17U Run-Through: Minnesota Comets Lewis
This year’s Minnesota Comets are full of players from winning programs. Most of the team has played in the state tournament in either of the last two seasons, or both.
The Roster: The Comets top squad has a nine man roster with a couple players from the metro area and the rest of the team from the traditional outstate areas most form the northern part of the state. Four of the players on the team played in the state tournament last week and five of them played in the state tournament a year ago.
Returning: This year’s 17u Comets don’t have a guy that was on 17u last season – and they traditionally don’t – but five of them were in the program a year ago.
Moving Up: The first of those Comets on this list is Matthew Johnson, a gutty guard with a high court IQ and the toughness that all coaches look for in a player. Matthew scored 16 points per game this year for the Otters who went 22-7 this year. Johnson has played a lot of minutes with Derek Techam of Delano and Brandon Adelman of New London-Spicer in previous Comet seasons. Techam is one of the better three point shooting weapons in the state at the arc and he scored 13.4 points per game this year for the state champion Delano Tigers. Adelman is a multi-sport star led the Cats to a 19-9 year scoring just over 20 a game.
The Comets frontcourt this year will not only be agile, but long and skilled as well. Two returning players for this long and skilled team are 6-foot-6 Baden Noennig of Mayer Lutheran and 6-foot-6 Logan Nagorski of Big Lake. Nagorski put up 18 points per game for the Hornets while Noennig gave the Crusaders 18 points a game with 8 rebounds a contest. Both are likely to be fielding calls from scholarship schools.
New Additions: Needing a point guard the Comets picked up a very good one in St. Thomas Academy lead guard Jack Thompson. Jack led his team in steals had a 2.5 to 1 assist to turnover ratio while leading his team in assists, plus Jack scored a dozen points a game for a Cadets team that played in the state tournament and won 20+ games. Springfield’s Isaac Fink is an all state level player and a top ten player in the 2019 class. He led Springfield to a 28-2 season with 24.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, 5.8 assists ,,and 3.3 steals a game. Fink shot 52 percent from the floor and 38 percent at the arc.
Six-foot-7 Austin Jentzen of STMA stands a strong 6-foot-7 and he had an 8.4 point per game season for the 15-13 Knights. Finally, Noah Christensen of Breckenridge is technically a newcomer because he didn’t play AAU basketball last year but he did play with the Comets when he was younger. Noah led the Cowboys to state scoring 20.1 points per game with 9.8 rebounds, a couple blocks, steals, and assists per game. Noah has grown to a skilled 6-foot-8 and is a D1 talent with an NDSU offer plus is fielding several other calls.