here's an explanation of the references within that royalty theme.

The Kingdom - Short for The Czar's Kingdom. Specifically refers to the 11 conferences and independent teams in the metro that I write about.
The Old Kingdom - Not to be confused with The Czar's Kingdom. This refers to the La Crosse, Wisconsin area where I grew up. I make a trip back usually once a season to see a game, usually at the beginning of the season or around the holidays.
The Emperor (of the Old Kingdom) and Her Majesty - The Czar's parents. You'll see The Emperor mentioned when attending a game with The Czar. Usually once or twice a season and usually in The Old Kingdom.
The Emperor's Palace - The home of the Emperor and Her Majesty.
Dacha de Czar - The Czar's home
The Crown Prince - The Czar's brother and leader of the Kingdom's army. AKA The Secretary of Defense (SecDef)
The Chairman (of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) - The Crown Prince's father and the senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense.
The Basketblogger - A friend of The Czar. Will see a game with The Czar from time to time. He did his own blog on the local basketball scene during the 07-08 season before he ran off and got married. You'll see him add comments here from time to time.
The Caveman - The Czar's best friend. The nickname is due to a nasty back injury he had back in high school that forced him to sit out an entire season. The huge back brace he had to wear caused him to look hunched over, like a caveman. A high school classmate came up with the nickname but it stuck with me and that's how I've known him ever since.
Duchess Bubbles - The artist responsible for helping me with the site images that you see in the blog header.
Czar's Seating Rules - This is a reference to where I'm usually located at games. It means top row (against something with a back rest due to morbid obesity), center court and opposite the benches.
Bolshevik! - Remember that it was the Bolsheviks who overthrew the Russian Czar (Nicholas II) during the Russian Revolution of 1917-1918. In context of writings here, used to express a high degree of disgust with something or someone.
THE WORLD'S WORST OFFENSE - This is my reference to The Flex Offense. I find that most teams run this offense like mindless robots and its almost always brutally painful to watch. Hence I use all caps to express my overwhelming dislike of the offense. It is not a reference to the team running it.

Welcome

Welcome to the new TCHoops blog. As a huge fan of Minneapolis/St. Paul boys high school basketball, I'll use this venue to post my thoughts and ideas on the state of local basketball.

2008 Local AAU Events

Twin Cities Summer Classic (July 12-15, 2008)

AAU State Championships (June 6-8)

MYAS Tournament (May 17-18, 2008)

AAU Seeding Tournament (May 9-11, 2008)

Preview

Howard Pulley Sabes Invitational (May 9-11, 2008)

Minnesota Magic Invitational (April 25-27, 2008)

MYAS tournament (April 12, 2008)

Minnesota Magic 16U Elites

The CzarPI Explained

The CzarPI, rhymes with RPI, short for The Czar's Power Index, is an advanced RPI calculation used to evaluate teams across the state of Minnesota. A team's CzarPI value represents the percentage of their season performance compared to a perfect season. This allows the CzarPI to be a consistent barometer across seasons for historical comparison.

Some fundamental principles of The CzarPI

A winless team has a CzarPI of 0. Wins are ultimately what determines if team A is better than team B so if a team loses, their value cannot be determined.
Wins against non-MSHSL teams are not counted as the quality of the win cannot be quantified and this is a comparison of teams playing in the state tournament series. However, based on the first principle, losses are counted.
Note: Starting with the 2014-15 season, losses against non-MSHSL teams are no longer counted. This means that all non-MSHSL games are ignored.
Teams with equal records are ordered by the quality of their wins vs their schedule results.
The CzarPI is based only on the games played, not games to be played in the future.
The CzarPI will not wash your dog, find the lost city of Atlantis, cure world hunger or fix my morbid obesity. Like all computerized rankings that do not include a human factor, this ranking should only used be as 1 tool of many to evaluate a team.

Some fundamental differences between The CzarPI and the QRF

The QRF only takes into account wins and doesn't account for losses when determining the value for a specific game (iQRF). The full QRF is an average across all games played so losses do count there. The CzarPI takes into account wins and losses for an individual game and also averages per game results.
The QRF only counts opponents wins. That means a team with 22 wins against a great schedule is treated the same as a team with 22 wins against a weak schedule. (Note: In 2013-14, it appears the QRF now includes opponent's opponent's wins with a class value). The CzarPI takes into account the opponents record, the opponents opponents record and the opponents opponents opponents record.
The QRF uses class differential. I agree that class differential can be a valuable criteria when evaluating any game. However it is my opinion that is not equal statewide. For example, a class AA team in the metro where there are many private schools with kids from a large area vs a AA public school in the outstate is a major difference. Therefore, I do not include it in the CzarPI.
Margin of Victory was included in the QRF until the 2011-12 season but is no longer in use. I also feel that criteria was far too subjective to be used blindly by a calculation so I have never included it in the CzarPI.

2026-27 NBA players from Minnesota

Here is a list of 2026-27 NBA players who played high school ball in Minnesota.

Jamison Battle - Toronto (DeLaSalle
Amir Coffey - Milwaukee (Hopkins)
Chet Holmgren - Oklahoma City (Minnehaha Academy)
Curtis Jones - Denver (Cretin-Derham Hall)
Gary Trent Jr. - Milwaukee (Apple Valley/Prep)
Jalen Suggs - Orlando (Minnehaha Academy)
Jericho Sims - Milwaukee (Cristo Rey)
Tre Jones - Chicago (Apple Valley)
Tyus Jones - Orlando (Apple Valley)
Zeke Nnaji- Denver (Hopkins)

2025-26 NBA players from Minnesota

Here is a list of 2025-26 NBA players who played high school ball in Minnesota.

Jamison Battle - Toronto (DeLaSalle
Amir Coffey - Milwaukee (Hopkins)
Chet Holmgren - Oklahoma City (Minnehaha Academy)
Curtis Jones - Denver (Cretin-Derham Hall)
Gary Trent Jr. - Milwaukee (Apple Valley/Prep)
Jalen Suggs - Orlando (Minnehaha Academy)
Jericho Sims - Milwaukee (Cristo Rey)
Tre Jones - Chicago (Apple Valley)
Tyus Jones - Orlando (Apple Valley)
Zeke Nnaji- Denver (Hopkins)

2024-25 NBA players from Minnesota

Here is a list of 2024-25 NBA players who played high school ball in Minnesota.

Amir Coffey (Hopkins) - LA Clippers
Chet Holmgren (Minnehaha) - Oklahoma City
David Roddy (Breck) - Atlanta
Gary Trent Jr. (Apple Valley) - Milwaukee
Jalen Suggs (Minnehaha) - Orlando
Jamison Battle (De La Salle) - Toronto
Jericho Sims (Cristo Rey) - New York
Tre Jones (Apple Valley) - San Antonio
Tyus Jones (Apple Valley) - Phoenix
Zeke Nnaji (Hopkins) - Denver

2023-24 NBA players from Minnesota

Here is a list of 2023-24 NBA players who played high school ball in Minnesota.

Amir Coffey (Hopkins) - LA Clippers
Chet Holmgren (Minnehaha) - Oklahoma City
David Roddy (Breck) - Memphis
Gary Trent (Apple Valley) - Toronto
Jalen Suggs (Minnehaha) - Orlando
Jericho Sims (Cristo Rey) - New York
Kendall Brown (East Ridge) - Indiana
Mike Muscala (Roseville) - Washington
Tre Jones (Apple Valley) - San Antonio
Tyus Jones (Apple Valley) - Washington
Zeke Nnaji (Hopkins) - Denver

MN Basketball Resources

Resources for all things regarding Minnesota basketball.

2026-27 High School Season Links
Fall Hoops
Season Previews
Holiday Tourneys
Scoreboard
Current Polls
D1 & D2 Signings
Previous Seasons

Minnesota HS Hoops Links
State Records
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Section Assignments
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Summer Season Links
AAU Team Sites
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NY2LA
NXT Pro 16 League
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Recruiting Links
MN Player Rankings
ESPN Hoops
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Other Basketball Links
Prep Hoops Minnesota
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MN Basketball Hub
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