The Breakdown December Events Announced
The official start of the high school basketball season is the first practice but the first get togethers of the Minnesota basketball community come at the pair of Breakdown Tip-Off events in early December. The schedule of games has been announced.
The Big 12 Classic
Instead of having four boys games mixed in with the Girls Tip Off Classic the boys have been moved to a different campus where they will be apart of something called The Big 12 Classic. There will be six games at Cretin-Derham Hall High School starting 11am and going through the final game that starts at 7:45.
Lakeville North vs Edina (Jack Middleton and Tyler Wahl are former summer teammates and two of the better wings in the state)
Perham vs Minnehaha Academy (A Class AA match-up of David vs Goliath, outstate vs metro)
Prior Lake vs Park Center (Dain Dainja facing Dawson Garcia/Robert Jones, Sam Nissen vs Khari Broadway/Tommy Chatman)
Wayzata vs Cretin-Derham Hall (Love these backcourts going at one another)
East Ridge vs Hopkins (Ben Carlson and Courtney Brown vs Zeke Nnaji and Dane Zimmer, Kendall Brown taking on Kerwin Walton)
Eden Prairie vs DeLaSalle (These are the teams some people believe are the respected favorites in each of their classes)
Tip Off Classic
Court 1
St. Thomas Academy vs Cooper. (A pair of top ten level Class AAA teams with strong guards leading: Jack Thompson, Jalen Justice)
Lake City vs Breck. (Big Class AA match-up of top ten level squads. Breck has David Roddy up front, LC with Nate Heise on the wing)
DeLaSalle vs Wayzata. (Think two big themes: Defense for certain, and a PG battle of the best two Senior PGs Terry and Beeninga)
Rochester JM vs Cretin-Derham Hall. (The top 2019 in the state Matthew Hurt vs the top 2022 in the state Trejuan Holloman)
Lakeville North vs Hopkins. (Tyler Wahl and teammates get to face Zeke Nnaji of Hopkins who started his career at North).
Prior Lake vs East Ridge. (2020 battle of Ben Carlson vs Dawson Garcia grabs your attention first, good seniors in this game too).
Park Center vs Eden Prairie. (A match-up of two of the deeper teams in Class AAAA going head to head)
Champlin Park vs Minnehaha Academy. (We didn’t get Jalen Suggs vs Jalen Johnson of Sun Prairie like planned, but a deep and big Champlin Park team vs Minnehaha will be quite interesting as well).
Court 2
Brooklyn Center vs Totino-Grace. (The young talent in this game is something to keep a definite eye on).
Rochester Mayo vs Minnetonka. (Mason Madsen vs Cameron Steele could be good, Gabe Madsen leads Mayo).
New London-Spicer vs Minneapolis Roosevelt. (Fun match-up in Class AA, Deszi Sims vs Brandon Adelman will draw eyes).
Perham vs Caledonia. (Two of the better squads in Class AA face-off on neutral grounds, Jenson Beachy vs Noah King will be good).
North Woods vs Mayer Lutheran. (State teams from Class A highlighted by Baden Noennig and Cade Goggleye)
Sun Prairie (WI) vs New Prague. (Teams going through change, Sun Prairie still has some D1 kids, NP is a big team).
Tartan vs Edina. (Antwan Kimmons and a tough group of guards against Jack Middleton, Jacob Hutson, and a sizeable team).
Eastivew vs Minneapolis North. (This is a sneaky good game with Eastview’s 2020 studs facing the Senior-Youth mix at North).