• The Hopkins girls and Park Center boys among the high schools
• The Mankato State men and St. Thomas women from D2 and D3.
• The Minnesota Gopher women.
• The Minnesota Timberwolves.
So, not very good. Only the Hopkins girls are still a candidate.
The High Schools
There are of course no state champions this year. Among the girls we got down to 4 finalists--Farmington and Hopkins in Class AAAA and Becker and DeLaSalle in AAA. In AA and A, we got down to 4 semi-finalists when everything went sideways. Rochester Lourdes was #1 and still a pretty solid fave in AA, Minneota #1 but Class A looked pretty wide open.
Among all of those teams, only Hopkins was still unbeaten and only Hopkins had Minnesota Ms. Basketball and the national player of the year in Paige Bueckers. Hopkins is the obvious candidate for team of the year among the girls.
Among the boys, we had 16 section finals and another 32 teams scheduled to play for the other 16 section championships, so there's a lot more guesswork. Minnehaha in Class AAA was probably the heaviest favorite to win a state title, even more so than undefeated Eden Prairie in AAAA. EP would of course face tougher competition, though Minnehaha would probably have to beat DeLaSalle, so there were no gimmes. I liked Caledonia and Henning in AA and A, though Caledonia might have to beat undefeated Perham to win a title.
Still, you have to go with Eden Prairie as the top boys team. It's not their fault they didn't win a state title, and the Eagles were unbeaten against a fiendishly tough schedule.
D2 and D3
My picks, the Mankato State men and St. Thomas women, well, they weren't bad. But, they weren't best.
Among the NSIC men, Mankato went just 12-10 in the regular conference season and the top 3 finishers were all non-Minnesota teams. UMD was 4th at 15-7. Mankato beat #2 Sioux Falls and #4 UMD to get to the final, but lost to Northern State 80-59.
Among the NSIC women, UMD won the North at 20-2 with St. Cloud 2nd at 16-6. In the South, Mankato was 2nd at 13-9. In the post-season semi-finals, UMD beat Mankato 80-77 while St. Cloud beat Sioux Falls 76-59. St. Cloud surprised UMD in the final 71-62. Both teams were invited to the NCAA tournament but did not play. UMD finished 26-6, St. Cloud 23-7.
In the MIAC, my choice, the St. Thomas women, finished 3rd at 16-4, behind Bethel at 19-1 and Augsburg at 17-3. They finished the same in the playoffs. Bethel was beaten in the NCAA tournament but finished 26-2. Among the men, St. John's and St. Thomas tied for 1st in the regular season at 19-1. The Johnnies won easily at home 82-63 in the playoffs. After both won a pair of NCAA tournament games, they were scheduled to play one another again at Collegeville when everything got shut down. St. John's was 27-2, St. Thomas 26-3.
So the best of the D2 and D3 teams are the St. John's men 27-2, the St. Thomas men 26-3, the UMD women at 26-6, the Bethel women at 26-2 and rounding out the top 5 are the St. Cloud women at 23-7.
Minnesota Gophers
I had higher expectations of the women than the men, as did almost everyone. Both disappointed. The men were a pretty big disappointment, the women a bigger one. Daniel Oturu was terrific, the Gopher men's guards were a disappointment, and Destiny Pitts was a huge disappointment. The word is that Pitts and the Bello sisters, all from Michigan, decided that they would run their own offense rather than the one that coach Lindsay Whalen wanted. Pitts thought that her plays would better prepare her for the WNBA. It would have been obvious to everybody on the team--the players and the coaches--that something funny was going on. It's not clear what the coaches did to put a stop to it. But, finally, Pitts and the Bellos were suspended and told that they needed to apologize to their teammates in order to be reinstated. The Bellos decided to apologize though belatedly. Pitts decided to bas to what she had done and so nobody had given her an offer as of a month ago. So Pitts then let it be known that she wanted to come back but it wasn't clear that she still had agreed to apologize to her teammates or that Lindsay would take her back at anyway. Stay tuned.
Minnesota Timberwolves
I was ambivalent about the Wolves. Early on I said it seemed more likely that they would end up rebuilding than moving forward. Later, after they started 8-5, I started thinking there might be some potential. But, then, Karl Towns started missing games, then Andrew Wiggins was traded for D'Angelo Russell, who then did very little to justify all the hype that accompanied the Wolves efforts to obtain him. Ouch.
Team of the Year
Have we tipped our hand? We've already picked Paige Bueckers as our player of the year. Hopkins seemed to be a lock to win a second straight state title. They outscored their opponents a ridiculous 85-51. They've now won 62 straight games and a state record (for the modern era) is well within reach next year. So, yeah, team of the year.
But. The Eden Prairie boys finished 28-0 with an average winning score of 82-62. The Eagles have never won a state title and of course they have still never won a state title. But, my goodness, what a schedule. They played top 10 opponents 12 times, winning them all. They won at Eastview, East Ridge, Hopkins, they won at DeLaSalle, they won at Minnehaha. Co-team of the year.
1 (tie). Eden Prairie boys 28-0
1 (tie). Hopkins girls 30-0
3. St. John's 27-2
4. St. Thomas men 26-3
5. Minnehaha boys 25-3
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