Northstar Daily: It’s Almost Time
We are just over 48 hours from the kickoff to the Minnesota 2017-18 basketball season. This year my hope is to bring you some daily information M-F in the column Northstar Daily. Today, we get started!
What is going to be in this column? Will it work out? I don’t know. What I hope this column is is a chance for me to give my own opinion while also pointing out the night’s top games, the top results from the night before, giving some recognition to a player that has played well, point out some match-ups, and point out to a player that college coaches should get to know. Big games, big performances, big everything, that is what I envision. Will it work? Give me some time and I will see if its worthwhile.
Thursday Night Opener! What’s not important is a big game between two marque teams on the opening night, what is important is just getting back in the gym and seeing teams for the first time. If the Basketball Hub schedule is close to correct there will be 32 games to see this Thursday. What stands out? Let’s bring the only bullets I care about in the world to express the notables, and that is bullet points.
- I find Rochester Lourdes vs Breck to be very interesting. Both are private schools in the smaller classes of basketball with one being Metro and one being from Roch. A little David Roddy against Colin Meade for the evening.
- CDH, you heard of them? I think you may have as they have been talked about on Twitter every day in November since people brought in their Halloween pumpkins. They take on St. Paul Central Thursday.
- Roosevelt and Coach Robert Mestas will be the first test for Barry Wohler and the Orono Spartans.
- Esko/Hermantown is a Duluth area rivalry game on night one.
- Fergus Falls vs Breckenridge are two northern Minnesota state tournament teams from a year ago testing each other in a big way to begin the season.
Dunk contest pic.twitter.com/aoltVwTKsH
— East Ridge High (@ERHSWoodbury) November 25, 2017
Excitement at Home. I’ve been very impressed by the things I’ve seen and heard about already in eight days in terms of what programs are doing to create excitement at their school. East Ridge had an event for their community showing off the talent at their school at “Raptor Madness”. Coach Bryce Tesdahl even has a podcast talking about his team and that one was new for me, a pretty cool idea.
I would imagine all of you have seen the Charlie Gorres dunk in front of the school jumping over a teammate. That was all over Twitter and it got his community excited.
I believe that Woodbury had an alumni gathering around Thanksgiving eating with Coach Getzlaff and the team had a meal and dinner night after practice. They also have Kick-Off Night for their program (I just now noticed that East Ridge, Park, and Woodbury are in the same district so not likely a coincidence).
At Lester Prairie the team has competed against an alumni opponent. Many schools of course have been at Jamborees. Anyone that went to the CDH Jamboree saw massive crowds that are excited for the year so they packed Raider gym to get a look at several teams.
Wednesday Jamboree! Starting at six tomorrow night at Jump City gym there will be a game every 30 minutes until 9pm. Teams include Community of Peace, Prairie Seeds Academy, Brooklyn Center, Maranatha Christian, High School of Recording Arts, and St. Paul Humboldt.
MBB // Newcomer of the Week: Tywhon Pickford, @UNImbb #MVCHoops pic.twitter.com/kBPkGBrH9B
— MVC Basketball (@ValleyHoops) November 27, 2017
Amazing Start for 2017 Kids! I don’t know if you’ve heard by now but the 2017 kids from Minnesota are off to an amazing start in college at the D1 level. Let’s bring back those bullet points:
- Tywhon Pickford already has 77 rebounds which is two more than Marvin Bagley in the same amount of games. He’s also scoring in double figures every night. I believe he has now been about 18 months healthy in terms of his knee and wow does he look outstanding.
- Brad Davison is dealing with shoulder issues as he can’t stop himself from diving on the floor, crashing to the rim for contact And1s, taking charges, getting in position, etc. It’s what he does as he plays harder than most. Brad is already the Badgers second best player in my opinion.
- McKinley Wright was named MVP of a recent tournament and is averaging 15 points, five boards, and five assists playing 30 minutes a night for Colorado. What a great choice that was for him this spring. Opportunity was there and he’s grabbed it.
- Goanar Mar tweets from George Mason seem to dominate my twitter feed. “Mature” is the word I see the most. Mar was named to an all tournament team recently and he’s averaging in double figures while playing a smart game.
- Don’t forget Trae Berhow at Pepperdine who is averaging double figures out in Malibu. He made our National top 250 for a reason and that reason is the kid works hard and is very talented.
- Jericho Sims seems to be on TV every night and it seems like somebody is gushing about his potential every night. Time is limited because of the talent in front of him but the highlights have been seen on Twitter.