The Week That Was: #18: Third Time a Charm

#6 posting 3.16.2008
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THE WEEK THAT WAS: #18: Third Time is the Charm.

I am back. Time constraints prevented my commentary on the games this week. I was up to 2 am most nights crunching the numbers. here are some general observations:
In the smaller classes I still can see groups of players that didn’t get to the state tournament wear their school colors and letter jackets. Didn’t see that much in the big school divisions. Either they were camouflaged, didn't want to wear their school colors, or in the words of the immortal Gary Templeton "If I ain't startin', I ain't departin."
A: Ada-Borup moves the ball and blocks out as well as any team I have seen this year. AB had the most unusual photo in the program---no one was wearing shoes.
Also the AB band again was the tournament’s best show. It is like being at a concert. There are guitars and even singers that belt out songs.
AA: The atmosphere in the AA Semis Friday was electric. The crowd got their money’s worth with Brittany Chambers record breaking 47 point performance. The Jaguars needed each and every one of them. Crookston tried Kamille Wahlin first on defense, but then shifted to Molly Simmons when fouls mounted.
Albany seemed more relaxed in the final than in their first two games. The Huskies eased the pain of the year before with their title. Albany had quickness and athletic ability they used to good effect. Plus they had seniors with motivation.
AAA: Totino-Grace used their balance, their defensive intensity, and depth all the way to the title. They forced turnover after turnover against Grand Rapids. TG was the top defensive team in the tournament with a dpp100 of 60.82.
AAAA: Central took the title for the second straight year by getting South on the third try this year.
Spooky coincidence? South allowed the same amount of points in the same amount of possessions with Chaska and Central. The difference was the South offensive pp100 plummeted from 110.3 to 74.6 in the two games.

GLAESER’S THEOREM
Here is when each winner had their “bad” half
A: Ada-Borup—first half of the SW Star game. AB only had 15 at half. SW only had 11.
AA: Albany---first half/part of the second with Hinckley-Finlayson. They only led 26-24 early in the second half.
AAA: Totino-Grace---Rogers beat them in the second half, but a big first half kept the margin healthy.
AAAA: Central trailed by 9 early in the second half in the championship against South.

THE OSSEO EFFECT
I don’t know if it has a name so I will call it the Osseo effect. That is when a team plays and emotional and physically draining game only to come back flat in the next contest. In 1996 Osseo beat Rochester Mayo with the famous Miller twins in front of the Governor, Clem Haskins and many more at Williams Arena. Many felt that was the championship. The next night Osseo lost to Hastings narrowly in the real championship game.
Jordan had such a moment on Friday with the win over #1 Crookston. That game took its toll emotionally and physically. Of the six games I saw with Jordan this year this was their lowest pp100 and you could see the gas tank arrow was on empty.
In a round about way Osseo may have had the Osseo effect with the big win over previously undefeated #1 Centennial. It wasn't the next day, but the result was the same.

THREE IS A CHARM
It was good to be the #3 seed. Both TG and SPC took the titles at the upper levels.
It was the third time Ada-Borup made the semis, and the first time they broke through to the finals.
It was three on a match for Minneapolis South. Central lost the first game big, the second game was tighter and the third was the charm.
This was TG coach Shannon Hartinger's third year at the helm.
This is Albany's third state title.

It was good to be from section 6. Both Ada-Borup and Albany were state champs in A and AA.
It was bad to be from section 7 and section 1. All were 0-4 during the week.
Here is a look at the tournament pp100/floor % of the games I saw.
Class, pp100, floor %,
A 79.51, .385
AA 90.29, .437
AAA 73.58, .348
AAAA 89.24, .446
AAA either has outstanding defense, or offensive skills that need vast improvement. I saw five AAA games, three A, all seven AA, and three AAAA contests.

IMPROVING THE TOURNAMENT
It is time for my annual rant.
Teams have 20 minutes to warm up during the high school season. They get 25 in the tournament. Iowa uses 15 minutes to warm up. Things move quickly in Iowa.
The Target Center is a wonderful facility, but….It is not as intimate as other places. Also there are a lot of fans dressed up as empty seats. Moving it to the Sports Pavilion on the U of MN campus would make the place rock.
Here are some things I like about the other state tournaments around.
#1. Have all the games at one site.
#2. run the tournament Monday through Saturday. You would have six games on Monday (4 A quarters, and 2 AA quarters), six on Tuesday (2 AA quarters, 4 AAA quarters). Six on Wednesday (4 AAAA quarters, 2 A Semis). Four on Thursday (2 AA Semis, 2 AAA Semis). Four on Friday (2 AAAA Semis, A Final and AA Final). And two on Saturday (AAA Final and AAAA final).
#3. One and done. No 3rd place games.

Those proposals will probably fall on deaf ears, mostly due to $$$$ and time away from school.
But this proposal needs some serious discussion: The order of the championship games. I think you can have the AAA championship, A Championship in the afternoon and the AA and AAAA championships in the evening. The AA is now forced to turn around and play 14 hours after their Friday game. AAA was off from Thursday night to Saturday night---48 hours. Is this a fair sequence? Is there some reason it has to go A-AA-AAA-AAAA? Other states like Michigan and Wisconsin stagger the games.

THREE CLASS FANTASY
Of course the biggest fantasy (and that is why I say fantasy) is to go to a three class tournament. How would this work? It is already done in volleyball. Class A would have 25 teams, AA would have 16, and AAA 12. So who would have made the tournament using the volleyball sections
A
1. Hayfield
2. MVL
3. SW Star
4. New Life
5. This would have been interesting with Barnum, Braham and Eden Valley-Watkins in the mix. My pick would have been EVW.
6. Another tough section with Ada-Borup and Hawley.
7. Wrenshall
8. Lake of the Woods

With Hayfield, MVL and Eden Valley-Watkins in the mix the A tournament becomes much more interesting.

AA
1. Caledonia
2. Jordan
3. Marshall
4. DeLaSalle. Minnehaha is in this section too.
5. Becker
6. Albany
7. Hibbing
8. Crookston, Fergus Falls is in this section too.

The first round games would have had Caledonia vs DeLaSalle. Becker vs Crookston in the top bracket. In the bottom bracket it would have been Jordan vs Marshall and Albany vs Hibbing.
If you thought the AA tournament was good this week, this field would have amped it up another notch.

AAA
1. Owatonna. Austin is in this section.
2. Chaska
3. Eastview
4. St. Paul Central
5. Osseo (Centennial is in this section too) Rogers and Totino-Grace are here.
6. Mpls South
7. St. Francis. Grand Rapids is here too.
8. St. Cloud Tech

Not much change here.

Of course the biggest fantasy of all would be to seed the state 1-64. Right now the best teams are not in the state tournament.

NEXT YEAR?
Here are my picks for next year
AAAA: Lakeville North
AAA: DeLaSalle
AA: Jordan
A: Ada-Borup
Last year I was 2/4. I had Central and Albany right, I had Becker in AAA and New Life in A.


TEAM OF THE WEEK
St. Paul Central came up with a game plan to neutralize the potent South offense and in so doing tripped up the #1 seed in a rematch from last year. The Central defense held South to their lowest pp100 in the nine games I saw this year (75.6). Part of their success was due to keeping the Tigers off the free throw line. Central had a +5 advantage compared to a -20 deficit in the previous two games. South couldn’t get a two point basket from the 12:30 mark in the second half to the 1:00 mark.
Central also used their defense in their win over Eastview. In the six Eastview games I saw this year this was their lowest pp100 to (79.7).
Central is athletic, strong, aggressive and they played their best at the end of the year to retain the AAAA title. Central is only the second AAAA team to win back to back titles.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Theairra Taylor of St. Paul Central gets the honor this week in the biggest week of the year. She has great athletic ability, and this week shined among the stars. She looked relaxed and in the flow of every contest I saw. Nothing was labored, or overdone. She was active on the offensive boards. She hit pull ups with ease and can take it to the rack. She also has 3 game. She is stealthy, silky, and now a state champion for two straight years. This week may have set the stage for a spectacular senior season.

A word on how this team was selected this week. #1 you had to play at Williams Arena on Wednesday and Target Center Thursday through Saturday. That meant if a player racked it up at the TC on Wednesday or Concordia St. Paul it is not going to influence the selection process. #2 a player still has to make the gold standard: 100 pp100. That means, with two games, a player has to be consistent. It also means one bad game takes a player out of the running. It also means if a player had a good game when I saw them, they make the list. In short hand First team +100, +.500; Second team: +100, +.450.

FIRST TEAM
Kiara Buford, St. Paul Central (08)
Brittany Chambers, Jordan (09)
Ephesia Holmes, Mpls South (08)
Taylor Voss, Albany (08)
Theairra Taylor, St. Paul Central (09)
SECOND TEAM
Taylor Davis, Crookston (08)
Leah Nordvall, Barnum (10)
Kiley Severson, Hayfield (10)
Molly Simmons, Crookston (08)
Kamille Wahlin, Crookston (08)
HONORABLE MENTION (1 view)
Brooke Brown, Chaska (10)
Brittany Drew, Howard Lake-Waverly-Winsted (08)
Brittnye McSparron, Eastview (08)
Brittany Norby, Minnehaha (08)

DEFENDER OF THE WEEK
Katy Ness of Ada-Borup gets after the ball. She had to defend a 6-0 Barnum post Megan Myhre when Laura Kolness got in foul trouble in the A championship. She held her own and them some. Ness is combative and has a nose for the ball. She had double digit defensive wraps in the two games I saw.

I usually pick these players with defensive wraps in mind. Whoever has the most gets the honor. I guess I am measuring not defense necessarily but who is aggressive after the ball and who can initiate offense.
It is hard to measure denials, forced shots, block outs (when the player doesn’t get the rebound, but a team mate does), early pick ups in my system. Some times great defenders don’t get the wraps. One such player this week is Cyonna West of St. Paul Central. Her Defensive wrap numbers aren’t up there with these players on the list, but no one should doubt the impact of her defense in the AAAA championship game. This is the first time I have given a special recognition for that effort.

FIRST TEAM
Leah Dietel, Jordan (09)
Sasha McHale, Totino-Grace (08)
Katy Ness, Ada-Borup (09)
Jennie Noreen, Albany (08)
Taylor Voss, Albany (08)
SECOND TEAM
Ephesia Holmes, Mpls South (08)
Georgie Jones, St. Paul Central (08)
Sam Larsen, Albany (08)
Casey Mann, Rogers (08)
Leslie Wilson, Hayfield (08)

NEWCOMER OF THE WEEK
To be honest the only team I did not see coming into the tournament (that made it to Friday) was SW Star. I did see SW Star two years a go and so I saw the entire starting line up except for one. Getting the honor this week is Erika Post of SW Star. Post is a reserve sophomore forward.

Only the bold teams/players ended up as state champions.
Team
17 Osseo
16 Mpls South
15 Hawley
14 Braham
13 Park Cottage-Grove
12 Mpls South
11 Crookston
10 Centennial
9 New Life Academy
8 Long Beach Poly, CA
7 Hopkins
6 Forest Lake
5 Richfield
4 St. Paul Central
3 Mpls South
2 Hopkins
1 NDSCS CC

Player of the week
17 Jennifer Sunnarborg, Osseo
16 Tayler Hill, Mpls South
15 Kiley Severson, Hayfield
14 Devin Diedrich, Braham
13 Jackie Voigt, Park-Cottage Grove
12 Tayler Hill, Mpls South
11 Lizzie Traxler, Holy Family
10 Becca Swalla, Riverland CC
9 Lauren Barber, Owatonna
8 Alison Johnson, St. Louis Park
7 Stephanie Sension, Hopkins
6 Hannah Linz, Eden Valley-Watkins
5 Brittnye McSparron, Eastview
4 Rachel Banham, Lakeville North
3 Courtney Boylan, Chaska
2 Megan Nipe, Centennial
1 Tanika Massey, NDSCS CC

Defender
17 Brittany Chambers, Jordan
16 Shakila Boler, Bloomington Kennedy
15 Tayler Hill, Mpls South
14 Suriya McGuire, Minneapolis Roosevelt
13 Jengeih Tamba, Park Center
12 Tayler Hill, Mpls South
11 Lizzie Traxler, Holy Family
10 Kiara Allums, Centennial
9 Charmaine Cross, Minneapolis CC
8 Jasmine Dixon, Long Beach Poly CA
7 Meme Hudnell, DeLaSalle
6 Anne Berner, Forest Lake
5 DaNae Moore, Eastview
4 Brianna Mastey, Becker
3 Sarah Hintz, Woodbury
2 Madelyn Houser, North Iowa Area CC
1 Whitney Glazier, Central Lakes CC

Newcomer
17 Scotti Moats, Waconia
16 Bri Davis, Hermantown
15 Angie Jetvig, Hawley
14 Becca Dahlman, Braham
13 Jacki Lode, Coon Rapids
12 Ashley Kirk, MN West CC
11 Taylor Stippel, Stillwater
10 Becca Swalla, Riverland CC
9 Brittany Monio, Minneapolis CC
8 Hope Sevlie, Red Wing
7 Ruby Harvey, St. Paul Arlington
6 Erin Schmeling of St. Croix Lutheran
5 Yaasmiyn Salahu-Din, St. Paul Como Park
4 Hannah Frost, Mahtomedi
1-3 I didn't start the honor until week 4

Next week I have the end of the year wrap with Team of the year, player of the year, coach of the year and more, more more. If you have suggestions, go to my profile and email me your ideas.

Next up; Tomorrow.