The Week Ahead: The Top Ten Holiday Tournaments
This year Minnesota high school basketball fans have a strong five straight days of potential holiday basketball watching. Where are the best places to go? Read NHR now for our top ten holiday events to see across the state! Breakdown…
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Continue ReadingThis year Minnesota high school basketball fans have a strong five straight days of potential holiday basketball watching. Where are the best places to go? Read NHR now for our top ten holiday events to see across the state!
- Breakdown Granite City Classic, Dec 29 and 30. The 29th is at St. Cloud State, the 30th is at St. Cloud Apollo. Seven games both days. The better day to watch is the 30th without question considering that Maple Grove and Apple Valley are the main event. Woodbury vs St. Cloud Tech, Madison East vs Champlin Park, Orono vs Lakeville South, and Rocori vs Delano are also games on the 30th. The 29th is likely better than any other place you will go as Champlin Park faces Woodbury, Apple Valley is against Madison East, Delano is against Tech, Orono vs Rocori, and MG takes on Lakeville South. Tough to beat seven games in one day.
- Rochester Rotary Classic, Dec 27-29. There are four different four team brackets so 16 teams in all. The top one features JM vs Cooper, and Lake City vs Rosemount and the winners and losers playing each other accordingly. Seeing Matthew Hurt and Dedoch Chan against Luke and Alec Loehr would be excellent. Lourdes vs Kennedy and STA facing White Bear Lake is another good four team bracket. The third is Century vs East Ridge and Mahtomedi against Burnsville. Looking at that you wonder why a few of those teams weren’t mixed with the best of the first bracket considering how talented Courtney Brown and Parker Fox are with talent around them on their teams. The last bracket is Mayo against Washburn and Sibley against PEM.
- Tartan, Dec 27-29. A traditional three day, eight team event where each team gets three games. This is a day to see some talent as Texas signed big Jericho Sims will be there with Cristo Rey, Spring Lake Park, Forest Lake, and Rogers have quality talent to watch, Tartan is a top ten team with Siena signed Jordan Horn, and Carmel Catholic from Illinois has 6-foot-4 sophomore Johnny Roeser who is a top ten level player in his class in Illinois.
- Lakeville North Tournament, Dec 28 and 29. Two day, four team event. Starts with Armstrong versus Northfield, and North against BSM. The best bang for the buck(et) talent wise with Race Thompson, Nathan Reuvers, and several others. It’s a two game a day thing though so you can’t just park yourself for the afternoon.
- Above the Rim Classic, Dec 28-29. I don’t know if Above the Rim rose from the grave and is sponsoring it or if Minneapolis North just grabbed the name, either way, I like it. The Polars play Red Lake and Brooklyn Center in set games. Two days, two set games for each. Also here is Michele Clark Prep.
- Eden Prairie, Dec 27 and 29. It falls a bit short ranking wise because there are only four teams but the quality of game should be very good with Edina, Chaska, Eden Prairie, and Shakopee. This isn’t a tournament, it’s just set games. EP and Edina actually play a conference game. Chaska and Edina play at 6pm on Tuesday which should be excellent with Myles Hanson, Andrew Kallman, Walt McGrory, and Anders Nelson competing.
- Augsburg Holiday Classic, Dec 28-30. Hopkins and Minnehaha Academy are the headliners. There really isn’t a huge match-up that everybody must plan for but some good teams to see as Centennial and Eastview are here among others. The event ends on the 30th with Hopkins and Minnehaha Academy but the Redhawks don’t have JaVonni Bickham. Watching Jalen Suggs vs Ishmael El-Amin and Anthony Davis will be good.
- UST Catholic Spirit Holiday event, Dec 27-29. I don’t know if that is still the name but that’s what it used to be. They likely dropped the catchy name as it’s just three teams in the event, playing twice over three days. Park Center, Cretin-Derham Hall, and Wayzata are in it. Three quality games for sure. You get a chance to see why Park Center is being talked so highly about as well as two other top ten level talent squads.
- Bethel Holiday Tournament, Dec 27-29. This is two different four teams events with one starting the 27th, another starting the 28th, and four games being played on the 28th with two on the 27th and 29th. Bloomington Jefferson and St. Louis Park are the headliners but unfortunately they are in different events. Many of the teams in the event are struggling although St. Francis and Mounds View are traditionally solid. Minnetonka will also be a tough out.
- Mike Miller Classic, Dec 29-30. We throw this in at the bottom as it’s in South Dakota over two days. DeLaSalle, Henry, Prairie Seeds, teams from South Dakota, IMG Academy from Florida and La Lumiere from Indiana (both big time prep schools), and many others.