Eden Prairie 78 Minnehaha Academy 64 – Top 5 Prospect Performances
From door to door, there were prospects galore when Eden Prairie and Minnnehaha Academy took the floor. Want to know more? Prep Hoops provides the run down. One. John Henry. Sioux Falls committed wing John Henry had a rough start…
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Continue ReadingFrom door to door, there were prospects galore when Eden Prairie and Minnnehaha Academy took the floor. Want to know more? Prep Hoops provides the run down.
One. John Henry. Sioux Falls committed wing John Henry had a rough start to Tuesday night’s much anticipated match-up. Prince Aligbe‘s defense was contesting John’s attempts hard so Henry missed on six of his first seven shot attempts. With the score at 25-14 late in the first half Henry went at the rim and was fouled. He made one of two free throws plus hit a three the next time down. Little did anybody know that when Coach Lance Johnson called a timeout to slow the momentum at 25-18, it was too late.
Why? With the three-point make and the foul shot completion John Henry got that feeling. And he didn’t stop dropping buckets until the Eagles were up double digits and the buzzer was about to sound. You see once the Redhawks defense got rattled, they were scrambling all over. And the last situation you want to be confused and out of position in, is when John gets hot. Henry made 8 of his final 11 shots and six of those were behind the arc. He scored a game high 29 points on 9 of 17 shooting (7 triples) plus grabbed seven boards. The game MVP.
Two. Drake Dobbs. Liberty signed point guard Drake Dobbs had an off shooting night, but everything else about the Eagle leader was 100 percent dead on. Once the Redhawks began to get frustrated by lack of offensive results and anger at the officials, Dobbs took advantage by serving up teammates with high percentage attempts. Drake put the ball on the hands of both John Henry and Austin Andrews several times and all they had to do was take the comfortable attempt. Dobbs also attacked the Redhawks late closeouts and slow transition for a pair of important pull-ups and one three. Add in the five foul shots late (9 of 12 foul shooting for the game) and the captain did his job effectively.
Three. Hercy Miller. No this was not the result that Minnehaha Academy wanted BUT it was a big game for junior point guard Hercy Miller who showed the state of Minnesota the potential he has. A key part of the Drake Dobbs shooting struggles was Miller’s foot speed being able to keep up with Drake and getting a hand in his vision. Miller also mixed in three impressive attack finishes of quality body control to softly complete, with three makes at the arc. He chased down five boards, dished out four assists, and scored 19 points on 6 of 10 shooting. Not only did Miller put himself near the top of the list of top 2021 Minnesota lead guard prospects, he may be sitting alone at the top of that list.
Four. Will Foster. Box score? Nah, don’t worry about the box score. Know that Will Foster at one point switched off from cutting off a Hercy Miller attack to go back to his man, seven foot Chet Holmgren. And I’m not kidding. Foster spent a lot of the game shoving on the lower part of Holmgren’s body moving him to spaces away from the basket and completely harassing Holmgren. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Foster has spent time on guys like Dawson Garcia as well. But the defense of Foster, plus an attacking score that tied the game at 59, and five assists, was a key part to the Eagles win. Will is a 6-foot-1 junior guard.
Five. Chet Holmgren. If I am looking at the previous box scores correctly I see that Chet has now made the last 21 field goal attempts he’s put up. Chet made all five shots he took last night, all seven he took on Saturday, all six in the game before that (not sure if I saw that correctly or not), and his last three from the previous game. When you consider that Chet hasn’t had one back to the basket shot attempt in the last two games, that’s pretty impressive. Last night Chet took five shots, made five shots. He was the best rebounder on the floor collecting a dozen boards in heavy traffic, and he blocked six shots. One of them I don’t believe he actually blocked, it was more that he scared the ball out of the hands of Dobbs on the baseline but the ref thought Chet hit it so it had to be record as a block (as it had to of been a shot then). I would of liked to see Chet get way more quality touches but we did see him record a double-double of 11 points and 12 boards.