The Race for Mr. Basketball
The Mr. Basketball award is the most prestigious individual award in Minnesota high school sports. The committee announced several dates for the 2019 award and NHR uses those dates to preview the award a bit.
Week of January 14 – Watch list
The Watch List was about 25 names last year so today we give you our leading 25 names to make that watch list. None of these names are a certainty, but it’s our predicted top 25-30 names for the watch list of the award.
Brandon Adelman of New London-Spicer, Jamison Battle of DeLaSalle, Jacob Beeninga of Wayzata, Courtney Brown Jr of East Ridge, Tommy Chatman of Park Center, Noah Christensen of Breckenridge, Jalen Dearring of Hopkins, Isaac Fink of Springfield, Cade Goggleye of North Woods, Charlie Gorres of Park of Cottage Grove, Maleeck Harden of Moorhead, Matthew Hurt of Rochester JM, Matthew Johnson of Fergus Falls, Robert Jones of Prior Lake, Jake Kettner of Minnesota Valley Lutheran, Antwan Kimmons of Tartan, Jaeden King of Cretin-Derham Hall, Jack Middleton of Edina, Cole Nicholson of Chaska, Zeke Nnaji of Hopkins, Baden Noennig of Mayer Lutheran, Bennett Otto of Champlin Park, Jared Rainey of Maple Grove, David Roddy of Hopkins, Deszi Sims of Minneapolis Roosevelt, Tyrell Terry of DeLaSalle, Jack Thompson of St. Thomas Academy, Tyler Wahl of Lakeville North, Malik Willingham of Waseca
Week of February 4 – Top 10
Who do we at NHR think will make the top ten list for the award come February? He is our prediction.
Jacob Beeninga of Wayzata
Courtney Brown Jr of East Ridge
Noah Christensen of Breckenridge
Isaac Fink of Springfield
Matthew Hurt of Rochester JM
Cole Nicholson of Chaska
Zeke Nnaji of Hopkins
David Roddy of Breck
Tyrell Terry of DeLaSalle
Tyler Wahl of Lakeville North
Week of March 4 – Final Five
This is where it gets very tough. Hopefully everybody is healthy and the choices are made based on successful seasons. And it that happens I feel like the Final Five come March will be Matthew Hurt, Zeke Nnaji, Tyrell Terry, Tyler Wahl, and David Roddy.
March 26 (at Timberwolves game) – 2019 Mr. Basketball winner
The heavy favorite for the award is Matthew Hurt. What level of a favorite? Matthew is about the same level as a favorite that Tre Jones (2018) and Tyus Jones (2014) were in recent years. Hurt is likely to finish top five scoring all time and blow away the record for the highest point total by a big school player.