WDA Tournament Preview
Playoffs?!? We talking about playoffs? We are in fact talking about the playoffs. The regular season is over at the Class A level in North Dakota. Now we turn our attention to the postseason where the WDA and EDC conference…
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Continue ReadingPlayoffs?!? We talking about playoffs? We are in fact talking about the playoffs. The regular season is over at the Class A level in North Dakota. Now we turn our attention to the postseason where the WDA and EDC conference tournaments will take place next week.
With four teams from each league getting spots in the state tournament, the competition will be fierce.
Here’s what you need to know about the WDA Tournament:
Favorite: Jamestown
The Bluejays have been the dominant team in the state from start to finish, passing every test with flying colors throughout the season. They’ve beaten the next four teams in the WDA standings a combined eight times by a combined 148 points. It hasn’t been particularly close.
Suffice to say: the Bluejays losing at all at this point would be an upset.
They’ve got Mason Walters – my pick for WDA Player-of-the-Year at this point – and Boden Skunberg which means they almost always have the two best players on the floor. Their role players have come along nicely and they execute at an efficient level on both ends of the floor.
Jamestown isn’t just the favorite to win the WDA Tournament, the Bluejays are the favorite to win a state title too.
Contenders: Bismarck, Mandan
The second, third, fourth and fifth seeds in this tournament aren’t separated by much on paper or on the court. But given the likelihood that these two teams will face each other in the second round of the tournament (or the semifinals), one of them will have a shot at playing against Jamestown (assuming some other team doesn’t shock the North Dakota world) and thus will already have secured a spot in the state tournament.
The loser of this hypothetical game will be in a much more precarious position given it would have to win against the team that loses in the 1-4/5 game and given there isn’t a great deal of separation between all these teams, that wouldn’t be a cakewalk by any stretch.
Bismarck started out hot, tabled a bit in the middle of the year and ended things seemingly playing extremely well. Joe Jahner is one of the best guards in the state and can score with the best of them while Will Madler has picked things up considerably and Canyon Stonecipher has been a hoss inside.
Mandan has arguably the state’s best offense and probably the second best one-two punch in Elijah Klein and Trey Weist. Jaxton Wiest has been steady at the point guard spot and the Braves just picked up a massive win over Bismarck Century in which they showed they are capable of playing seriously high level defense.
Fighting for a spot: Bismarck Century, Minot
Bismarck Century looked like it was getting hot and firing on all cylinders heading into the postseason before the Patriots took a butt-whooping at the hands of Mandan last weekend and followed it up with a loss to Minot in the regular season finale. That doesn’t change much as this team is still awfully good. Treyton Mattern hasn’t always shot the ball well this year, but he’s been in big spots before and come through. He’s turned in a POY caliber season. Cade Feeney missed some time early in the year but his return helped propel the Patriots to greater heights. His two-way play is a big key for a team that doesn’t seem to get consistent scoring anywhere else.
A team that isn’t hurting for offense is Minot. The Magicians shoot and share the ball as well as any team in the state. They’ve got terrific perimeter players in Jaxon Gunville, Alex Schimke and Deonte Martinez and they are playing as well as they’ve played all season.
These two teams will play in the 4/5 game of the WDA tournament and in a strange way, the loser will actually have a better chance to get to the state tournament. There’s a fairly significant dropoff after the fifth team in the league, which means – assuming there aren’t any other big upsets in the first round – the loser of this game will be playing against teams that it is – on paper – significantly better than while the winner will in all likelihood have to face Jamestown and ether Mandan or Bismarck needing a win.
That’s a challenging road – but it also means there are going to be some really exciting matchups in practically every round of the tournament involving one of these two teams most likely.
Could Bust a Bracket: Bismarck St. Mary’s
Last year, the team that busted the brackets was Jamestown (and Bismarck St. Mary’s actually) as the Bluejays upset Mandan and beat Bismarck St. Mary’s before losing to Century in the final. The Saints won three games in the WDA tournament last year, upsetting Bismarck in the second round before getting to state and while a big chunk of that core is gone, there is still talent in the cupboard where a run feels at last conceivable. Ben Schmidt and Jaxon Wiseman combine to average nearly 40 points per game on the perimeter.