Breakdown State Tournament: Class A Takeaways
The Breakdown State Tournament took over Bloomington Sunday, with Henning, Caledonia, Mankato East and Park Center taking home championship honors. With most of the top teams from each respective class in attendance, there was no shortage of high-end talent on…
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Continue ReadingThe Breakdown State Tournament took over Bloomington Sunday, with Henning, Caledonia, Mankato East and Park Center taking home championship honors. With most of the top teams from each respective class in attendance, there was no shortage of high-end talent on display all day long.
I get it. It’s July. We got five months still before the season starts and everything that happens in a tournament like this one should be taken with a grain of salt. Teams don’t have all their guys. Some guys are injured from playing grassroots. Some guys are out of shape from not playing at all. The coaches haven’t gotten their hands on the teams yet and things might be a little loosy goosy. Whatever it is, teams aren’t complete, so the results and anything we glean from what we see should be taken through an incomplete lense.
That said, I’m taking stuff away from what I saw knowing full well everything is subject to change.
1. For the third year in a row, there isn’t a runaway favorite in Class A
When Minneapolis North moved up to Class AA, there was an overwhelming feeling of wide-openness across Class A again. That proved to be true both years as Russell-Tyler-Ruthton and Henning emerged as state champs despite other teams coming in higher in the rankings or with more notoriety.
Is some of that “us” not properly identifying just how good these teams were? Probably. But it’s also proof that there just is no wide-open favorite. Play the last two state tournaments again five times over and there might be three or four new state champs. That’s the beauty of things.
With that said…
2. Henning looks equipped to make another state tourney run
The Hornets lost a number of key rotation guys and their best player from last year’s state championship team. They don’t have a superstar who profiles as a First Team All State type guy or even a guy who looks like a legitimate favorite to win like a Conference Player of the Year.
That’s fine. They’ve got two really good looking guards in Parker Maki and Isaac Fisher who will be viable 12-16 point-per-game guys and rock-solid defenders. They have a great collection of athletes who can defend, play pressure defense and score in secondary fashion. They’ve got a great mix of returning guys plus young talent ready for natural role ascension. They put all those things on display over the weekend on the way to winning the tournament title. Does that make them the No.1 team heading into next winter in Class A? It might.
3. Section 2A might not produce a state champ, but it’s loaded yet again
Section 2A has been the deepest region in the state for a few years now and even with a pair of superstars in Ike Fink and Jake Kettner graduating (all time bests at Springfield and Minnesota Valley Lutheran), the section will still have an incredible amount of competition and high-end talent.
Waterville-Elysian-Morristown and BOLD both could be top-five teams in the state heading into the year. WEM’s got multi-year starters back in Cole Kokoschke and Grant McBroom plus a really nice core of returners including a potential breakout candidate at point guard in Domanik Paulson. BOLD’s got a trio of guards that can stack up against anybody in the state in Gavin Vosika, Jordan Sagedahl and Drew Sagedahl. New Ulm Cathedral and Mayer Lutheran were 20-plus win teams a year ago and had moments over the weekend. Those two teams might not be top-four seeds in that section though. Nicollet has an awesome duo in Riley Hulke and Shane Stevenson and looks like a 20-plus win team. And Springfield and MVL both bring back really good teams led by Decker Scheffler and Mitch Buerkle (Springfield) and Dunwa Omot, Jace Marotz and Mason Cox (MVL).
That’s just a few of the high-end teams and there will be more that emerge. That section is going to be a grind.
4. The depth of Class A should make for a lot of great nights
There were 12 solid teams in the field last week and yet, there are probably at five teams that will be ranked in the top-10 or so that weren’t there in North Woods, Minneota, Ada-Borup, Springfield and MVL. Add in teams like Randolph, Cromwell-Wright, Southwest Christian and a bunch of others and it looks like we could be headed towards a Class A season with a ton of intrigue on a nightly basis. That sets up a lot of intriguing conference races, a lot of section seed implications and just in general, a lot of competition. After a lackluster state tournament last spring that saw a lot of games decided in blowout fashion, some nip-and-tuck competition would be awesome.