NY2LA Spring Extravaganza: Sunday
The Ny2La Spring Extravaganza finished Sunday with Minnesota teams winning the 15U division (Fury Zurn), the 17U division (WOTN), taking second in 16U (Crossfire), and playing well in the league (Comets and Select).
Five Takes
One. Fury Zurn, time to start talking national top 25, without a doubt. They won the Comets Shootout including beating 43 Hoops 15U by a strong margin which was a good win. They went to Iowa and lost to a top 25 team in MoKan by two scores and that’s the Fury only loss. This weekend they wiped the court with everybody including All Iowa Attack in the final. Jaylen James (Eagan) was out there shooting the lights out in the title game plus they have skilled size in Cameron Steele (Minnetonka), Brady Williams (Dover-Eyota) is one of the classes most explosive finishers, and Colin Meade (Lourdes) is another quality big. Overall they really have only been challenged this year by an EYBL team, the Barnstormers, and a quality South Dakota Attack group. 15-1.
Two. Wisconsin Head Coach Greg Gard watched Joseph Hedstrom and the Minnesota Comets twice yesterday along with assistant Dean Oliver who watched Hedstrom previously in the weekend as well. The interest is very real. Hedstrom scored four of six deep paint attempts against Team Blaze and had eight points and seven boards in a low scoring battle over Omaha Elite. With Oliver watching Saturday night Hedstrom scored a dominating 19 on seven of nine shooting plus made five of six foul shots.
Three. Many are still in the process of figuring out exactly what level Noah Freidel is as a player, but many do know that Freidel can simply score. At one point his team relied on him for 15 of their first 30 shots and he kept them in the game knocking down jumpers over the length of the best Kingdom Hoops defenders. This is a Kingdom Hoops team that won the event and has lost three games in the past two seasons and Freidel scored nine of 19 looks for his 24 points against constant attention. Kingdom played the 6-foot-3/6-foot-4 wing from the South Dakota Attack/Tea Area High School with their best defender and then overloaded the help behind that defender, and Noah still produced. His corner three late in the game was a true corner three as he shot the ball back to the left over the defender and still made it at a crazy angle. Scholarship kid? Of course. What level exactly? Time will tell.
Four. The 43 Hoops/Fury Antl performances. The 17U semi-final brought a lot of high quality play. Four guys stood out the most starting with the Fury. Max Bjorklund (Orono) started the game on fire making seven of his first eight attempts. Can Max shoot off the bounce? You better believe it. He made five jumpers separating off the dribble plus his defense resulted in open floor scores. In the second half the consistent scorer that is Manny Jingco (Stillwater) knocked down his smoother jumpers to get him to 18 points plus he hustled for ten boards.
43 Hoops won the game and things changed when Deunda Robinson (and others) put the clamps on Bjorklund. Not only did Robinson (Columbia Heights) defend well but scored 13 points mostly in transition. The biggest factor in the win was 43 Hoops getting 22 points from Wendell Matthews (Columbia Heights). Wendell had early trouble with the Fury size around the rim but Wendell moves way better and had more stamina. He simply beat the opposing bigs up the floor or to the rim within the halfcourt and completed plays. Over and over.
Five. WOTN is on the up! They won open division and this team is playing better together and they have more prospects on the squad than I think people anticipated. You saw some division two schools from the NSIC slide over there quite a few times. I would assume that was to see the play of Tyler Lewko and Dalton Kubista among others. Lewko put himself in a different category this weekend. Also, Nolan Melo is a guy that has really caught my eye. Love his length and touch as a wing. Caden Freetly is a better prospect than I expected, Andrew Jackson has some agility at the four, Bryce Phillips is a solid PG who had a really nice semi-final, and overall this is a team that could really do well in the SPTS starting next weekend.
More Notes
- Nathan Rund knocked out six jumpers against Team Blaze including three treys. That’s the type of shooting that the Fergus Falls/Comets guard can bring. Also in that game Ethan Youso impressed hitting a mid-range jumper, an up and under, and another spin move out of the post.
- Matt Todd played one of his best games of the weekend versus Omaha Elite Sunday morning scoring 16 against an excellent ball pressure defender. Todd was able to get middle using an attack left with or without a screen which became pull-us or one of his six assists. Many schools watched he, Hedstrom, and Brevyn Spann-Ford including David Richman of NDSU, USD (Gameli Ahelegbe and Austin Hanson), UND (head Coach Brian Jones), IUPUI, American (Eddie Jackson), Denver, Nebraska-Omaha (Tyler Bullock), Loyola (IL), Cal Irvine, New Mexico, Drake (David Thorson and Ali Farokhmanesh were each in Minneapolis this weekend), and many others.
- Our guy Luke Martens closed out a great weekend with 14 points and 14 rebounds against Colorado Force. The boys from the mountains not only had trouble with the Apple Valley talent, they couldn’t stop Beijan Newbern’s attack or pair of corner threes (16 points) nor did they deal well with CJ Dickson who used his activity for 14.
- Kingdom Hoops dominated the 16U level much like Fury Zurn dominated the 15U level of play. Casey Kleemeir had the jumper working with good results, Arturo Montes chased down every loose ball available when he was on the court, Kylan Smallwood scored three times with seven boards and made Freidel go over his length on the defensive end, plus Agueck Deng showed some of that quick off his feet potential. The length of Deng allows him to play bigger than he is. South Dakota Attack nor the Minnesota Crossfire were able to get any good looks around the cup because of Deng’s length and nobody on Sunday could contest his finishes when he had a step to the rim.
- Start watching Gavin Bates or pay for it in the future local programs! This is one of the toughest players in the state. Scored another 17 yesterday in a Comets Servaty win over a California team.