It was a great day of basketball at Anoka-Ramsey CC on Saturday, January 25, at the 1st annual Jack Link's Hall of Fame Winter Classic, which is a fund-raiser for the Minnesota High School Basketball Hall of Fame.
Hopkins and Eden Prairie won fairly easily, while East Ridge had to come from behind to beat Rochester Mayo 64-63 in the finale.
Eden Prairie 82 Park Center 64
The Eagles showed why they're unbeaten and ranked #1, running away from an elite Park Center team 36-8 early and 46-20 at the half. Eden Prairie did its thing, which is to make the 3--9-of-14 in the 1st half. Meanwhile, the Pirates were making just 2-of-11 3s and just 5-of-14 2s in the 1st half. After Dain Dainja opened the scoring with a 3 for Park Center--just imagine this!--Eden Prairie went on a 36-5 run.
It was more of the same early in the 2nd half, as the Eagles took their largest lead at 56-24 on an Austin Andrews 2+1 at 14:12 and it was still 70-42 after a Drake Dobbs layup at 5:08. The Pirates won the final 5 minutes 22-12 to tighten up the final score a little bit.
But, the bottom line is that, well, yes, Eden Prairie makes 3s, 12-of-22 for the night. But, more than that, they do the little things on both sides of the ball. They move the ball and move without the ball better than anybody. They're all great passers. They all know that if they get open, the teammates will get them the ball. The hustle on defense and really shut down dribble penetration. Meanwhile, 6-7 Connor Christensen took on 6-10 Dainja man-to-man but of course he got help when needed, which was often, and the Eagles really excel at help defense.
They don't really overwhelm you with their athleticism or their size or anything, but then the clock starts and they play with great intensity and even greater intelligence. They don't just play games, they put on clinics.
Dobbs scored 31 points on 4-of-6 3s, 4-of-7 2s and 11-of-12 FT and added 9 boards. It's hard to believe he only had 1 assist. As a team, they had 9 on 25 buckets, which seems a little bit stingy on the part of the scorekeeper. Andrews added 19 on 7-of-11 shooting. Christensen also scored 19 with 5-of-7 3s and 7 boards.
Park Center had a tough time generating any offense until late and made just 3-of-20 3s. They got no penetration and had just 5 assists on 25 buckets. Dainja finished with 22 points but was stuck on 10 for the first half of the second half. Still, he made 10-of-16 FG with 9 boards, 2 assists and 2 blocks. Detavius Frierson added 15 points and Joshua Brown 12.
East Ridge 64 Rochester Mayo 63
Mayo was just cruising along, executing, making shots, getting defensive stops, and they led by 11 points inside of 10 minutes. And, then East Ridge got things clicking a little bit. Kendall Blue made 3 straight mid-range jumpers off of dribble penetration, and Ben Carlson got a Ben Carlson-dunk and suddenly it was 60-58 East Ridge.
East Ridge made Mayo's 6-5 guard Gabe Madsen work for everything, but he made 5-of-11 shots and had 5 boards and 4 assists and 16 points. His brother Mason made 4-of-11 for 8 points and had 6 boards and 3 assists. But, after executing pretty flawlessly for 35 minutes, suddenly there were a couple-3 untimely turnovers down the stretch and, then, once Mayo got behind, the 3-pointer wouldn't fall.
The big eye-opener for the night was Mayo's 6-2 guard Michael Sharp who scored 17 points, 3 2-pointers mostly on back cuts into the lane, but also 3-of-3 3-pointers.
Meanwhile, East Ridge was essentially the Blue and Carlson show. They scored 2/3 of their team's points, got 2/3 of the rebounds and both (!) of their assists. (Yup, 2 assists for East Ridge on 25 buckets!) East Ridge had a 38-23 edge on the boards including 12-2 on the O-boards and outscored Mayo 15-2 on 2nd chancers. And, down the stretch, Blue and Carlson were not going to be denied.
Hopkins 90 Hibbing 58
First off, it was closer than that. Not to say that Hopkins wasn't in control 49-30 at the half, 55-40 at 13 minutes, 79-58 at 2 minutes, but then 11-0 inside of 2 minutes for the 90-58 final.
For those who are wondering how a Hopkins-Hopkins matchup came to be, Hibbing is a junior team, plus 6-3 sophomore guard Ayden McDonald, who scored his 1,000th point last week. So, the Bluejackets, a AAA team from the Iron Range, as you know, are playing a monster schedule with at least 7 AAAA's on it plus a game at Minnehaha in February.
Here, Hibbing got down 14-6 and 33-15. It was pretty obvious that Hopkins was stronger and more athletic and a lot deeper. Hibbing's starters actually outscored Hopkins' 55-48, and that was playing just 4 minutes more per man. The Hopkins bench played twice as many minutes as Hibbing's bench and outscored them 42-3.
Mainly, the game plan seemed to be that Hopkins was not gonna let Ayden McDonald beat them, and they leaned on him all night and held him to 4-of-15 shooting. McDonald's 3-of-8 3s was not bad, but 1-of-7 2s was indicative of the physical Hopkins defense. Junior guard Mayson Brown filled the gap with 25 points including 7-of-15 3s.
But Hopkins won the battle in the paint 34-6, and points off turnovers 28-2 though the turnovers themselves were just 17-13. But, you know Hopkins. Defend-and-go is what they do. They're not as good in the half court set as Hopkins teams of yore, what with their lack of a big fellow, but turn it over and they're gonna convert.
Kerwin Walton led Hopkins with a quiet 17 and was picked as the game MVP. Jaelen Treml and Regan Merritt each added 15, both off the bench.
The Hall of Fame All-Stars
The top players of the day:
C- Ben Carlson, East Ridge 16 pts, 14 reb
F- Connor Christensen, Eden Prairie 19 pts, 7 reb
PG- Drake Dobbs, Eden Prairie 31 pts, 9 reb
G- Kendall Blue, East Ridge 25 pts, 5 reb
G- Kerwin Walton, Hopkins 17 pts, 6 reb
2nd Team
C- Dain Dainja, Park Center 22 pts, 9 reb
F- Austin Andrews, Eden Prairie 19 pts, 4 reb
PG- Ayden McDonald, Hibbing 15 pts, 5 reb, 3 ast
G- Gabe Madsen, Mayo 16 pts, 5 reb, 4 ast
G- Mayson Brown, Hibbing 25 pts
3rd Team
C- Riek Riek, Mayo 8 pts, 5 reb
F- Detavius Frierson, Park Center 15 pts, 5 reb
PG- Cornell Richardson, Hopkins 9 pts, 5 reb, 5 ast
G- Michael Sharp, Mayo 17 pts
G- Joshua Brown, Park Center 12 pts, 5 reb
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