Breakdown State: Class AAA Notes
The Breakdown State tournament at the Class AAA level was an interesting one given the team that’s won the state title the last six seasons wasn’t there and a handful of teams were without some of their top players.
St. Thomas Academy staked a claim to be a top-three or four team heading into next season with an impressive showing as the Cadets beat Fergus Falls in dominating fashion, Totino-Grace thanks to a second half surge and an undermanned Austin team in the championship.
Here are some takeaways from the tournament
Picking a preseason favorite is going to be really hard
St. Thomas Academy certainly made a strong case for consideration at the top, destroying Fergus Falls and beating Totino-Grace handily. The Cadets had a mixed showing at state last spring, hanging tough in a loss to Austin before beating Grand Rapids and getting blown out by Fergus.
Sam Vascellaro is another favorite of mine. I don’t see a hole in his game. I think NSIC coaches should be looking at him hard because there’s nothing on the court he can’t do. Jack Thompson is an outstanding shooter and one of the top players in the 2019 class.
Heading into the tournament I had Orono as my easy choice for a theoretical preseason No. 1 seed. Then the Spartans went out and lost two of three games and didn’t look like the team I expected them to look like. It’s summer and again, everything is to be taken with a big ol’ grain of salt but I left wanting to see more from Orono. Max Bjorklund didn’t play after the first game and was clearly not himself in the loss to Totino-Grace, and that’s a huge part of the equation because he’s their best bucket-getter.
Austin made a strong case despite losing in the championship to the Cadets given the Packers lost in hotly-contested fashion without three of their four best players. Both Gach is one of the best players in the entire state and he’s only gotten better playing on the AAU circuit all summer. Duoth Gach is right there with him as one of the most entertaining players, combining dead eye shooting with high-flying finishes. Tate Hebrink is one of the my favorite players in the 2018 class and flies under the radar because he’s playing with the Gach brothers. He had a chance to really shine in the championship game against the Cadets and did. He’s a terrific all-around player and whichever college lands him is getting a better player than they might even realize.
Time to reevaluate Totino-Grace and Waconia
I didn’t know much about either team beyond the handful of players from each school I’ve seen at different points this spring/summer. I was impressed with both.
The Eagles pulled what I would consider an upset taking out Orono in their opener thanks to a superb defensive effort and after losing to St. Thomas Academy, beat Delano by double figures.
Charlie Jacob is the lead guy for them and he’s terrific on both ends of the floor. Scoring seems to come easy for him but the Eagles have a number of other excellent players including Will Schmidt, Braeden Mischke and Nick Flottmeier who can all do a little bit of everything. Throw in Tyler Kittelson, who wasn’t available to play in the tournament and the Eagles look like a team to watch.
Waconia is another team I came away extremely impressed with. The Wildcats beat Mankato East and Orono and gave Austin a good game to start the day. Nick Fulford was terrific in the two wins especially and poses a lot of matchup problems with his combination of size and skill. Charlie Gove is a steady floor-general and did a great job balancing looking for his own shot and orchestrating. The Wildcats finished last season strong before losing to Delano in their section opener but I’d bet on them winning 18-plus games next season.
Lots of talent with some flaws mixed in
If for just one tournament it looked like if there is going to be a theme for Delano next year, it’s Calvin Wishart carrying a heavy load. He’s one of the best players in the state and he’s good enough to drive that team to a lot of wins but he’ll need some more help than he got over the weekend against some of the better teams on the schedule. Derek Techam does some good things and plays extremely well off Wishart and Keegan O’Neil shows promise when he plays with intensity and toughness. But it all starts with Wishart.
Mankato East is a tough team to figure out. The Cougars have great athletes and they play extremely hard. But they were inconsistent last year and showed some levels of that again throughout the tournament. If they can iron out some of the inconsistent basketball plays, they’ll be a state tournament team. Damani Hayes is a stud and Edmon Oyet is one of the most improved players in the 2018 class and I think they’ll make a push to be the second best team in the Big 9 next season.
It was a ‘defense optional’ kind of weekend for Fergus Falls as the Otters went 0-3 with a pair of ugly losses. Defense has been that team’s calling card the last two seasons, each of which ended with state tournament berths so I’m not sounding the alarms yet. But they are going to miss Matt Monke and Elijah Colbeck. I love Harrison Christensen on that team though. He’s a perfect glue guy who does a little bit of everything and complements Nate Rund and Matthew Johnson nicely on the offensive end.