The Top Spot: D1 & Panthers both go 2-0 Saturday
Losing? It just isn’t happening to Minnesota’s top squads at the highest level. Four more wins for the best in the state and NHR tracks how it happened.
Howard Pulley. The Panthers took on Blake Griffin’s team first on Saturday and defeated the .500 club in a big way (70-46) dominating the glass 51-26. The Panthers then defeated a long time talented Ohio Basketball Club 91-72 as nobody could slow down their offensive roll. The halfcourt offense combined with their full court attack to give them nine treys and a 35 of 60 shooting evening.
Brad Davison was about as efficient as a guy can be in the EYBL. He made 12 of 16 looks on Saturday sinking all eight free throw attempts and making 8 of 12 treys. That was good for 40 points plus he dished out 14 assists and in the second half of both of those games Davison gave way to the bench. Great day for him.
Gary Trent Jr shot 13 of 28 on Saturday scoring 18 in each game making all his foul shots. Gary was efficient maintaining his 21 point per game average with near 50 percent field goal shooting which has been the regular so far this spring.
2018 Gabe Kalscheur made six treys in the two games, Isaac Johnson scored 13 against All Ohio Red, Tre Jones had an eight assist game, and the bigs did their part as well. Theo John made half of his dozen looks while grabbing 13 boards in two games and blocking five shots. 2018 big Daniel Oturo grabbed the attention of many with a 20 rebound game plus he made 8 of 13 shots scoring eight in each game.
D1 Minnesota. D1 beat both of their opponents not by quite the same margin but they won their games by a combined 20 points handling Team Fast and Team Loaded-North Carolina. The win over Team Loaded was dominated by a load of foul shots. D1 was the victor because the 11 rebound edge and they forced their opponents to 32 percent shooting from the floor. In the second game D1 slowed up Team Fast who couldn’t get near the rim so had to settle for 26 treys of which they made three.
Goanar Mar was the story of the day for D1 Minnesota. The 6-foot-7 forward made half of his 20 attempts, made 15 of 19 free throws, and scored 37 points in the two wins. Mar continues to also defend at a high level, he’s been clutch at the foul line, and grabbed six boards in one of the games. Goanar seems like a player who excels more and more as a season goes on as he becomes more comfortable with those around him.
It was a big day for Ishmael El-Amin who made 10 of 14 shots including five treys and scored 28 points in two games plus had six assists and five boards in the win against Team Loaded. McKinley Wright had six points, nine boards, five assists, and pretty much did whatever his team needed against Team Fast. Wright had ten points and six boards against Team Loaded. Jack Hutchison had eight after a couple treys against Team Fast.
Up front Matthew Hurt 15 points and eight rebounds in the Team Loaded game, Jericho Sims grabbed ten boards in the two contests, and Nathan Reuvers had 14 against Team Fast giving him 22 for the day on a team high 22 shots. D1 has been using a line of 6-ft-7 Mar, 6-ft-9 Hurt, 6-ft-9 Jericho, and 6-ft-10 Reuvers at times with McKinley at point guard.