The Race for Mr. Basketball
Matthew Hurt had his first statement game last week when he put up 55 points on Winona. Where does everyone sit in the Race for the top individual high school award in Minnesota? NHR gives you the latest. The Leader,…
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Continue ReadingMatthew Hurt had his first statement game last week when he put up 55 points on Winona. Where does everyone sit in the Race for the top individual high school award in Minnesota? NHR gives you the latest.
The Leader, Matthew Hurt. Hurt is averaging 39 points a game on 65.7 percent shooting from the field (69 of 105), 10 of 22 shooting at the arc, and 46 of 59 shooting at the foul line (78 percent). Matthew gets all the defensive attention and he’s playing with teammates that are still greatly inexperienced, but the percentages and numbers are still there. Hurt had 39 of his team’s 59 points last night against Austin making 16 of 22 shots. Last Friday Hurt made 14 of 21 shots, 22 of 25 foul shots, and five threes against Winona scoring 55. Hurt is also putting up 8.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, a couple blocks, and 3.2 steals a game.
Final Five. Lakeville North picked up a key win over Eastview last night once again led by Wisconsin bound Tyler Wahl. Tyler is scoring 24 points a contest with a dozen boards a contest. Zeke Nnaji of Hopkins had a big performance at the Southside Showcase on Saturday scoring 35 against a team from Madison. Nnaji is scoring 23.7 points a game and at Hopkins that’s a very high total as rarely do Royal players consistently put a number like that on the board.
East Ridge’s Courtney Brown Jr has pushed himself into the Final Five talk through hard work and an explosive ability that scored 25 points with a double-double in a win against CDH last Friday. Brown had 19 in a loss to Eden Prairie last evening and is scoring 19.8 a game. David Roddy missed his team’s game versus Brooklyn Center to prepare for the Minnesota High School Football All Star game but he is averaging 23.5 points and 15 boards a game. Tyrell Terry has missed the last pair of DeLaSalle games and is expected to miss several more.
Top Ten. Some time in January a watch list will be published by the Mr. Basketball committee that includes somewhere between 20 and 30 names. The list will be brought down to ten names sometime in February. What other ten could we see on that list?
Jamison Battle is scoring 31 plus a night for the Islanders having the type of performances he is capable of nearly every night.
Isaac Fink still has Springfield at number one in Class A and he is still putting up massive numbers that will have him top five in the history of Minnesota high school hoops in scoring when it’s all done (along with Hurt).
Edina’s Jack Middleton has proved that not only is he once again a top defender in state, he’s also shooting the ball at a high percentage scoring over 25 a game.
A name that needs to be thrown in at least for good consideration is Bennett Otto. The Champlin Park has led his team into the top ten averaging 18.5 points, nine rebounds, 5-6 assists, and three steals a game.
There are several other names fighting for spots on the watch list and the top ten, guys like Noach Christensen, Cole Nicholson, Jacob Beeninga, Matthew Johnson, and many more. Earning a spot in the top ten will be very tough.