Week 13 Tuesday Night Scoreboard Club

An early morning edition this week, these are scores from 2/19 that caught my eye.

OK so we cheat a little and start with Monday's Henry/North game. Henry in a romp over North again, but they still give up 82 pts. They may lead class 3A in scoring (78.9) but they're also giving up 72.1 a night. Mandela Jackson with 31 pts and star soph Jordan Hughes blows up for 41 pts with 8 3s. 15 3s total for the Patriots, wow. Cory Polta vs Alonzo Melton would be fun in a Spring Lake Park/Henry 3AAA game along with Shaun Jensen vs Henry's guards. Melton is one of the few guys Polta would see that's just as big. While the records don't show it, I think Henry is clearly the team to beat in 3AAA, especially if they turn up the D.

Tuesday action

• Hopkins and Wayzata roll in the Classic Lake as we start to look ahead to the March 3rd Hopkins/Tonka rematch.
• Sibley with a romp over Hill-Murray in the Classic Suburban. They prepare for a big showdown at STA next Tuesday. But STA has a tough trip to Tartan on Friday night 1st. Everything still holding to form with Tartan, STA and Sibley rolling along.
  
• Eastview beats up on Lakeville N again which leaves Eagan only a 1/2 game out of the upper 1/2. Kennedy barely wins at Rosemount as Andrew Brommer has 24 for the Irish. Kennedy at Eastview tonight and then they host Eden Prairie on Tuesday (Eastview at Burnsville as well) in games that will likely finalize the top of the Lake standings.
  
• MCA beats Heritage again and SW Christian gets an OT win over New Life for those teams to advance to the MCAA Tournament final on Friday night at Heritage. Heritage vs New Life in the consolation final at Heritage in the early game. Trinity locks up the Friendship bracket with a win over Concordia (Bl)
• Shakopee knocks off New Prague and Prior Lake holds off Holy Angels. Prior Lake and Shakopee now 2 games clear in the loss column. They battle Tuesday night in Shakopee.
  
• In the North Suburban, no Joe Bright again for Cooper. Rodney Williams has 26 to lead the Hawks back from 4 down at halftime to a 10 pt win at Chisago Lakes. Josh Figini with another huge night of 41 points for the Wildcats. Cooper at BSM next Friday night to determine the league winner.
  
• In the Northwest Suburban, Centennial with the upset of Elk River by 3. Champlin Park continues to roll as they beat Coon Rapids. Maple Grove gets back on the winning track with a win over Anoka. Finally Park Center with a tight one over Andover in a game that went extra time.
• In the St. Paul City, Johnson wins another close one over Como Park. Como Park can give Johnson the city title outright with a win at Central next Friday night.
  
• In the Suburban East, CDH sqeaks out another one vs Woodbury. Mounds View comes calling for the Raiders on Friday night in a game I'll be attending. MV still has Stillwater remaining (at MV next Friday) so a 3 way tie for the title isn't totally out of the question.
  
• Nothing but blowouts in the Tri-Metro. Minnehaha at DLS Friday in a big West division game and St. Bernard's can clinch the east with a home win over Concordia on Tuesday.
  

Congrats to Kevin Noreen for passing the 1500 career point mark in the MN Transitions win over Four Directions. Congrats to Mike Bruesewitz on committing to Wisconsin. He couldn't have selected a finer institution! Bucky continues to get MN talent. We'll see how long that lasts with Tubby in town. Also nice to see Dale Wakasugi back on the court officiating. John Millea did a nice article on his return to Fridley this week.

The Wisconsin playoffs started this week. My beloved La Crosse Central Red Raiders took it on the chin at home to Marquis Mason of Madison East. Logan and Aquinas move on with Aquinas playing again tonight to move into a big showdown with Arcadia on Saturday night.

Brooklyn Center at DeLaSalle observations

Game #107 of the 07-08 season takes the Czar to DLS under the theory that if there's no outstanding game, you go see an outstanding player (i.e. Royce White). Brooklyn Center won the 1st matchup by one at BC sans Royce, but tonight with Royce back, no chance. BC hits 1 outside shot in the 1st 10 minutes. Royce gets yanked for a quick jumper and sits a couple of minutes during this time but no matter. Late in the half, Royce really takes over. He gets a post up for a dunk to make it 28-12 DLS @4:54. He finds Jalen Jaspers for 2 of his 6 straight (which he finished with a dunk) and then another dunk of his own to make it 36-16 @ 2:24 and he finds Jaspers again right before the half. DLS goes to the break with a commanding 42-18 lead. Royce with 13 and numerous assists (direct or indirect). Jaspers with 10, all on easy layups mostly thanks to Royce, he's doing a terrific job making himself available close to the rim. Bryce Hawkins with 8. Tyrese Chambers leads BC with 6 on 3 prayers.

To start the 2nd half, Royce gets a layup, and finds Jaspers for another layup. Dwight Potter gets 5 in a row to make it 46-25 @ 15:12. Royce starts a run with a nice flash to 7 ft for 2 and then a pretty dunk from Tim Swords. Hawkins with a layup from Royce and then 2 of his own on the post to be a part of the 1st 10 DLS points of the half. Hawkins gets 2 more on a 4th attempt (2 missed bunnies from Royce and then he puts back his own missed bunny) to extend the lead to 61-26 @ 11:17. The DLS run is 15-1 over 4 minutes and Royce's evening is done. The rest is garbage time. DLS wins 78-51.

BC just came down and jacked up quick shots during their miserable 1st half. DeAngelo Potter leads them with 12. Freddie Young with only 1 of 2 FTs for his 1 point. They've now lost 7 of 9 and only beaten MPA and SPA during that stretch. This follows 8 wins in a row that started with the DLS win and finished with the upset of Concordia. More and more it looks like they'll fall to the #4 seed in 4AA West, but with Edison now losing 4 in a row, you never know.

Royce White with a huge offensive night with 21 pts and made the offense go. While he is the offensive star, I'd like to see more intensity on the defensive end. Jalen Jaspers with a really good game of 14 pts and Bryce Hawkins with 12. DLS back to 500 at 10-10. The seeding discussion in section 6AAA is going to be real interesting for them. I could stretch them to the 2 seed (which would not make AHA happy) or I could see them falling to #6. More likely they'll be somewhere inbetween. How interesting and ironic would a 4 vs 5 Orono/DLS rematch be? Jeremy Randle with the late layup last year to win that one.

Also congrats to coach Thorson on the birth of his child. I'm sure his kid will be doing perfect defensive slides by age 3. I'd pay money to see the kid's 1st words be "4 motion!, 4 motion!"

School doesn't allow female referee to officiate

Crazy story out of Kansas from Wed Feb 13th. A female referee was scheduled to work a game and was all ready to go when a school official insisted she could not call the game. Reason: As a woman, she could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs. How ridiculous is that! Thankfully, the other officials present who were already working or asked to replace her walked off with her. Props to them.

The entire story can be found here.

Hopefully the Kansas State High School Activity Association cracks down hard on this.

Week 12 observations and Week 13 schedule

Scoreboard watching from the end of week 12.

Thursday:

• Johnson gets a tip-in at the buzzer to beat Central to put both teams at 7-1 atop the St. Paul City. Como Park is 1 game back at 6-2 and they get a shot at both teams starting with Johnson on Tuesday night.
  
• In the other big city game, Henry easily handles Washburn at Washburn. Star soph Jordan Hughes has 29 and Mandela Jackson with 20 as these 2 continue to be a handful for opponents on the perimeter. Henry at North on Monday afternoon for the Mpls City lead.
  
• Prior Lake beats New Prague to stay on top of the Missota with Shakopee. The Sabers travel to New Prague on Tuesday night.
  
• CHOF with a quality road win at St. Croix Lutheran. The Lions have the week off to prepare for tough games with Heritage and Bethlehem Academy

Friday:

Classic Suburban: This league continues to go according to plan with Sibley, St. Thomas Academy and Tartan all winning. STA travels to Tartan on Friday night before hosting Sibley.

Classic Lake: Hopkins too much for Minnetonka in round 1 of their battles. Wayzata makes their claim as the 3rd best team with a 15 pt win over Armstrong.

MCAA Tournament (1st round): #5 Heritage beats #4 West Lutheran which shouldn't be a surprise considering Heritage also won the regular season matchup. The rest of the tournament goes according to plan. Trinity avenges a regular season loss to Providence in the friendship bracket.

North Suburban: Cooper holds off St. Louis Park, only 15 pts for Rodney Williams and no Joe Bright in the box score. Chisago Lakes pulls the big upset at Spring Lake Park 64-61 as they come from 5 down at the half. Josh Figini wins the battle inside with Cory Polta with 29 points. The loss pushes the Panthers to 4th and moves Irondale up to 3rd in the league standings.

Northwest Suburban: Champlin Park with a good 7 pt home win over Blaine, 7 out of 8 now for the Rebels. They stand alone in 2nd place, 2 games up in front of our next game. Elk River beats Maple Grove to tie the Crimson for 3rd place. The Elks have now won 4 out of 5. Maple Grove has now lost 5 of 6 after winning 8 straight.

Suburban East: Forest Lake wins the rematch with Woodbury to move up to 4th. Stillwater pays a visit on Thursday night. Stillwater holds off White Bear Lake in OT. Mounds View holds off Park. Big one for MV as they go to CDH on Friday night. They also host Stillwater later so the Mustangs still control their own fate.

Tri-Metro: DeLaSalle beats Breck to stay on top of the Tri-Metro West by 1/2 game over Minnehaha. DLS can essentially clinch the west this week as they host Brooklyn Center on Tuesday and Minnehaha on Friday. Taylor Sparkman is back for the Redhawks and had 11 pts vs Blake on Thursday. 2 DLS wins would put them 2 up on Minnehaha in the loss column with 3 to play.

Saturday: West Lutheran was probably worn out from their Friday night showdown and then having the afternoon game at CHOF as CHOF blows out WL. Como Park with a 4 pt home win over Washburn. Washburn 0-3 vs the 3 top teams in St. Paul with the 3 losses by a total of 9 points. Rashede Hageman has only 6 points and fouls out. Forest Lake with a statement in section 7AAAA as they blowout Duluth East. Dyami Starks with 31 of the 64 Duluth East points. Lakeville N with a good win over Moorhead. Breck with 93 points in a win over Mankato East. Wow.

Week 13 Schedule:
Probably the worst week of the year on the schedule

Monday: Presidents Day means only 1 game on the schedule and that's the traditional Henry/North showdown (1 PM at North). As usual this game will determine a league leader as both teams stand on top at 6-2. Unfortunately, the czar will be stuck in his office cubicle.

Tuesday: Johnson at Como Park is the biggest game of the night. Hopefully the 2nd matchup is better than the 1st matchup. Jefferson at Burnsville, Armstrong at Hopkins, Brooklyn Center at DLS.

Wednesday: No games

Thursday: Providence at Concordia (Bl) in the MCAA friendship bracket is my game. Also St. Paul City play and Brooklyn Center at Roosevelt (5:30).

Friday: Mounds View at Cretin-Derham Hall in a huge Suburban East matchup. Minnehaha at DLS, Washburn at North and a fun non-conference game as Delano comes in to play Henry.

Saturday: Back to Wisconsin for the Regional finals as the Wisconsin boys tournament kicks off this week. La Crosse Aquinas vs Arcadia in a big D3 (AA) game and possibly La Crosse Logan vs Watertown to see the #2 frosh in Wisconsin, manchild Trevor Jorgenson. Locally a couple of fun games, Richfield at Minneapolis North and Orono at Breck, both games at 2 PM. Also the girls twin cities game which gives Central a chance for revenge against South.

YTD Stats

• 106 games (79 MN split 67 boys and 12 girls, 27 WI split 23 boys and 4 girls)
• 42 buildings
• 134 teams (107 boys and 27 girls, 93 MN teams split 75 boys and 18 girls, 35 Wisconsin split 27 boys and 8 girls, 6 outstate split 5 boys and 1 girls)
• 2 Genders

Current Poll Stats
4A: 8 (Missing Rochester Mayo and St. Cloud Tech)
3A: 5 (BSM, STMA, Johnson, AHA, Princeton)
2A: 1 (St. Bernard's)
1A: 2 (MCA and Cass Lake-Bena)

Rosemount at Jefferson Observations

Congrats to the basketblogger on getting married tonight. As to me, I'm at Jefferson in a relatively empty gym. Jefferson leads 12-6 at 12:30 on a Moses Alipate bucket. Rosemount closes to 14-13 with 10:10 to go in the half. Marcus Alipate comes in and picks up 2 quick fouls for illegal screens. Aaron Barmore and Moses score to make it 23-13 before a Tim Sauer bucket at 6:15 breaks a 9-0 Jefferson run over the last 4 minutes. Barmore picks up his 2nd foul at 5:03 and he gone for the rest of the half with Jefferson up 25-17. Rosemount gets the next 5 points before 4 from Jefferson and then 4 inside points for the Irish. Jefferson is struggling vs the 1-3-1 (Brommer in back) that Rosemount went to for the last 4 minutes or so of the half but they lead 33-27 at the half. Moses Alipate with 10, Aaron Barmore with 9 and Marcus Alipate with 3. Mark Wieloch with 3 3s for 9 points to lead Rosemount. Tim Sauer with 8, Andrew Brommer with only 2 as Sauer's defender is backing off to prevent the high low action to Brommer. On my highly unofficial stat sheet I had Brommer 1-4 FG, 5 Rbs and a turnover.

Barmore opens the 2nd half with a pretty backdoor layup. Wieloch hits a 3 to pull Rosemount to 38-34 with 16 minutes to play. Another Barmore bucket and 4 points from Moses extend the Jefferson lead to 46-34 at 12:35. Rosemount goes back to the 1-3-1 during this time but with Brommer on top. Interesting twist but he never dropped back in the lane in it to be a factor on the glass. They don't stay in this long, maybe 3 possessions.

Brommer starts to get it rolling with a putback for 2 and Sauer gets a 3 pt play for 5 quick Rosemount points. Troy Hoeppner gets 6 points, 4 from steals and Brommer has 8 points while Moses gets 5 straight Jefferson points and its 55-51 at 8:04. Brommer gets an easy lob bucket off an inbounds play and makes 1 of 2 FTs to make it 57-54 with 6:30 to play. Barmore gets another pretty backdoor bucket to make it 62-58 Jefferson with 3:25 to play. Then Brommer takes the game over.

Brommer gets hacked on a 10 footer off an inbounds play but makes it anyway (misses the FT). Marcus Alipate misses a layup. Brommer hits 1 of 2 again from the line and its 62-61 Jefferson inside 3 minutes. After a Jefferson timeout, Brommer gets 2 straight 3 point plays inside around 2 Barmore FTs and all of a sudden its 67-64 Rosemount with 2:04 left. 9 straight Rosemount points for Brommer in just over a minute. Rosemount goes 1-2-2 out of a timeout and Barmore quickly gets a bucket to make it 67-66 with 1:30 to play. Hoeppner misses 2 FTs, but Marcus Alipate misses a 3 with 35 seconds left, then Justin Maeck misses 2 more FTs with 27 seconds left.

Jefferson inbounds from halfcourt out of a timeout and they inbound to Barmore looking to hit Marcus Alipate for a screen the screener flare play that they've used this year and in the past. But Marcus isn't open and its chaos. Finally Nate Schlangen (maybe the 1 guy Rosemount wanted to shoot) puts up a corner 3 and its in an out. Loose ball and Jefferson gets it with the possession arrow pointing their way with 4 seconds left. Out of the timeout they had the ball underneath and put Barmore and Moses on the blocks with the other 2 guys in the ballside corner and top of the key respectively. Marcus Alipate is inbounding and they appear to look for the lob to Moses but instead the ball goes all the way out top to Ellis Libby who fires it back to Marcus in the corner who throws up a 3 at the horn that is no good and Rosemount gets a 67-66 victory.

Another tough loss for the Jaguars at home in Lake play. 2 pts to Kennedy, 5 pts to Eastview in a game they had won, Eden Prairie by 1, and now this 1 pt loss. Tack on a 8 pt loss at Kennedy, 6 pt loss at Rosemount, and a 3 pt loss at Lakeville North and they could have only 1 loss in league play (a home blowout loss to Burnsville). Aaron Barmore with 23, Moses Alipate with 20 but where was he on defense against Brommer at the end. Amazing how they had done such a good job all night and then just collapsed.

For Rosemount, I'm obligated to say that Brommer got it done in a big way tonight. After seeing him over the past 2 years and not being impressed, he was big with 20 2nd half points and 22 overall. Unofficially I had him for 22 pts on 8-13 shooting (7-9 2nd half) with 10 rebounds. Tim Sauer with a nice game of 15 points at the other big spot. When Brommer is at the high post and Sauer low with Wieloch on the perimeter that's tough to deal with. Wieloch finishes with 4 3s for 12 points. Good win on Rosemount's resume as they are fighting Eagan for the 4th seed in 3AAAA.

Shakopee at Holy Angels Crazy Ending

Game #105 of the season takes me to Holy Angels for a big Missota Conference matchup between #8 4A Shakopee and #10 3A Holy Angels. Both teams came in tied at the top of the league with 2 losses each with the other 2 teams (Prior Lake and New Prague) also playing each other tonight. The 2 things I'm watching in this game are how Shakopee deals with the size of James Pfitzinger and Bonzi Wells (Sahr Ngekia). The other is the defense of Luke Sames (pictured) vs the offense of Stoddard Barnhill.

Matt Zager gets off to a quick start as he has 8 quick points to give Shakopee a 13-6 lead at 13:20. He gets points 9 and 10 on a pretty backdoor layup to make it 17-8 with 12 to go in the half. After a AHA timeout with 8:49 left (22-12 Shako), AHA finally starts pounding the ball inside. Big James gets a 3 pt play, Bonzi gets a deuce but misses the FT and Pfitzinger gets another 2 to make it 26-21 at 7:10. But Shakopee comes back with a 13-2 run to make it 39-23 at 3:30 before Pfitzinger gets another bucket. Shakopee plays sloppy the rest of half and coach Kugath is imploring his team to focus. They lead 43-33 at the break. Zager with 14 for the Sabers. Big James with 12 for the Stars. Barnhill gets his only 2 of the half on a runout that gets goaltended.

AHA starts the 2nd half with momentum as Barnhill is heating up. After a big James bucket, Barnhill gets a steal and 2, then an offensive rebound for 2 and finally scores directly vs Sames and its 49-45 with 13:20 to play. Zager has all 6 Sabers points in the half. AHA is now trying to force the ball inside that isn't working. Shakopee pushes the lead to 57-47 before a Joe St. Mane (he of no mane I might add as he has a shaved head) steal for a 3 pt play makes it 57-50 with 6:24 to play. Pfitzinger gets a block, but throws the ball right to DJ Killeen who scores over big James. He also misses the front end of the bonus. Will Baregi hits 2 FTs to make it 59-52 Shakopee with 4:42 to play. Jake Ewing gets a nice backdoor layup from Sames to make it 61-51 with 4:15 to go and then Ricky Margarit misses a front end at 4:10. Barnhill gets another steal but walks and Ewing hits 2 FTs to make it 63-54 with 3:14 left. Will Baregi scores again before Shakopee runs clock vs the AHA 1-3-1 and gets a DJ Killeen bucket at 2:07 to keep the lead at 9, 65-56. Barnhill misses but he gets a steal and 2 FTs at 1:51. Shakopee tries to run more clock but they turn it over at 1:16. Baregi makes 1 of 2 FTs and then Tyler Bredow gets a steal and bucket to make it 65-61 with 55 seconds left. Killeen misses a front end with 53 to go and Barnhill comes right back and scores to make it a 2 point game with 44.2 to to play. 7 in a row for AHA over the last 1:23. Luke Sames comes up clutch by making both ends of a 1 and 1 with 34.6 left. Baregi scores off an offensive rebound and its 67-65 with 16.7 to play.

Ewing only makes 1 of 2 with 13.9 to go (68-65 Shakopee) and back comes AHA, no timeout. Joe St. Mane drives right baseline and for some reason Sames leaves Barnhill wide open standing just to the right of the top of the key. He knocks down the 3 to tie the game with 5 seconds left and overtime is imminent. Shakopee inbounds with no timeout and Barnhill deliberately fouls Ewing with 1.5 to go right in front of the AHA bench which is away from the Shakopee basket. The building is absolutely stunned. He didn't realize they no longer had to foul. Ewing knocks down the 2 FTs. Baregi gets a catch at half court and gets an OK look from about 30 feet that is short. Shakopee wins 70-68.

Its not all that often that I can say I've never seen something before, but this is one of those instances. Have to feel for Barnhill. He leads AHA with 17, but not even half of those came against Sames who did another terrific defensive job on a star guard. Big James with 16 but a quiet 2nd half. Will Baregi steps up big in the 2nd half to finish with 15. Matt Zager leads the Sabers with 22. Ewing with 14. Shakopee did a nice job packing it in to limit inside touches and they worked hard to not get hammered on the offensive glass. On offense, their entry into their motion is really nice in that it gives them 2 or 3 opportunities for backcuts or easy layups. Its also different in that they run 2 guys to the ballside block. A post and then on the entry pass to the wing, the PG runs to the ballside block. Those guys then set a double screen on ball-reversal or if the ball-reversal isn't there, backdoor options are available. Simple and effective.

Luke Sames photo courtesy of MNPhotoNet.net

Collapsed referee returns

Dale Wakasugi, the referee who collapsed during the Fridley/Simley game on Dec 13th, has returned to the court. This article from KARE11 TV doesn't mention it, but I think on their newscast tonight they mentioned that his 1st game back was in Fridley or something to that effect. Glad to see him back. Stay healthy stripes.

Games on Tape #2 (BC at Breck)

By popular request, we go in back in time to last Tuesday's Brooklyn Center at Breck game. These teams played on Jan 11 to a 63-62 BC win. No Dwight Potter for the Centaurs or Alex McDonald or Bryce McNeal (both sick with the flu) for Breck.

BC gets an early 6-4 lead but then its all downhill from there. Tom Smolenski gets a triple + a Dakota Tidd basket finishes an 11-0 Breck run to make it 15-6 with 11:30 left. DeAngelo Potter picks up his 3rd at 10:05 for BC and is done for the half. BC is taking quick outside shots and they aren't falling. In their zone Tidd is open at the high post. He's done a nice job so far trailing the play and then cutting down the lane to get open. Smolenski gets 5 in a row to make it 27-12 with 6 to go in the half. Smolenski hits 2 more 3s in the half and Breck leads 47-24 at the break. Smolenski with 14 and Tidd playing well with 12. Freddy Young with 10 1st half points for BC.

Tidd gets 2 straight offensive rebounds for buckets to start the 2nd half. He's been really active so far. He gets a 3 point play to make it 60-38 with 10:23 left and the channel 12 announcers have been frothing at the mouth over him for most of the half. Least they forget the disappointing season he's had up until the game before this. Its called homework gentlemen. Breck does play the bench some, but Tidd and Smolenski are in there right until the end (BC starters stayed in the game). The Mustangs in a rout 78-55.

Tidd finishes with 23 and was a monster on the glass and extremely active, great game. Smolenski with 20 for Breck who were really never challenged. Breck ran a nice inbound set all night against the BC zone. Box set bigs high guards low. Ball side guard steps out to the corner. Backside guard fills the top of the key. Ball side big dives to the ball and screens the middle of the zone for the other big who is diagonally cutting to the ball. Simple but effective (much like everything else Breck runs)

Freddy Young with 16, DeAngelo Potter with 1 early free throw and that was it for BC. Tyrese Chambers had 13 points, but he needs to work on his shot selection. There were a handful of shots in this game that he took that would frustrate many coaches. Greg Snowden gave them 9 pts and nice minutes in the 2nd half.

Fast forward back to the present. After averaging 9.4 PPG in the 1st 16 games of the season (only 1 game over 15), Tidd's last 3 games (he had 19 vs SPA in the game after this one), he's averaged 21.7. Much more active and productive than the Minnehaha game I saw where he went bagel. With the SPA win and this win, Breck is now on a 4 game winning streak. Is Tidd's increased production part of it? I don't think its any coincidence. Did coach Gray light a fire under him? If he produces like this, they have a real shot at winning the west subsection of 4AA as they are always tough defensively.

Week 12 Tuesday Night Scoreboard Club

Scores from 2/12/08 that caught my eye.

Classic Suburban:

• Richfield goes to STA and gives them a game before falling by 8. Richfield's lack of size shows as Alex Schneider gets 25 for the Cadets. Junior sharpshooter Mike Fitzgerald with 19. They hold Renard Robinson to only 9 points. STA stays tied for 2nd with Tartan, 2 games behind Sibley.

Classic Lake:

• Hopkins blows out Wayzata by 30 in a game that I'll be taping for later review.
• Minnetonka gets 48 in the both halves to beat Edina by 12. The big matchup with Hopkins at Tonka on Friday should be fun but I think Hopkins pulls it out by 10.

Lake:

• Eden Prairie gets the big road win at Eastview to stay 1 win ahead of Kennedy. Ethan Wragge gets 21 for the Eagles.
• Kennedy gets another close win in the battle of Bloomington with an 8 pt home win over Jefferson.

Missota:

• Northfield upsets Prior Lake by 12 at home.
  
• Farmington goes to Holy Angels and wins in triple OT. Farmington now 1 game back of the 4 teams that top the league with 2 losses. But that changes on Thursday as all 4 play each other with New Prague hosting Prior Lake and my game Shakopee at AHA.

Northwest Suburban:

• Blaine with a 94-57 blowout of Centennial to win their 3rd in a row. They may be getting hot at the right time.
  
• Champlin Park has now won 6 out of 7 (after losing 4 of 5) to improve to 8-3 in league play after blowing out Park Center at PC. The 1 loss was a 2 pt OT loss at 7AAAA contender Cambridge-Isanti. They're 1 game ahead of Maple Grove.
  
• After 4 straight wins, Coon Rapids has now lost 4 out of 5 as they lose to Osseo.

North Suburban:

• Benilde-St. Margaret's comes from 7 down at halftime at home to beat Fridley by 4. Jordan Taylor with 30 for the Red Knights.
• Spring Lake Park blows out Irondale to take a 1 win lead for 3rd in the league standings. The 1st meeting went to double OT. Irondale had won 7 of 8 coming into this game with the only loss to BSM.
  
• Columbia Heights with a 3 pt win at Chisago Lakes as Josh Figini gets 34 for the Wildcats but star soph Jacob Thomas pours in 42 for CH.

Tri-Metro:

• Concordia beats St. Anthony by 4 in a battle of the top 2 scorers in the East division (Zach Towle and Calvin Walker).
  
• Minnehaha blows out Brooklyn Center 82-58 as the Centaurs slide continues. They fall to 7-5 in the league 2 losses out and have now lost 6 out of 7 after winning 8 in a row. Minnehaha stays 1 back in the loss column behind DLS. Those teams meet next Friday night at DLS.

Non-Conference:

• St. Bernard's almost has a 20 pt halftime lead at home slip away vs Edison but they win by 4.
• Heritage gets 32 from Stu Herman but they still need overtime to beat Oh Day Aki 64-62 at home. With what I saw of the Oh Day Aki defense earlier in the year, I'm surprised Heritage didn't put up over 85 in this game to win easily. But the more I see Heritage results the more disappointed I am. I had them as the 2nd best team in my MCAA preview and they finish 5th and lost at PACT and this close win and a close win over Spectrum. But their game vs West Lutheran Friday night (6 PM at MCA) could be one of the best of the rest games of the night after the Tonka/Hopkins battle.
  

Armstrong at Henry observations

I get to Henry in time to see the last 9+ minutes of the MTS/Henry girls game. This is a 50 pt game yet Henry is letting the ball roll in to keep the clock from running and 2 players who have over 20 and 30 points respectively are still in the game. Not to mention taking the full 20 seconds to replace a fouled out player with 2 seconds left. I was not happy with that lack of sportsmanship at all. Final score was 81-34 Henry so all of this was totally uncalled for.

As to the boys game, no Jordan Hughes in the starting lineup. Neither team can break away as the largest lead of the first half is 5 points. Louis Cox is running the point in Hughes' place and gets 5 in a row to make it 15-13 Henry at 12:15. Mandela Jackson takes over with 11 straight Henry points, 6 of which are in a 8-0 Henry run that gives them a 27-23 lead at 6:11. His streak ends with Henry leading 32-27. The teams go the break with Henry leading 38-33. Jackson on fire with 17 to lead everybody. Cox with 9 and Jerome Vaughn with 6. JD Robinson with 8 points but he sits out a good part of the end of the half with 2 fouls. Damarius Cruz with 7. Ted Vogt with 4.

Interesting incident during halftime. Henry AD Dave Wicker comes out and restrings the net on what will be the Henry basket for the 2nd half. Coach Miller of Armstrong comes out of the locker room and sees this and is not at all happy. Him and Henry coach Jerry Williams Jr exchange a few words with an official stepping in and then as the half starts Miller gets in a couple words for Wicker.

Jordan Hughes is actually playing, he comes out for the 2nd half for Cox after not playing the 1st half. Hughes gets a 2 to make it 42-33 but Preston McCourt gets 5 points in a Armstrong run that ties it at 42 with 15:15 left. An 8-0 Henry run makes it 50-42 inside 13 minutes. With 11:03 left, Jackson gets his 4th foul on a dumb technical and has to sit. JD Robinson hits the 2 technical FTs but Armstrong turns it over on the possession so its still 53-48 Henry. Robinson then picks up his 4th with 10:33 to go and he too has to sit. Henry extends the lead to 58-50 before another McCourt 3 makes it 58-55 wiht 6:40 to go. Robinson returns with 4:52 left and Cruz gets a bucket to pull Armstrong within 4 with 4:32 left. Jackson is back at 3:48.

McCourt gets a steal but takes a questionable quick shot with numbers that could have pulled Armstrong to 2. Hughes comes right back and gets a 2 to push the lead back to 6, but Cruz gets a steal and 2 to make it 63-59 at 3 minutes. Jerome Vaughn continues a big 2nd half with a clutch 3 point play that makes it 66-59 Henry with 2:40 left. Cruz misses the front end of the bonus but they get the rebound and a Wes Hoefer 3 to pull to within 4. Vaughn makes 1 of 2 FTs but Jackson puts back the miss to extend the lead back to 7. Robinson gets a bucket to make it 69-64 at 1:42. Henry turns the ball over and Cruz hits a 3 with 1:16 left. Hughes hits 2 FTs at 1:04 to push the lead back to 4. Armstrong throws a dangerous full court pass to turn the ball over after the free throws. Evan Gray appears to bail them out with a bad shot from the corner but Robinson gets called for his 5th foul on the rebound with 51.1 left. Hoefer gets a layup at 45.2 after a Vaughn FT and its 72-69 Henry. Jackson misses 2 FTs with 41.8 left and Cruz hits a 3 to tie it at 72 with 23 seconds left. No timeout Henry just goes. Jackson dribbles out the clock near the timeline and then goes right and down the lane to find Vaughn along the right baseline for a layup with 2.4 to go. Armstrong's full court pass is knocked away and Henry hangs on for a 74-72 win.

Mandela Jackson finishes with 20 despite the strong 1st half, but he made the clutch play at the end. Jerome Vaughn comes up big with 21 points, 15 in the 2nd half where he was too much inside. Jordan Hughes with 11 in his 1 half of playing time. Louis Cox finishes with 12. This win is a nice boost for them in the race for the #1 seed in section 3AAA. They have a big city game at Washburn on Thursday.

For Armstrong, Damarius Cruz with 25. JD Robinson with 14 despite the foul trouble. The Falcons fall to 11-8 and the schedule still has home and home matchups with Wayzata and Hopkins, Lakeville N and a trip to Minnetonka. The other remaining game is a trip to Edina which is no cupcake. With their strength of schedule, they should be able to keep the 4 seed in section 6AAAA.

St. Anthony at Trinity Observations

Game 2 of the night takes the Twin Cities Hoops Insider and I to the Ergotron Gymnasium at the brand new Trinity facility in Eagan. As to the game itself, it was more about enjoying the facility and talking with the nice St. Anthony fans. The Huskies rolled to a 49-24 halftime lead using their run and jump pressure against a weaker Trinity team. Trinity stayed close for the 1st 8 minutes (16-11 down) but then a 18-4 Husky run put it away. Final score was 80-55 St. Anthony. Chris Mullin (Calvin Walker) with 20 points (16 in 1st half) for St. Anthony. He's even got the T-Shirt to go with the look like Mullin did. He got those 20 points with almost nothing run directly for him. Coach Eric Schutte of Concordia was in the building and this led to a funny moment in the 1st half where Husky coach Dave Bratland looked across the court at him and told his team to run Concordia.

Trinity opens play in the Friendship bracket of the MCAA tournament when they host Providence on Friday. Should be an interesting rematch as Providence's 1 win of the year was 55-44 at home over Trinity on January 18th.

Minnesota Transitions at Roosevelt observations

Game 1 of the night with the Twin Cities Hoops Insider (TCHI) is Minnesota Transitions at Minneapolis Roosevelt. These teams have played the past 3 years coming into tonight with Roosevelt winning all 3 meetings in good games by scores of 80-76, 110-97 and 77-73 last year at MTS. A win here would be big for the MTS cause in the east subsection of 4A. Roosevelt looking to rebound from 2 straight tough losses in Minneapolis City play.

Right off the opening tip Josh Mason of Roosevelt injures a knee and it looks bad. But as we'll find out, looks can be deceiving. MTS is in their usual 2-2-1 half court defense. MTS goes on a 9-2 run to make it 12-6 with 13 to play in the half. Roosevelt is attacking from the baseline as MTS is doing well keeping the ball out of the middle, but they're getting hammered on the offensive glass. Mason is back with a strong follow-up dunk to tie it at 12 with 10:45 left in the half. Virgil Baker is hot from 3 but 5 straight from Chris Booker give Roosevelt their 1st lead in a while with 8:15 to go in the half. But as much good as Roosevelt did to start stretching the MTS zone and get some exploitable holes, they start settling for quick 3s and play sloppy offense. In fact, they don't score the rest of the half. MTS gets a pretty layup off a missed 3 with 3 or 4 passes and the ball never touching the floor to make it 26-21 at 5:35. Kevin Noreen gets a layup and then a block that leads to a Jerry Brookins 3 and its a 13-0 run to make the score 33-21 with 4:12 left in the half. But MTS doesn't score the rest of the half and its 33-21 at halftime. Virgil Baker has 13 points (3 3s) in the half to lead MTS. Kevin Noreen with 7. Derek Scully with 7 to lead Roosevelt. Roosevelt had opportunities when the ball went baseline as the defense wasn't filling the middle and Roosevelt cutters had good looks. MTS didn't reach nearly as much as I've seen them in the past which was nice to see and they did a good job of getting easy baskets off the long quick shots from Roosevelt.

Baker hits 2 3s to start the 2nd half and all of a sudden its 40-25 MTS with another Josh Mason dunk included. Xavier Jones heats up for Roosevelt. He hits a 3, a deuce and gets an assist to make it 40-32 with 14:30 to play. That assist is the start of 8 straight Torrieo Williams points for Roosevelt. Kevin Noreen with a really tough 2 to make it 43-34 with 13 to play and its 47-36 outside 11 minutes to play. Williams ends his run with 2 FTs and then Xavier Jones gets 2 steals for 3 point plays in the next 10 seconds and all of a sudden its 47-44 with 10:59 left and we have another MTS/Roosevelt battle on our hands.

A Dylan Clarke Knaeble layup and 1 of 2 FTs from Chris Booker complete a 11-0 Roosevelt run to tie the game at 47 with 8:36 to play. Kyle Noreen finally shakes loose for a wide open 3 and then after a Roosevelt FT gets another one (Roosevelt also left him open for a couple of shots off their inbound play that he missed. Does nobody scout anymore?) to make it 53-48 MTS at 6:40. Jones hits a 3 and 2 FTs to make it 56 all with 4:33 to play. Kevin Noreen holds the ball against Williams and gets fouled with 3:15 to play and makes 1 of 2. Williams makes 1 of 2 on the other end to tie it at 57 with 2:43 left. Kevin Noreen has a good look at a 3 miss and Mason gets a bucket off of another Roosevelt offensive rebound to give Roosevelt their 1st lead since 21-20. It's 59-57 Roosevelt with 2 minutes left. Kevin Noreen turns the ball over in the post with 1:42 to play. Jones hits a tough layup with 1:10 left but Kevin Noreen gets a putback to make it 61-59 Roosevelt with 1 minute to play. Roosevelt is killing the clock but for some reason Jones tries to go thru traffic in the lane and he turns it over with 21 seconds left. After an MTS timeout, Roosevelt takes their 1 foul to give with 12 seconds left (nice idea, but you'd like to wait as long as possible). Out of another timeout, Kevin Noreen gets the ball at the foul line but passes behind a baseline cutter for a turnover with 5 seconds left. Knaeble is fouled with 4 seconds left. On this inbound play, MTS left Williams open for fouling which surprised me because he was 3-3 from the line on the day. They also left Kyle Noreen in the game with 4 fouls and he had to commit his 5th to stop the clock. I would have liked to seen a bench guy in there for him so that if Knaeble misses 1, you still have a top 3 point shooter available for the last play. Knaeble does only make 1 of 2, but a pass to Kevin Noreen at halfcourt is intercepted and Roosevelt hangs on to win another close matchup between these teams 62-59.

Virgil Baker with 19 for MTS, Kevin Noreen with only 12. 6'6 C Torrieo Williams did a nice job on him as he was quick enough to stay with Kevin on the dribble. MTS falls to 14-4 but they still have some good games on the schedule with West Lutheran and New Life Academy.

For Roosevelt, Xavier Jones with 18 and it was his quick spurt of 3 point plays that got them back in it. Roosevelt switched to a nice attack against the MTS zone in the 2nd half. They had shooter Derek Scully running the baseline, Williams on the block to screen or get dump offs and then they played high pick and roll which would allow Scully to get a good corner look. Nice design by coach Stockmo. This caused the MTS zone to expand which opened driving lanes.

1st round MCAA Tournament schedule

The opening round games for the boys MCAA tournament have been posted.

Friday

• Heritage vs West Lutheran at Maranatha, 6 PM (good 4 vs 5 game as Heritiage is the 5 but won the regular season matchup at home by 5)
• Bethany at Maranatha, 7:45 PM (1 vs 8 game)
• SW Christian vs Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity at New Life Academy, 6 PM (3 vs 6 game)
• Meadow Creek at New Life Academy, 7:45 PM (2 vs 7 game)

Notes:

• New Life Academy is #2 seed because they beat SW Christian head-head (74-66 at NLA)
• Lester Prairie/Holy Trinity is the #6 seed because they beat Meadow Creek 65-62 at home
• Providence, Concordia (Bl) and Trinity will be in the Friendship bracket. These 3 teams all went 1-1 against each other during the regular season.
  

Week 11 observations and Week 12 Schedule

This week provided us with a couple of sad incidents. First, the ugly incident in Proctor where the game had to called due to unruly fan behavior including 1 fan reportedly attacking an official. I've said before that I have my problems with officials but there is absolutely NO place for this in any athletic event. If you want to yell (no obscenities, but know what you're talking about), fine. If you think its so bad and you want to leave, fine as long as you don't disrupt play. I'd rather see you leave than act foolish. We had the Minnetonka students earlier in the year cross the line and now this mess. The MSHSL suppossedly focuses on this, but I really think enough isn't being done with crowd control people. Last night at the BSM/DLS game, the BSM AD was there and got on the students after incident and that stopped it right then and there. While I'm sick and tired of hearing the MSHSL speech before every single game I attend, obviously its not getting in people's heads. I want to see the schools provide more crowd control that actually controls the crowd vs just standing there. Ultimately though, it is up to all of us as spectators.

Incident #2 is Kurt Pauly leaving the Cooper program due to inappropriate language (Star Tribune article). I think his full quote in the article puts it exactly right. The conduct is indefensible but 1 mistake overshadows all the good you've done. But this isn't unheard of as this same type of issue happened at Richfield either last year or the year before where coach Jim Dimick was suspended and an assistant was fired in regards to language if I recall correctly. Swearing was far more taboo when I played. Today most kids see far worse language on TV than they'll hear in a game on the playground or from an uncensored coach. But you've got old-fashioned school administrators who don't understand that things happen in the heat of athletic battle. I'm not justifying his conduct or saying he shouldn't have been punished, but I think schools make a much bigger deal of this than it really is.

Week 12 Schedule:
Finally the schedule quiets down some.

Monday: MN Transitions at Roosevelt (5:00 or 5:30 PM) is one of the very few on the metro schedule. MTS looking for another quality win to enhance their resume in the east subsection of 4A. Roosevelt trying to bounce back from back-back league losses.

Tuesday: Armstrong at Henry is my game. Hopkins at Wayzata in a big Classic Lake showdown. Brooklyn Center at Minnehaha in an important Tri-Metro West game. Eden Prairie at Eastview in a big Lake conference matchup.

Wednesday: No boys games, vote in the "Games On Tape" poll for the game you'd like me to review for my Wednesday night post.

Thursday: Shakopee at Holy Angels in a real nice Missota matchup. Big games in the city leagues. Henry at Washburn and Central at Johnson.

Friday: Rosemount at Jefferson, after all I've said here about Andrew Brommer its only fitting that I see him play this season. But the only game that matters, Hopkins at Minnetonka. The basketblogger is getting married this night. Obviously he had nothing to do with the wedding time.

Saturday: West Lutheran at CHOF (1:30), North (St. Paul that is) at CDH girls 4:00 and maybe the St. Anthony girls at BSM at 7:15. Washburn at Como Park (12:30) and Johnson at South (2:00) in addtion to Edison at Arlington (1:30) are fun city wars.

YTD Stats

• 101 games (74 MN split 62 boys and 12 girls, 27 WI split 23 boys and 4 girls)
• 41 buildings
• 132 teams (105 boys and 27 girls, 91 MN teams split 73 boys and 18 girls, 35 Wisconsin split 27 boys and 8 girls, 6 outstate split 5 boys and 1 girls)
• 2 Genders

Current Poll Stats
4A: 8 (Missing Rochester Mayo and St. Cloud Tech)
3A: 6 (BSM, STMA, Rocori, Johnson, AHA, Princeton)
2A: 1 (St. Bernard's)
1A: 2 (MCA and Cass Lake-Bena)

Week 11 End of Week scoreboard watching

Scores from Wednesday thru Saturday of week 11 (that's 2/6/08 thru 2/9/08) that caught my eye.

Lake:

• Eagan goes to Lakeville N and wins by 8. Lakeville N falls to 7-7 in league play.
  
• Kennedy gets a nice home win by 3 over Burnsville to keep pace with Eden Prairie and stay 1 game in front of Eastview. The loss pushes Burnsville 2 games behind Eastview.
  

Minneapolis City:

• South gets another big league win with a 3 pt home win over Roosevelt. Both teams are now 4-3 in league play and 2 behind Washburn in the loss column for the league lead. Henry and North are both 5-2. Edison loses to North by 3. They're 1-6 in the league but 11-7 overall.

MCAA:

• MCA gets another close road win vs a top league opponent. This time its a 7 point win at West Lutheran. 3 wins by a total of 11 points all on the road vs the #2-4 teams in the league. The loss means West Lutheran is the #4 seed in next week's MCAA tournament.
  
• New Life Academy gets a 16 point win at Heritage to clinch 2nd place (via head-head tiebreaker).
  

Missota:

• New Prague wins at Farmington to stay 1 behind Prior Lake and Holy Angels in the loss column. Farmington is now 3-3 in the league. They've lost 6 of 9 after an 8-1 start.
• Shakopee is 1 back in the loss column as well. They have a big league game at Holy Angels on Thursday night.

North Suburban:

• Cooper falls by 1 at Spring Lake Park to fall a game behind Benilde-St. Margaret's in the league race, but they play each other at BSM on Feb 29th.
  

Northwest Suburban:

• Maple Grove loses to Blaine and Champlin Park this week. They're on a 4 game conference slide and are now in 3rd place at 6-4. Blaine is now my pick to win section 7AAAA with Kyle Kreklow and Dylan Rodriguez.
• Champlin Park with 2 wins to move up to 7-3 and 2nd place.
• Coon Rapids with back to back home losses to Park Center and Blaine puts them at 5-5 in the league with Blaine and Elk River.
  

Tri-Metro:

• Brooklyn Center gets blown out at Breck on Tuesday night. After an 8-2 start, the Centaurs have now lost 5 out of 6 (4 in a row) and 2 of their next 3 are at Minnehaha and DeLaSalle. Minnehaha only a half game back in the Tri-Metro West.
  

Non-Conference:

• Johnson gets a 1 pt win at Washburn. Washburn with another tough home loss to the top of the St. Paul City league. They go to Como Park on Saturday after the big Mpls City showdown with Henry on Thursday. Johnson hosts Central in a big St. Paul City showdown on Thursday.
• Also from Tuesday, La Crosse Aquinas blows a 7 pt lead with 3 minutes remaining and loses 71-70 at Winona Cotter. Tough loss for Aquinas as they enter the final week of regular season play.
  

Benilde St. Margaret's at DeLaSalle Observations

Games #100 and 101 take me and the basketblogger to DeLaSalle for a couple of big showdowns with BSM. In the girls game, Aaryn Booker has a big night with 27 points and 13 rebounds which included 7 clutch points late in the game to lead the #1 Islanders to a 58-50 win. Interesting thing was that this game was played with the 35 second shot clock which is the 1st shot clock game I've seen all year. Only 1 shot clock violation and only 2-3 other times where it came into play. The DLS pep band is terrific and gets my vote for best pep band I've seen so far this season. The place is absolutely packed and even Tubby Smith is in attendance.

To the boys game, Royce White picks up his 2nd foul at 13:33 of the 1st half bumping Peter Crawford inside and doesn't return until the 2nd half. When he leaves its 7-2 BSM and White has the only 2 DLS points. AJ Barker gets 5 in a row to give DLS a 12-11 lead with 9:20 to go in the half. Its 18 all with 5 minutes to go in the half and star soph Bryce Hawkins for DLS gets his 3rd foul at 4:30 to go in the half. BSM goes to some 1-3-1 zone and its still 22-19 with about 2:30 to go in the half. But Jordan Taylor and Matt Thomas hit back to back 3s and Taylor adds a bucket with 50 seconds to go in the half. Its a 12-3 run over the last 5 minutes (8-2 in last 2:30) without White and Hawkins and BSM goes to the locker room up 30-21. Peter Crawford guarding Bryce Hawkins in a matchup of really good sophomores and Armond Battle was assigned the task of guarding White. But Jalen Jaspers guarded Battle on the other end.

White comes back out for the 2nd half and is absolutely on fire. He gets 2 buckets and then hits a totally sick stepback fadeaway to make it 30-27 BSM with 14:39 to go (6-0 Royce run). Its 32-28 with 14 minutes left when Spencer Bata hits a 3. Matt Thomas counters another Royce bucket with a 3 and its 37-30 BSM outside 12 minutes left. Spencer Bata hits 2 straight 3s to make it 46-31 with 9:58 to play, timeout DLS. White has all 10 DLS points in the half, but he gets a technical during the timeout and he's done for the night. I don't know if he got ejected or if it was a coaching decision to not put him back in the game. Taylor hits the 2 technical FTs, Bata gets 2 more and Battle gets a 2 to make it 52-31 with 8:35 to go. Jalen Jaspers gets a bucket before another Bata 3 makes it 55-33 with 8 minutes left. Its a 25-6 BSM spurt over almost 7 minutes. But DLS doesn't quit, as they get as close as 62-54 to 53.6 to play. But the lead was too much and BSM gets a 65-54 win.

Royce White with 12 points in only 12:29 of playing time and was amazing. Jeremy Randle leads DLS with 14. AJ Barker with only 6 and 5 of those were in a 1st half spurt. I'd like to see him get more offense to take some of the load off of Royce. DLS falls to 7-10 with the loss. Jordan Taylor with 20 to lead BSM. Armond Battle with only 13 as Jalen Jaspers did a nice job defending him. Peter Crawford with a nice game of 11 points and Spencer Bata comes up big with 14 points and 4 3s. Stu Neville was in warmups and no longer needs the walking boot. Looks like he's close to returning and will likely be fully ready for the Cooper rematch on Feb 29th.

Armstrong at Jefferson observations

Game 2 of the day was suppossed to take me and the basketblogger to Concordia for the Concordia/Mayer Lutheran game but that game was canceled. So we made an appearance at Jefferson. It's 11-10 Armstrong with 10 minutes to go in the 1st half, but a Marcus Alipate 3 starts a 7-0 Jefferson run over the next 4 minutes. Armstrong breaks the run at 4:30 to go. Its 18-15 with 1:05 to go in the half when Aaron Barmore hits 2 FTs. Armstrong plays for 1 shot but Ellis Libby picks the pocket of Damarius Cruz and goes the distance to just beat the buzzer for a 22-15 Jefferson lead at the half. Shots are not falling for anybody and I'm ready to take a nap.

The 1st 3:10 of the 2nd half is scoreless before Wes Hoefer gets a bucket a 14:50. Cruz hits a 3 and JD Robinson makes 1 of 2 FTs to pull Armstrong within 22-21 with 12:30 to go in the half. Jefferson still doesn't have a point in the half. Jefferson goes to an offensive lineup with Marcus Alipate and Chad Gilmer in for Nate Schlangen (who really struggled from the field in the game) and Anthony Howard. Finally Moses Alipate breaks the drought at 10:40 with a 3 and then Ellis Libby comes right back with another 3 and its 28-21 Jefferson with 10:18 to go. The lead feels like 20 though with the way the offenses in this game look. Libby adds on a layup witih 8:15 to go to complete a 8-0 Jaguar run. Armstrong breaks a 4 and a half minute drought of their own with a Hoefer 3 with 8 minutes to go. But Jefferson gets the 8 points before Cruz gets 5 in a row to make it 38-29 with 5:43 to go. But Armstrong only gets 2 points the rest of the way and the final is 45-31 Jefferson in one of the most boring games I've seen all year.

Jefferson gets 13 points from Moses Alipate and 14 from Aaron Barmore. Marcus Alipate with 4 and Ellis Libby with 7 and they were all clutch points. Jefferson did a nice job with their 2-3 zone and their man defenses. Armstrong was led by 10 points from Damarius Cruz. When they don't hit shots (and they didn't today), they can have real difficulty scoring. It'll be interesting to see how freshman Marquel Curtis develops for the Falcons over the next 3 years.

Wayzata beats Central at the buzzer

Game 1 of my Saturday action takes me to Central to see Wayzata for the 1st time this season. The 1st half sees action go back and forth with Wayzata not being able to make an outside shot (except for Nick Rocca, more on him later). With the score 20-17 Central, coach Ward gets a technical after a Wayzata player got smacked away from the ball. He was really upset with the official and I don't blame him. Central gets 7 of the next 9 to go up 27-19. Central keeps the lead at 35-28 with about 4 minutes left in the half but Wayzata closes to 39-35 at the half. Larry Brown with 14, Dylan Hale with 12. Rocca with 13 at the half with 3 3s. Central is all over the boards in the 1st half.

The teams continue to play back and forth to 51-48 Central with 9:34 in the half. Central extends the lead to 58-51 via 5 Larry Brown points at 7:20. Around this time, Danny Fearing leaves with an apparent ankle injury which hurts Wayzata's inside game. But Wayzata comes back to tie the game at 60 with 4:40 to go thanks to Jarrod Peterson starting to heat up with 5 points in the run and then he gets 4 of the next 6 to make it 66-62 Wayzata. All totaled its a 15-4 Wayzata run. Jordan Larson gets a putback on another Central offensive rebound to pull Central to 66-64 with 2:40 remaining. Hale and Rocca trade 3s and its 69-67 Wayzata at 1:50. Clutch 3 by Rocca as he got it right away after Hale hit his to give the lead back to Central. Brown promptly ties it at 1:38 (69 all). Rocca has a 3 go in and out and Brown rebounds with 1 minute left. It appears Central is going to run down the clock to take their final timeout and setup "the play" for Brown (the one they've used vs North and Washburn late). But Dylan Hale gets the ball and goes to the right baseline and I'm not sure if he somehow got off balance or what, but he throws up a prayer from there (about 15 feet out) and its nothing but net with 19.2 left to give Central a 71-69 lead. Timeout.

During the timeout, I told a fan next to me to look for Nick Rocca to touch it and for Wayzata to go quick so they had a chance at a rebound. I also said don't be surprised if they play for the win on the road. So out of the timeout, Peterson gets a good foul line look but misses and a mad scramble for the rebound ensues. Wayzata dives on the loose ball in front of their bench and gets a timeout with exactly 4 seconds left. Now I'm thinking Nick Rocca all the way. Sure enough they run a triple screen for him to curl from near the ballside block to the top of the key, but Central does a great job switching out on it and Rocca is blanketed but its one of Central's small guards who switches out and Rocca is 6'4 so he gets off a tough 3 over the guard at the horn and down it goes from the same spot that North hit the buzzer to beat Central in January. 72-71 Wayzata wins a terrific game.

Great call by coach Ward to get his top player in a position to win it. No fault to Central's D on the play either, the defender got there with him and Rocca hit the tough shot. Rocca finishes with 24 to lead the Trojans. Peterson with 15 and he was big in the 2nd half. Look for Freshman Eric Robertson to be a nice replacement for Rocca next year as Wayzata loses 4 senior starters but Peterson and reserve Eren Cur return with a nice JV group. Wayzata improves to 15-2 with their only losses to Minnetonka and Osseo.

For Central, Brown with 27, Hale with 23. Jordan Larson with a nice game for Central as well with 12 points and he was a factor on the offensive glass. LeDarian Horton rounds out the Central scoring with 9. Central falls to 14-5, but 2 of those are buzzer beaters and 2 more are a 3 point loss to Como Park and a 12 point loss to Hopkins in the Joe Hutton Christmas tournament at Hamline.

2 month QRF checkup

Here we are at the 2/3rds mark of the season as the 2nd month of play has completed. As promised, here is the 2 month QRF checkup. I'll do the last one the week of March 10th after the final regular season QRF is released. So that you have an idea of what was the numbers showed before, you can read the 1 month QRF checkup here.

The official QRFs are released on Monday's, but there are interim ones released during the week. For this analysis, I'm using the Feb 8th QRFs so that we have the Feb 7th games included. A couple of other points of view on this that I think are worth noting. Because I'm talking about the section, I include all teams in my analysis as listed in MN-Scores in their section standings. You can make a case for at least 2 other points of view. The first is to only include teams that have a legit shot at the section title, such as the top 4 or 8 teams (pick your number). The other point is specific to 4A as there are schools that are part of my analysis that won't be playing in the tournament for whatever reason. I think that's a compelling argument for removing them from the analysis. I don't know exactly who they are so I can't do it accurately. So now that we have the groundwork, let's crunch some numbers.

4A: Average QRF rank, 85 (4th) up from 99.18 (8th), best QRF average is still 3A up to 67.91 from 72.52. Section 7A drops to last with an average of 104.68 (7 teams 158+). Why 4A's improvement? As predicted, MN Transitions (53 to 23) and St. Agnes (63 to 40) both made big moves up as did New Life Academy who jumped from 68 to 32. To my surprise CHOF only drops 1 spot to #7 and MCA moves from 8 to 6. But last time there were 8 teams below 140, now there are only 6. The East subsection has 4 teams at 40 or better, Oh Day Aki at 104 and then everyone else below 140. In contrast, the West subsection section only has 1 team below 106. I'll admit I stuffed my foot in my mouth with saying 4A was worst before the season. That's what I get for not doing my homework. I can't imagine 4A falling below 7A at this point.

4AA: Average QRF rank, 71.53 (8th) down from 65.59 4th in 2A. 3AA was 7th at 70.81. Best QRF average 5AA 56.12. On Jan 7th, 4AA had 8 of the top 33 teams, it only has 5 now.

Class AAA: Best by far is 6AAA at 20.75 with DeLaSalle being 7-2 after their 0-7 start. 7AAA is still worst at 44.88 (unchanged from 1 month). 3AAA was still 2nd (28.5 to 28.13 before), 4AAA drops to 7th from 6th and 1AAA moves up to 5th from 7th (34 to 31.5) thanks to New Prague and Red Wing. 5AAA is still 4th with Princeton and STMA.

Class AAAA: 6AAAA is still the strongest improving from 26.63 to 24.13 as Wayzata and Armstrong continue to impress. 1AAAA is still the weakest dropping to 44.38 from 43. 2AAAA moves from 4th to 2nd (29.5 to 25.63), 3AAAA stays at 6th (34.38 to 35). 4AAAA drops from 2nd to 3rd despite an improvement from 27.5 to 27.13 but Tartan and Central have dropped off their earlier pace. 5AAAA drops from 3rd to 4th (29.13 to 29.5) as Park Center drops down and Champlin Park moves up. 7AAAA stays at 7th but drops like a rock from 36.5 to 43.25 with no team above 29. That section is so wide open that I'm now officially on the Blaine bandwagon. I'm going on the theory that players win games and they have 2 of the best in the section in Kyle Kreklow and Dylan Rodriguez and a lot of their losses are close ones so I think they can beat anybody in that section. Section 8 stays at 5th but moves up from 33.38 to 30.88 as that section has 5 teams between 13 and 22. St. Cloud Tech in the drivers seat there as they have wins at Moorhead and vs Buffalo their nearest 2 competitors for the 1 seed.

That's how the numbers are today, lots to change in the last month. Next analysis with the final regular season QRFs in March.

Stillwater at Cretin-Derham Hall Observations

This Suburban East showdown is for the conference lead as Cretin-Derham Hall comes in 7-1 with their only loss at 8-0 Stillwater. Overall both teams come in with only 2 losses each. Good crowd on hand and would fill most buildings around except that CDH is really big. I'm surprised they can't find a way to use this building for section play (like the 4A and 4AA doubleheader finals that are annually held at Holy Angels) as its arguably the nicest high school facility I see during the season. I can actually under the CDH PA guy tonight which is a pleasant surprise. Normally it sounds like Chris Kattan's Saul character from Saturday Night Live.

Nice moments early in the game when Michael Floyd gets a steal and a breakaway dunk and then Joel Armstrong gets a bucket for both to reach the 1000 point plateau for their career. Armstrong is the 5th player in Stillwater history to accomplish that feat. Congrats to both players. Armstrong's bucket makes it 8-7 Stillwater with 13:39 to go in the half. Floyd is going nuts and he leads a 19-5 CDH run to give CDH a 26-13 lead with 6:30 to go in the half. A Seantrel Henderson bucket makes it 37-23 with 3:15 to go in the half. With 2 minutes left in the half, CDH has the ball and Stillwater goes 3-2 zone but CDH pulls the ball out for a minute and forces the Ponies to go back to their man defense. Its 39-27 at the half CDH leads. Floyd has 19 with 3 dunks, huge half. John Nance with 8 for CDH. Armstrong with 9 and Aaron Anderson with 7 for Stillwater. Gotta love the "Fe Fi Fo Fum" chant from the Stillwater students when Henderson was at the line. Interesting incident with the score too. At point the score was wrong on the scoreboard for about 2-3 minutes of game time as Stillwater had 3-4 extra points posted. Very strange. They got it corrected and then it happened briefly again in the 2nd half.

The start of the 2nd half is back and forth play before Armstrong gets 6 straight points to make it 47-40 with less than 13 minutes to play. After 4 straight Tom Hannon points pushes the lead back to 51-40, Anderson finishes a 6-0 run with 2 layups to make it 51-46 with 10:11 to play. John Nance is on the bench at this point for a lengthy period of time, don't know if he had 4 fouls or not, but I didn't think so (I thought 3). Henderson has 3 and he's sitting too. David Bettenburg and Connor Lynch are in for CDH during the Stillwater run and they haven't played all night. They're out there with Hannon, Binns and Floyd. Really curious lineup combination there by coach Kline. But they don't cave in, Floyd hits 2 straight 3s and Henderson somehow gets matched up with 6'1 soph Paul Franklin inside and gets an easy layup to make it 59-49 CDH inside 8 minutes. Andrew Walker gets 4 straight points in the last push for Stillwater to make it 61-55 inside of 6 minutes. Henderson has to go to the bench with his 4th foul. John Nance finally returns to the CDH lineup after a long period on the bench with 5:15 to go. He misses a 3, gets a tip that results in a Stillwater turnover and gets a pretty assist to start an 8-0 run that includes 4 Floyd points. That pushes the lead to 69-55 outside of 3 minutes to play. Aaron Anderson hits a couple late 3s and Joel Armstrong adds on a couple buckets late but that just keeps it respectable. CDH wins 81-69.

Aaron Anderson finishes with 20, Joel Armstrong with 21 for Stillwater but he was quiet after his initial 2nd half burst of 6 straightl. Floyd has a huge night with 34 for the Raiders. Nance, Henderson and Torres Tillman all finish with 10. This win gives CDH the lead in the race for the #1 seed in tough section 4AAAA, but there are still plenty of tough games left. Stillwater has trips to Forest Lake, Woodbury and Mounds View remaining. CDH has Woodbury and Mounds View at home before a trip to Forest Lake. Both teams are now 8-1 in league play with Mounds View 1 game back in the loss column. Mounds View has trips to Woodbury and CDH remaining before they host Stillwater and Forest Lake.

Correction to Columbia Heights at Cooper post

At the end of the Columbia Heights at Cooper post I said that St. Anthony beat CH by 2 in their meeting. Columbia Heights actually won that game by 2. Thanks to Coach Braziel for pointing this out and my apologies for the error.

Benilde St. Margaret's at Totino-Grace Observations

Doubleheader action tonight as the Czar travels to Totino-Grace for the boys/girls doubleheader with Benilde St. Margaret's. The TG girls came in on a 19 game winning streak after losing their 1st 2 games of the season in the Hamline tournament (St. Paul Central and Rosemount). Biggest lead of the 1st half is 3 as its a defensive struggle tied at 20. Lizzi Naumann with only 2 1st half points for TG. In the second half they gradually extend the lead in the 1st part of the 2nd half and BSM can't close the gap as TG gets their 20th straight win 56-44. Jessica Meyer with 15 for the Eagles. Colleen Ruane with 14 (impressive 8 of 9 FTs) to lead BSM. The DLS girls in attendance (#1 3A) as they play BSM in the big doubleheader at DLS on Saturday night. The big man was in the house for this one too. No not me, Kevin McHale in attendance to see daughter Sasha play. She finished with 6 points.

To the boys game, if you have as many players on the bench in street clothes as you do coaches, that's not a good sign. BSM had 4 of each. They're a MASH unit right now. No Tall Kid Tall (Alex Miller) or Darren Glover in addition to Stu Neville and Chet Paulson being out. After a 4-3 TG lead early, BSM goes on a 15-1 run to lead 18-5 with 9:30 left in the 1st half. Jordan Taylor with 4 steals (3 of which were for a total of 7 points) during the run. John Crockett hits a 3 to start and to finish a 15-4 TG run to get them back to 22-20 with 5:30 left in the half. After trading baskets, Taylor and Battle are still the only BSM players who have scored. Taylor then proceeds to lead a 20-2 run to close the half and send BSM to the locker room up 44-24. Battle with 14, Taylor with 20 in the half. Crockett with a nice half of 11 points. 1st points from other Taylor or Battle for BSM were 2 FTs and then a bucket for Matt Thomas (points 29-32).

Crockett starts hot in the 2nd half and TG gets within 46-32 with 15:20 to go. But BSM rolls from there to get out to a 68-40 lead with 7:26 to play. Matt Thomas with 2 big 3s and another bucket during the run. Taylor's night is done and the rest is garbage time as BSM wins 81-59. Nothing like the BSM students singing "O Come O Come Emanuel" for reserve Dan Emanuel. Imagine if it were still the Christmas season. They did a scoreboard reading chant too which was terrific.

For BSM, Taylor finishes with 24 (maybe 25), Battle with 21. Thomas ends up with 17 as he has a nice 2nd half. 39 of the 1st 50 BSM points were from Battle and Taylor though, I'm still disturbed by the lack of 3rd scorer trend. Crockett with a monster night for TG. The sophomore finishes with 27 and looks like a real player down the road. The rest of their squad is basically seniors so he's got a whole new group to play with next year. Despite them being in danger of being the 8 seed in 3AAA, keep in mind they only lost to Henry by 1, Fridley by 1 and Spring Lake Park by 6 (all 3 at home). Those are 3 likely teams that they could play in the 1st round of the playoffs. So when you see 1 vs 8 in that section, don't automatically think blowout.

Columbia Heights at Cooper observations

The concept of the timer not starting the 20 minute warmup clock until the home team comes out is starting to get on my nerves. Tonight it was so bad that Heights was out warming up for 5 minutes, the officials came out then went back to get Cooper and in the meantime one of the refs had to come back to directly tell Cooper timer/announcer Lloyd Sullivan to start the clock. We're scheduled for a 7:15 start and its 7:05 with 1 team on the court ready to start and we don't have the 20 minutes running. And this happens in many places, not just Cooper. If the game time is behind, once the JVs get off the court, start that clock and let's go.

Early on we get a couple of timeouts (more on that later), but its 15-12 Columbia Heights with about 10 minutes left when Joe Bright and Rodney Williams Jr get out on a 2 on 1 break. Bright has the ball and this looks like a lob all the way but Bright decides to go Dr J over Michael Cooper on this one and slams it home himself for a nasty dunk that sparks a 12-2 Cooper run to make it 24-17 Cooper with 6:03 left in the half. Jacob Thomas gets a pretty reverse layup off a backdoor cut to start a Heights 8-0 run that gives them a 25-24 lead with about 3 minutes left but Williams get a 3 point play and another bucket and Cooper gets 8 of the next 10. Halftime score is 33-29 Cooper. Williams has 14 pts, 6 rbs, 2 ast and a blk by my unofficial count. But everything is on the post. No outside shots as he's playing center against the Heights 1-2-2 and man and he's shooting cold from close distance anyway.

In the 2nd half, Williams gets the 1st 6 Cooper buckets and Heights gets a Technical and they may be on the ropes as its 48-41 outside 11 minutes remaining. But a couple of Zaire Saunders 3s make it 52-49 with 9:15 remaining. Joe Bright puts back a missed FT of a 3 pt play to push the lead to 7 and start a 26-4 run. During the run, Williams finally hit an outside shot (his 1 3 of the night) and that appears to be icing on the cake. But he gets the real exclamation point right after this with a monster breakaway 360 dunk with 3:45 remaining. The rest is garbage time as Williams leaves with 2:16 remaining and a 80-56 Cooper lead. Final score is 87-65 Cooper.

Jacob Thomas did have some looks in the 1st half that didn't go down, but showed good poise. He finishes with 14. Zaire Saunders has 10 of the 1st 15 Heights points and finishes with 20. For Cooper, Joe Bright with 12 but this night was all about Rodney Williams Jr. He finishes with 37 points, close to double digit rebounds, at least 3 ast and 3 blks. He played in the post all night and even had trouble from short range which was surprising, but it didn't matter as it was over when he touched it at the basket. No chance for Heights to deal with him there. I was surprised at how visibly frustrated he got when he was open in the post and wasn't given the ball. He had a handful of dunks including the 360. It was interesting to see him during warmups shoot with a defender on him (he had a teammate play D for the last 10 minutes of warmups). His shot used to be very very flat but he's greatly improved that, but it appears his release point is lower so you may be able to get a hand in and bother him.

The 2 vs 3 seed discussion with Cooper vs Mounds View in 5AAAA is interesting. Don't be surprised if it turns out to be seeded such that Cooper plays Park Center and Mounds View plays Centennial (travel reasons). As it stands today, a Champlin Park/Irondale 4 vs 5 game looks pretty interesting in that section. For Heights, a 3AAA tournament rematch of the game with St. Anthony would be fun (St. Anthony won the 1st matchup at home by 2, see below)

(Czar's correction 2/7/08. Columbia Heights won the 1st matchup with St. Anthony at St. Anthony by 2. Thanks to Coach Braziel for pointing this out and my apologies for the error.)

Week 11 Tuesday Night Scoreboard club

A special edition this week as we have Monday and Tuesday games.

Classic Suburban
Sibley over Tartan by 9, Mike Bruesewitz blows up for 30 as Chris Halverson and Peter Leslie only combine for 11. Marc Sonnen with 17. Sibley now 2 games in front of Tartan and STA for the league lead.

Lake
Rosemount by 3 at Eden Prairie. Wow. Considering what Eden Prairie did at home to Burnsville and Kennedy, this is a shocker. Good balance from Rosemount and Ethan Wragge gets 19 for EP. EP and Kennedy now tied at 10-2 atop the conference standings.

MCAA
NLA by 8 over SWC, Banchy 32 Anderstrom 28 forces 3 way tie with WL for 2nd 2 games behind MCA with Heritage 1/2 game back. MCA at WL and NLA at Heritage on Friday in good games.

MPLS City
Washburn hammers Roosevelt to take sole possession of 1st.

Missota:
Prior Lake wins by 12 at Farmington to keep pace at 4-1 with AHA for the league lead.

St Paul
Central destroys Como Park 92-48 to take sole possession of 1st at 5-0. Avenges 3 pt loss to CP in Hamline tournament. Central has won 7 in a row since the buzzer beater loss to North.

Non-Conf
Armstrong blows out Forest Lake at FL with a 21 pt halftime lead (61-45 final, 38-17 1/2).

Calvin Walker gets 30 for St. Anthony at Rockford, but Rockford still wins by 12.

Lakeville North at Jefferson observations

So via a warning that I might end up sleeping with the fishes if I attended the Chisago Lakes/Totino-Grace doubleheader, I ended up going to the Lakeville N/Jefferson game instead. Actually, it was due to a late afternoon work meeting, who schedules these things anyway?

So for starters we've got a female lead referee. You don't see that much, especially at the boys level. We have the pep band, but the Jefferson PA guy has music blaring instead. Finally he chops off the music with 13 to go in warmups and we finally have the pep band playing. The kids go to all the trouble to practice and show up only to have the PA play, crazy. With the female ref on duty, its only appropriate that they did a nice version of "I saw her standing there". You need plenty of horns to make a good pep band, but you can't wrong with a good xylophone. Props to the girl who was playing it for the Jefferson pep band.

As to the game, let's just say I should have gone to the Republican Caucus down the hall. Jefferson gets out to a 15-4 lead with 13:11 to go in the half as LN is sloppy vs the Jags 2-3 zone. They extend the lead to 25-13 with 7:44 to go in the half as Moses Alipate is playing well. Jefferson gets the last 4 points of the half to go to the locker room up 38-24. Moses Alipate with 10, Marcus Alipate comes in at 9:52 left and promptly hits a 3 and plays big minutes until his 3rd foul in about 7 minutes. Aaron Barmore with 9.

Jefferson extends the lead more to 46-27 with about 13 minutes to go. A long Aaron Gallegos 3 makes it 52-40 with 8:42 left but a Jefferson 13-4 blows the game open and Jefferson rolls 67-49. No one in double-figures for Lakeville North. Barmore with 21, Moses Alipate with 17 for Jefferson. Marcus Alipate contributes 10 points off the bench. Jefferson's 2-3 zone befuddled the Panthers all night and once LN got behind, they took quick 3s and this was one of those nights where nothing was falling so it got ugly.

Jefferson trying to maybe get the 5 seed in 2AAAA but not fall to #7. They also close to within a half game of Lakeville N in the Lake race for 5th. This one hurt Lakeville N in their race for the #2 in 3AAAA and they need to be careful as Rosemount and Eagan are right there with them.

South at Henry Observations

Minneapolis City action on this night as South travels to Henry. Its 16-15 Henry inside of 12 minutes when South goes on a 12-2 run over the next 6 minutes. South extends the lead to 35-23 with 3:15 left in the half. Inside of 2 minutes its 40-28 South but Jordan Hughes hits a 3 after a blocked shot, Mandela Jackson gets 2 after a scrum and another South turnover results in 2 FTs for Alonzo Melton which gives Henry 7 of the last 8 pts of the half. Halftime score is 41-35 South. Michael Adams had 15 and Devon Lamb has 9 in the half as Henry can't contain dribble penetration. Mandela Jackson with 11 in the half for Henry, Jordan Hughes cold shooting for only 6 points. Inside Melton and Evan Gray with 8, but Gray's points were early in the half.

South can't pull away in the early part of the 2nd half as its 60-49 with 10:23 to go. Both teams are in the bonus already. Henry then proceeds to start raining in 3s (Jackson with 2, Hughes with 1 and Louis Cox with 1) to go on a 16-4 run over the next 4 minutes to take a 65-64 lead with 6:25 to play. South is missing a ton of free throws but they're getting them back on the offensive glass, a cardinal sin. A Hughes 3 ties the game at 70 and then a nice post move by Jerome Vaughn gives Henry a 72-70 lead. DeShaun Tyler gets a bucket outside of 3 minutes to give South the lead 73-72 and they won't trail again. Lamb gets a nice post up and makes a tough shot after Cox misses a 3. Jackson makes 1 of 2 FTs to pull Henry with 2 at 2:25 (75-73). But Michael Adams makes 2 FTs, Will Ferguson gets 2 layups, Hughes misses 2 3s but hits one late to pull Henry within 4 but South tacks on 1 more Ferguson layup for a 87-81 South victory.

Mandela Jackson was somewhat out of control in the 1st half, but he had a really good 2nd half and finishes with a game high 27. Jordan Hughes with 3 3s in the 2nd half and he totals 17. Evan Gray with 13 but didn't get nearly enough inside touches. Minimal offense from Henry and their defense was suprisingly bad as they couldn't contain anything off the dribble. But that jives with their ranking as the 5th worst defensive team in class 3A giving up 73.5 PPG coming into tonight. Section 3AAA is another up for grabs section as the best records are Fridley at 8-7 and Spring Lake Park at 9-8. Henry falls to 8-9 with the loss and this hurts in the race for the #1 seed.

Henry tried some 1-2-2 3 quarter court trap on missed FTs which I found interesting as that's the 3rd team I've seen do that this year (Eastview vs Aquinas and Waukesha Catholic Memorial who does it on everything were the others). Pressing off a miss can be a good way to get cheap points if you can get organized since the offense usually isn't as organized on a miss. But they put a little guy on top which defeats the purpose (OK so that's a peeve of mine). Get a big guy up front on those odd-front zones so he's in a passing lane and you've got a tough guy to trap with. I also wish Henry would do more of that nasty diamond press (1-2-1-1) that they used last year with Jerome Vaughn on the ball.

For South, big games from all 3 guard spots. Devon Lamb with 19 (tough matchup too as he's strong enough to post up), Deshaun Tyler and Michael Adams with 20 each. While the loss hurts Henry in the Minneapolis City it keeps South with an outside look. As to the section race, we mentioned that 9-8 was the best record in 3AAA, South improves to 11-7 with the win and still only has the 5th best record in brutal section 6AAAA. North's 7th best 9-6 would be best in 3AAA.

Correction to Week 10 Tuesday night scoreboard club

Correction:

In my Week 10 Tuesday Night Scoreboard Club post, I said that Chisago Lakes star Josh Figini had 2 pts vs Benilde St. Margaret's. That information is incorrect, it was his brother Benj who had 2 pts. Josh actually had 18 points and 10 rebounds in the game.

My apologies to Josh Figini and Chisago Lakes for the mistake. I look forward to see them play tomorrow night in the boys/girls doubleheader at Totino-Grace.

Week 10 observations and Week 11 Schedule

I forgot to give it props when I did my Burnsville/Lakeville N write up, but the 1-2-2 matchup from Lakeville N was effective. Matchup zone really forces your team to communicate and I thought they did a nice job with it.

Saturday action

• Hopkins gives up 90 to Cass Lake-Bena but still wins in a rout.
• Edison with a nice win over Park Center. They need to start winning meaningful conference games.
• Roosevelt beats Como Park. I can't figure Roosevelt out. They looked awful vs Oh Day Aki, got blown out by North, Armstrong, Rockford and Minnehaha, but they got up 20+ on Henry at half and beat them and now this win. Big one on Monday at Washburn to finish up the 1st rotation of Minneapolis City play.

Week 11 Schedule:
Due to caucuses on Tuesday, games have been moved all over the place so lots of Monday and Wednesday action this week. For me, this is North Suburban conference week.

Monday: South at Henry. I'll see Henry for the 1st time. Jordan Hughes is fun to watch. Tartan at Sibley in the Classic Suburban. A Sibley win puts them 2 games ahead in the league. A Tartan win bring STA to within a game with games vs both teams remaining. Big games in the City leagues. Roosevelt at Washburn and Central goes to Como Park. Armstrong at Forest Lake. The Rangers have lost 5 out of their last 6 (only win vs Hastings).

Tuesday: Chicago Lakes at Totino-Grace (Boys+Girls). Brooklyn Center tries to stop their recent slide as they travel to Breck in a big Tri-Metro West game. A Breck win would move DLS to the top. Lakeville N at Jefferson in a good Lake matchup. SW Christian at New Life Academy in a matchup of top level MCAA teams.

Wednesday: Columbia Heights at Cooper. Cooper comes in mad after an upset loss at Irondale. the Hylanders come in high (no pun intended) after a home upset of Spring Lake Park. Always fun to watch Rodney Williams, Jr (1st time I'll see him in person this season) but Jacob Thomas of CH is on the star watch as well. Park Center at Coon Rapids and Anoka at Champlin Park are a couple of interesting NW Suburban games. DLS at SPA might be worth it just for the Davanni's pizza.

Thursday: Extremely light schedule. BSM goes to TG for another boys/girls doubleheader. Prior Lake at Red Wing in a good Missota Conference game. Oh Day Aki at CHOF in section 4A action.

Friday: Stillwater at Cretin-Derham Hall. Can CDH give the Ponies their 1st league loss? Cooper goes to Spring Lake Park, Minnetonka goes to Armstrong, Kennedy hosts Burnsville in good league games.

Saturday: Wayzata at Central (1:00). This should be a good non-conference test for the Trojans. Coach Ward didn't see Larry Brown do much on Saturday vs Washburn, he should see much more of him in this game.

BSM at DLS in my 3rd boys girls doubleheader of the week. This may be the longest single day of basketball I've heard of at 1 school. 3 undercard boys games starting at 9:30 AM, followed by 2 undercard girls games at 2:15 leading to the girls varsity game at 5:45 and the boys game at 7:30. I expect to see the BSM students out in force.

YTD Stats

• 91 games (64 MN split 54 boys and 10 girls, 27 WI split 23 boys and 4 girls)
• 35 buildings
• 125 teams (100 boys and 25 girls, 84 MN teams split 68 boys and 16 girls, 35 Wisconsin split 27 boys and 8 girls, 6 outstate split 5 boys and 1 girls)
• 2 Genders

Current Poll Stats
4A: 8 (Missing Rochester Mayo and Wayzata)
3A: 5 (BSM, STMA, Rocori, Como Park, AHA)
2A: 1 (St. Bernard's)
1A: 2 (MCA and CLB)

Week 10 Weekend Scoreboard Watching

Scoreboard watching from Thursday and Friday of week 10. I'll do the Saturday games as part of my Week 10 observations and Week 11 schedule post.

• Armstrong and Minnetonka open the Classic Lake schedule with wins. Wayzata's only 2 losses are to Osseo and Minnetonka. I look forward to seeing them on Saturday vs Central which then takes them full tilt into conference play.
  
• In the Classic Suburban, the 112-64 Sibley drubbing of Simley stuck out. Especially since Sibley was up 20 at the half and put up 63 in the 2nd half. That's backwards from what is normally seen in blowouts like this. And no that's not implying anything about running up the score (besides under very unique circumstances, I don't have a problem with it). Though it seems like starters stay in blowouts more now than they did when I played 15-20 years ago.
  
• In the Lake, Apple Valley beats Rosemount again and Eden Prairie hangs on for a 5 pt home win over Eagan. Rosemount drops to 4-7 and 8th in the Lake, disappointing season for the Irish.
• In the Minneapolis City, Roosevelt beats Henry (who had destroyed North who had destroyed Roosevelt, so much for logic in this case). Super sophs Jordan Hughes and Louis Cox only combine for 11 pts and Henry was down 46-25 at halftime, wow. Now the top of the league is a 3 way tie with Henry/Washburn/Roosevelt 4-1 with North 1 game back.
• In the Missota, Prior Lake gets a home win over Shakopee to move the Sabers out of the 1st place tangle at the top. Prior Lake up 16 at the half and were led by Tor Anderson's 18 pts.
  
• In the North Suburban, Columbia Heights pulls the 3pt home upset on Spring Lake Park and Cooper goes to Irondale and gets beat as Irondale wins the 2nd half of that game 41-26. Irondale holds Rodney Williams Jr to 18 pts. Irondale moves into 3rd place alone in the league and Cooper is now tied with BSM at the top 3 games clear.
• In the NW Suburban, Maple Grove goes to Coon Rapids and gets beat to give Osseo a 2 game lead and put Coon Rapids and Champlin Park only 1 game behind MG for 2nd.
• Forest Lake goes to Park and gets blown out by 19. Stillwater only gets 14 from Joel Armstrong but they still get a nice 10 point home win over Mounds View which takes them thru the 1st rotation of league play undefeated. Forest Lake's loss makes them 3-5 in a 3 way tie for 5th, 1 game behind Woodbury for the best of the rest distinction in the league. So you've got a Forest Lake team that isn't doing well in their league, ditto Cambridge-Isanti in the Mississippi 8 (6th) and those are the only 2 teams above 500 in section 7AAAA. That shows how wide open that section is. I've already been on 3 bandwagons in the section, I'm ready to jump again. At this rate, I'll pick every single team in the section to win it at 1 point or another.
  
• St. Bernard's with a 3 pt win at Minnehaha (Thursday). In addition to their loss on Thursday at CHOF, BC comes home and loses to St. Agnes. BC has lost 4 of 5 and their next 2 games are trips to Breck and Minnehaha. Breck also puts up 83 on St. Anthony. So now the Tri-Metro West is really interesting. BC and DLS are tied in the loss column and Minnehaha is only 1 game back. Bernard's is rolling in the East 3 games up with all the other Saints (except St. Elsewhere) 1 game behind Concordia in the loss column for 2nd.

Central at Washburn observations

Central gets out to an 11-4 lead with 13 minutes left in the 1st half. Washburn claws back and the teams go back and forth for a 28-26 Central lead at the half. Washburn was 3-12 from the line in the half. Cedric Martin with 6 pts but 1-6 FTs. Rashede Hageman picked up his 2nd foul at 9:12 and he sat the rest of the half. He was a force on the glass when he was in there and finished the half with just 2 pts. Seems like he's always in foul trouble when I see him play. Larry Brown with only 4 pts, Dylan Hale had 8 for the Minutemen.

Central comes out with the 1st 6 points of the 2nd half and after a Hale steal and layup its 38-30 Central with 13:40 left. But Martin hits a 3 and Hageman gets 2 inside buckets, followed by a Martin layup and 3 pt play as part of a 15-2 Washburn run. That run gives Washburn a 45-40 lead with 6:04 to go. Central gets 8 of the next 10 pts to go ahead 48-47 with 3:52 remaining. Nick Smith knocks down a 3 from Martin with 2:30 to play (remember that). Brown hits 2 of 2 FTs at 2:10 to tie the game at 50. That play was the 3rd straight possession where Brown got a post touch. I've been critical of teams not getting their stars touches when and where it mattered so this sequence by Central deserves praise. Washburn turns it over but Central doesn't get a good shot so its Washburn ball with 1:10 left. Larry Brown rebounds a miss with 45 seconds left and Central kills the clock until 13 seconds remain to take a timeout. At this point I'm thinking the same play call as the one that they used at the end against Minneapolis North. And sure enough, here comes Larry Brown to the left elbow but Cedric Martin does a great job of forcing him all the way to mid-court to catch the ball and then he tips it away and time expires. We go to OT tied at 50.

In the OT, Michael Adams makes 1 of 2 FTs to give Central a 51-50 lead with 2:24 to go. Martin misses a front end for Washburn at 1:24 left. Daanjerae Johnson makes 2 FTs for Central to put them up 53-50 with 1:03 to play. Nick Smith gets an open look off a pass from Martin after a timeout with 36 seconds left, but Washburn rebounds and Martin misses another front end with 27 seconds to play. Washburn doesn't foul until 7 seconds left and Johnson tacks on 1 more FT to give Central a 54-50 win.

Martin with 14 to lead Washburn but 2-9 from the line including 2 clutch front ends (so you could count this as 2-11) but he was a dominant force with the ball in his hands not just for himself, but he got his teammates good open looks as well. Hageman with a nice 2nd half of 9 pts to finish with 11 total. Washburn went scoreless the last 2:30 of regulation and the entire 4 minutes of overtime.

Dylan Hale leads Central with 15. Jordan Larson with a nice game of 12 points. Larry Brown only has 8 for Central. Both teams started 4 underclassmen. Central loses Brown which is a big loss, but Hageman and Martin both return next year for Washburn.

Whitefish Bay Domincan vs DeLaSalle observations

Dominican came into tonight's game 14-1 and ranked #1 in Division 3 (MN 2A). Their only loss was to a Racine Horlick team at Christmas that has a star forward like DLS does. I saw them in both games of that Christmas event. Very little different from them tonight so it was fun to watch.

DLS uses a 10-0 spurt near the end of the 1st half to get a 27-15 lead with Royce White starting to really dominate, but Jerrel Harris gets a gift goaltending call and hits a 3 in the last minute and a half so its only 31-23 DLS at the half. White has 14 points and looks unstoppable. AJ Barker chipping in nicely with 11 so those 2 have 25 of the DLS 31 pts. Kwamain Mitchell quiet with only 3 1st half pts and 2 fouls which cost him minutes. Harris has 9 and Mark Pace gave Dominican a nice lift with 3 pick and pop jumpers from 18 feet to have 6 first half points. Nice adjustment by Dominican in their screen/roll offense to always have the guy Royce White was guarding set the ball-screen so that White wouldn't be near the basket to contest and clog driving lanes.

It's 33-28 DLS when White picks up his 3rd foul with 14:39 to go and he goes to the bench. Jerrel Harris gets hot and he's got 8 points in the half with Bryce Hawkins getting 4 in a row to carry the DLS offense. 39 all at 11:15 and White is back in the game. He immediately gets a bucket. A Mitchell 3 makes it 42-41 Dominican at 10:20 for their 1st lead in forever. White picks up his 4th foul and has to go to the bench again at 8:38 with DLS clinging to a 45-44 lead. Dominican gets quick buckets from Mitchell and Pace to take a 48-45 lead with 7:52 to go and it looks like DLS is really on the ropes. Jeremy Randle makes 2 FTs and for some unknown reason Dominican goes to their slowdown game. That's the 1 thing DLS wants so that they can buy Royce some time. That doesn't mean to run and gun and shoot 3s to get a lead, but you don't take the air out of the ball which is what Dominican did. Wise gets 2 but Hawkins responds inside with 2 of his own. Dominican turns it over and Royce is back at 5:38 and DLS is only down 50-49. He promptly gets fouled but misses the front end of a 1 and 1. He goes over the back to get the rebound and he's gone with his 5th foul at 5:13. Now that delay game makes some sense. Despite a 5 count on Mitchell its 51-49 Dominican at 4:30 left. Tim O'Keefe hits 1 of 2 FTs with 3:44 to go. JD Wise gets a great bounce on a 3 from the corner to make it 54-50 Dominican with 3:20 left. Harris misses the front end of a bonus at 2:44 and Hawkins makes 1 of 2 at 2:27 to make it 54-51. Dominican still in the delay game but Jeremy Randle gets a steal and makes 2 FTs with 1:31 left to pull DLS to 54-53. Wise forces a bad shot at 1 minute left out of a timeout but Mitchell gets a steal and a layup with 30 seconds left to put Domincan up 3. Hawkins hits 2 FTs at 14.1 and Mitchell is clutch by hitting both ends of a 1 and 1 at 12.3. DLS has 1 last chance and Jeremy Randle gets a decent look at a 3 but its no good and Dominican wins 58-55.

For Dominican, Mitchell has 14 2nd half pts and he shares the team high of 17 pts with Jerrel Harris. JD Wise with 14. Give them lots of credit for making that late 1st half run and making plays when they needed to. It would have been really interesting to see how the late game would have unfolded if White would have been in there. But Dominican was the better team tonight and all credit to them. Impressive win for them as they get ready for state tournament play in 2 weeks.

For DLS, White finishes with 18, Barker with 13, Hawkins with 11. After 25 combined pts from White/Barker in the 1st half, those 2 only get 6 combined in the 2nd half. Hawkins with 9 of his points in the 2nd half when he really carried the offense. He's really a brute at 6'4 and he's only a sophomore. He's a scary inside presence for DLS in the next 2 years. They also have a JV player that I thought was similar. Not to mention the load of guards that they'll have coming thru the system. With White, Barker, Jaspers, Evan Williams and Hawkins all back next year, that's scary.

Lakeville North at Burnsville observations

Tonight's adventure takes me to Burnsville for their Lake Conference showdown with Lakeville N. Tarell Clark on display + top 30 junior David Berthene. 14-7 Lakeville N early before Burnsville closes to 24-22 inside of 7 minutes remaining in the 1st half. No huge run at its 37-31 LN with 1:58 left in the half. Berthene gets a 3 pt play, Brad Calhoun gets a layup off a wonderful screen/roll pass and Nick Judkins throws one in at the buzzer and Lakeville N has their biggest lead of the half. 42-33 Panthers at the break. Tarell Clark with 12 for Burnsville in the half. Tyler Swanson with a nice 1st half of 10 pts for Lakeville N

Burnsville always has some of the best halftime entertainment around (which more than makes up for all of the annoying advertising stuff they do) and tonight was no exception. The Blazettes did a nice dance routine to Billy Joel's Movin' Out. Useless sidenote, Billy Joel is terrific in concert and this song was part of it when he was here last year. Since I'm no Bernie Taupin, I won't try to parody the lyrics here to try and tell the story.

To the 2nd half, Swanson gets a backdoor layup off a great set play to start the half and the Panthers extend the lead to 48-35 at 15:30 and to 56-40 at 12:15. Burnsville gets to 58-45 with 8 to go and they have momentum. But Brad Calhoun badly misses the front end of a 1 and 1, Aaron Gallegos hits his 4th 3 of the night, a Burnsville turnover results in another Gallegos 3 and the lead is all the way out to 64-45 with 6:53 to go. But Tarell Clark won't let Burnsville go away. After a Alex Wheeler bucket, he gets a steal for a dunk, a layup and makes 1 of 2 FTs plus another steal and 2 FTs. Tack on a Max Van Ordstrand 3 and its a 12-0 Burnsville run in about 2 1/2 minutes. 64-57 Lakeville North with 4+ to go. Lakeville N throws up a questionable 3, but Clark overthrows an open Devon Knopke on a run out and Nick Judkins hits a 3 to extend the lead to 10. That starts a 15-4 Lakeville N run to close the game and they win 79-61 to avenge a 60-56 home loss on Dec 11th.

Great balance for the Panthers. Aaron Gallegos with 6 3s (but 1 of 4 from the line, amazing how that works) to lead them with 19. Nick Judkins with 18 at the other guard spot. Tyler Swanson with 18 and David Berthene with 14 for the inside players. Don't count them out of the picture in 3AAAA. But Eastview is a tough matchup for them, as demonstrated by the Jan 11th 25 pt loss. They lose Judkins next year but return their other 4 starters so look for them to be a title contender in the Lake next season.

Clark with 21 to lead Burnsville, Devon Knopke with 10 and Max Van Ordstrand with 8. Their running game is fun to watch, including their full-court pregame drill where they practice it. I like the detail where the guy who scores, actually takes the ball out of the net and then out of bounds to throw the outlet pass. Burnsville's guard play ranks up there with just about anybody with Clark, VanOrdstrand and Knopke. Can they find some inside play for tournament time to deal with Grinnell/Emory of Eastview and Swanson/Berthene of Lakeville North?