2022 Hoops Awards--Team and Coach of the Year Candidates

So who are the winners going to be come March, April, May? I don't have a clue. These are the teams that are doing well now.

Teams

UMD men--8-0 in the conference, 15-0 overall. It doesn't get much better than that. You may have noted that UMD's Drew Blair and Austin Andrews are among our Player of the Year candidates, and why not? They play for the best team.

Minnesota Gopher men--10-4. Seriously, you didn't give the Gophers a chance in a million to win 10 games this year. Now, the going is getting a lot tougher with a Big 10 only schedule from here on out. They are now 1-4 in the Big 10 and they probably will be the favorite in no more than 3 or 4, maybe 5 of their remaining 15 Big 10 games. That would make 'em 14-15. Well, they were one game below .500 a year ago with a lot more talent that just didn't happen to be as committed to their team or their program. Getting more wins is one sign of progress and the Gophers might still get that. But getting more per capita out of the talent that you've got might be a more sustainable sign of progress. Ski-U-Mah!

Hopkins girls--10-0. State titles 2004, 2006, 2011-12-13, 2015, 2019, runners-up 2016, 2017, 2018, 3rd place 2021. Only Hopkins could possibly be disappointed with this record. They're still hungry. Look out.

St. Cloud State women--9-1, 11-2, currently the top team in the NSIC, runners-up to UMD last year.

Augsburg men

Augsburg women--both are unbeaten in the MIAC, the men are 11-2, the women 9-3. 

St. John's men--matching Augsburg at 8-0 and 11-2.

Minnesota Timberwolves--other NBA teams have leapfrogged the Wolves but, hey, the Wolves are showing improvement. Now, if they can add just one more piece, maybe this slow pace of improvement can continue. I'd settle for that. Playoffs this year. A playoff series win next year? Hey, hope springs eternal.

Minnesota Lynx--we won't know much about this year's edition for awhile, but they've got a shot.

Mountain Iron-Buhl--after I think 11 state tournament appearances in 12 years, this might be the Rangers year. They don't look like much somehow, but then look at the scoreboard! They are killing people. 

Honorable Mention--Shakopee boys, St. Thomas men, St. Thomas women, Morris Area boys, Southwest MN State women

Coaches

Never say never, but this race might be over. The job Ben Johnson has done with the Gopher men is nothing short of miraculous. 10-4. Who seriously thought they would win 10 all year long. Lots of people thought 5 would be a stretch. 

Justin Wieck, UMD men (see above).

Jeff Buffetta, Mountain Iron-Buhl girls. Oh, yeah, and did I mention he also coaches their boys?! But it's his girls who never cease to amaze.

Chris Finch, Timberwolves. Yeah, it's a small step for a man but, you know, it's the Timberwolves, which makes it more of a giant leap. 

Cheryl Reeve, Lynx. Just on general principles, she's gotta be in the mix.

Lori Fish, St. Cloud State women. 9-1, 11-2, best team in the NSIC right now.

Aaron Greiss and Ted Riverso, Augsburg men and women. 17-0 in the MIAC between them right now, that's gotta be worth something.

Tom Webb, SW State women. Coaching out there is Marshall, a million miles from anywhere, how does he get kids to come and play for him. Well, they're improving year by year. 

Alex Focke, Hamline women. Been down so long...but now it looks like Hamline is up, 7-2 and 9-3. Big leap forward.

Honorable Mention--Mandy Pearson, UMD women; Dan Smith, St. John's men; Mark Torgerson, Morris Area boys; Laurie Kelly, Gustavus women; Ruth Sinn, St. Thomas women; John Tauer, St. Thomas men

If your team and your coach isn't on one of these lists, hang in there. Things are going to change. Nobody knows how exactly, but they're going to change by March or thereabouts.

2022 Hoops Awards Candidates--Player of the Year

 

Well, we've got enough of 2021-2022 under our belt now to make our list and check it twice. Who are likely to be candidates for the 2022 Player, Team and Coach of the Year?

Player of the Year

Karl Anthony Towns, Timberwolves

Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves--obviously the Timberwolves are improved, though just, and Towns and Edwards are the tip of the spear. Towns is scoring 25 with 9 boards and 4 assists, and he really seems to be a team guy. No whining after all these years. Ant remains an upgrade from all the offensive stars the Wolves have tried out in recent years. He's at 23 ppg with 5 boards, 4 assists and 2 steals.

Jamison Battle, Gopher men

Payton Willis, Gopher men--the other obvious candidates, and the best story so far this year. The going is getting a little tougher now, but they've already won twice as many games as anybody thought. Both of these guys has been stalwart with 34 points and 11 boards between them.

Braedon Carrington, Park Center boys--has become the favorite for Mr. Basketball. Has really improved the past 24 months. Scoring 21 and his team is 10-0.

Austin Andrews and Drew Blair, UMD men--the UMD men are 15-0 and these guys are scoring 37 between them while Andrews adds 9 boards a game and 3 assists. 

Joe Palmer, Augsburg men--the Augies are 8-0, 11-2 thanks to Palmer who leads the MIAC in scoring and rebounding at 22-9.

Brooke Olson, UMD women--the UMD women are not as invincible as they have been recently but they're 10-4, and Olson continues to be their leader at 18 ppg.

Tre Holloman, Cretin boys--long regarded as the best player of his class and the numbers are there (21 ppg, 8 rebounds, 11 assists, 4 steals), but his team is 5-5.

Honorable Mention--Jen Masello, Augsburg women; Mara Braun, Wayzata girls; Joey Batt, Mankato State women; Bella Williams, Bethel women; Kiani Lockett, Minnetonka girls

2021 Hoops Awards--Game of the Year

Again, it's a close call. But, in the end, I gotta go with the winner. And that means...

1. Chaska girls 67 Hopkins 62, state tournament semi-final--both teams came in unbeaten, but Hopkins was a clearcut favorite. Well, I saw Chaska beat Hopkins with most of these same players in a summer tournament in 2019. Still, I thought Hopkins would win. It was as tense a game as I saw all year long. Chaska won and then edged Rosemount 45-43 to win the state title.

This is just the 4th girls high school game to win game of the year honors, and the 1st since 2008.

2. Minnesota Gopher men 102 #4 Iowa 95 (OT), regular season--then there was this. The Gopher men beat 4 ranked teams early in the Big 10 season and were rated as high as #16. And then they just fell apart. But, wow, for a couple of weeks there....

3. Providence girls 94 Duluth Marshall 91, state quarter-final--this is the Gianna Kneepkens all-time record 67 point game.

4. UMD women 67 St. Cloud State 55, NSIC playoff championship

5 (tie). Gopher men 81 #17 Michigan State 56; Gopher men 77 #25 Ohio State 60; Gopher men 75 #7 Michigan 57, regular season--3 more early season wins for a total of 4 over ranked opponents; unfortunately, the frittered it all away.

8. Chaska girls 45 Rosemount 43, state final--after beating Hopkins, I must admit I thought Chaska would win easily. Rosemount was fabulous in defeat, but Chaska was the champion.

9. Waseca boys 51 Caledonia 49, state final--this looked more like a AAA game at least than AA. 2 very highly skilled teams going tooth-and-nail right to the final buzzer.

10. UMD women 76 Emporia State 70, D2 1st round

2021 Hoops Awards--Coach of the Year

Again, it was a  fairly dismal year in Minnesota basketball. I've always said that the great thing about Minnesota high school basketball is that Minnesota teams actually win. Well, it's also true that Minnesota teams win among the smaller colleges, D2 and D3. The MIAC is of course all Minnesota teams, so, duh. Yeah, Minnesota teams get to win. And, Minnesota teams have done quite well in the Northern Sun where there are no guarantees, especially the women. So, who are the brains behind the successful teams?

1. Mandy Pearson, UMD women--I've said for many years that Mandy Pearson is the best coach in Minnesota at St. Mary's and now at UMD, but I don't think she's ever been coach of the year. Well, this is her year with a 9-1 regular season record and 14-2 overall, and conference titles in both the regular seasons and the playoffs. They also won one D2 tournament game before being ousted by Nebraska-Kearney.

This is the 20th time that a girls or women's coach was coach of the year.

2. Tara Seifert, Chaska girls--they used to cal her "TGunny," short for Tara Gunderson, when she played at Iowa State. Well, she beat Hopkins and she beat Rosemount in the state finals, so you can just call her state champion, against all odds.

3. Cheryl Reeve, Minnesota Lynx--that playoff loss was a shock but Cheryl Reeve is still one of the best coaches in the world. Period.

4. Seth Anderson, Waseca boys--state AA champions beat Caledonia in a great final 51-49 to finish 23-1.

5. Lori Fish, St. Cloud State women--2nd in the Northern Sun every step of the way, and I mean that as a complement.

6. Bryan Schnettler, Wayzata boys--class AAAA champions lost to Minnehaha but beat Cretin easily for the state title. More to the point, they've been to the state tournament 3 times now in recent years in a section that includes their long-time nemesis Hopkins.

7. Chris Finch, Timberwolves--the Wolves improvement after Finch took over, along with the emergence of Anthony Edwards, gives some hope.

8 (tie). Ruth Sinn, St. Thomas women, and John Tauer, St. Thomas men--13-1 between them, 2 of the best in the business, stymied by a short season in 2021.

10 (tie). Dan Baird, Becker girls; Aaron Boyum, Albany girls; and Chad Johnston, Minneota girls--coaches of the rest of the girls champions.

2021 Hoops Awards--Team of the Year

 OK, this was very very close. It was after all a dismal year. The signature teams--the Timberwolves, the Gopher men and the Gopher women all left something to be desired. And I decided that I was not going to consider anybody that was below .500. So here is where I ended up.

1. Chaska girls 18-0--not only did Chaska win the state title undefeated, but they beat the best, or what we assumed was the best until Chaska beat them. That is of course the Hopkins girls who were also unbeaten at the time but finished 16-1 after the shocker in the Class AAAA semi-finals. Chaska 67 Hopkins 62. It was another of those perfect games. Now, I know that a perfect game usually refers to a baseball game in which a pitcher gets 27 outs without a base runner. Well, this was comparable though there are no metrics to prove it. But, seriously, Hopkins is and was so good that it would take a perfect game to beat them. And, Chaska delivered. If they played 10 times, Hopkins would win 8. But they only played this once.

This is the 30th time that a girls or women's team is team of the year. 

2. Minnehaha boys 20-1--OK, I'm gonna come clean. I am biased against Minnehaha. For a couple of years now, we've been hearing that Minnehaha is the best team in Minnesota history. My buddy Jim Paulsen at the StarTribune wrote that twice and so I asked him, who says they're the best and he said, the folks at Minnehaha. Last year when they had Suggs and Holmgren, they said that. Oh, yeah, and they lost 3 times to Minnesota teams. But then I see an online blog that purports to list the top 75 high school teams of all-time and guess what. Minnehaha 2020 is on the list. at #32. Hopkins 2019, nope. Edina 1967, nope. Minnehaha is the only Minnesota team on the list at #32. Well, I'm sorry, they're not the #32 team in Minnesota history, much less nationally. OK, so now we're talking 2021. I'll give 'em being the best boys team in the state in 2021.

3. UMD women 14-2--in a truncated season, UMD went 9-1 in the conference and 14-2 overall, including winning the Northern Sun playoff plus one game in the D2 tournament.

4. St. Thomas men 7-0--in a really truncated season, the Tommies men were unbeaten, but their season ended in January due to COVID.

5. Wayzata boys 19-2--won the AAAA state title fairly easily over Cretin, but they lost to Minnehaha 70-63 in the regular season.

6. Hopkins girls 16-1--like I said, if they played Chaska 10 times, they would have won 8. But they only played that once.

7. Minnesota Lynx 22-10--the Lynx really looked like they were going places. They started 0-4 and 5-7. They finished 22-10 which means 17-3 once they got it going. But they were dispatched with ease by the Chicago Sky in a home playoff game and things came to an abrupt and shocking halt.

8. Waseca boys 23-1--class AA champions, Waseca's first since 1918.

9. St. Thomas women 6-1--truncated in the extreme but with a lot of upside that they weren't able to realize.

10. Minneota girls 25-0--barely survived MIB 55-54 and BBE 58-55. But 25-0 was the best record of any team in the state last year. Gotta be worth a mention.

2021 Hoops Awards--Player of the Year

 I think we can all agree that the 2021 basketball season is over. I decided to wait on our 2021 Hoops Awards until after the Lynx season was over, and then the time got away from me. Better late than never.

Player of the Year

1. Chet Holmgren, Minnehaha Academy--heck, he was rated the #1 boy in the country. Hard not to honor that. He scored 21 ppg with 12 boards, 5 assists and 2 blocks for a 20-1 team, unbeaten vs. Minnesota teams with wins over the AAAA champion Wayzata 70-63 and AA champion Waseca 94-66.

2. Karl Anthony Towns, Timberwolves--the Wolves once again underwhelmed, starting 7-24, then rallying under new coach Chris Finch at 16-25, still well under .500. But Towns just keeps on plugging away with 24 ppg, 9 boards and 4 assists and great shooting at 51-42-82%.

3. Gianna Kneepkens, Duluth Marshall--yeah, I know, Class AA. Nobody complained about Carlie Wagner playing in Class AA. Kneepkens scored 43 ppg with 13 boards and 6 assists. In the state tournament she scored a state record 67 points against Providence. 

4 (tie). Paige Bueckers, Connecticut, and Jalen Suggs, Gonzaga--OK, only once, ever, have I picked a player of the year who didn't play for a Minnesota team. That was Kevin McHale in his very best NBA season, when the Boston Celtics also happened to win the NBA title. Well, I gave serious consideration to Bueckers and Suggs this year. Bueckers was of course the first freshman ever to win player of the year honors in NCAA women's ball. And Suggs, of course, hit that half-court shot to send Gonzaga to the national championship game, among other things. Still, it takes a lot to get me to say that the Minnesota player of the year is not representing a Minnesota team, and there are sufficient candidates even in the relatively dismal year of 2021 to not say it now.

4. Anthony Edwards, Timberwolves--some people thought Edwards was the Wolves MVP over Towns. He was the new toy, for sure, and gave the Wolves a dimension they haven't had since, ah, Andrew Wiggins? In any event, he averaged 22-5-4 and got totally jobbed out of the Rookie of the Year award.

5. Brooke Olson, UMD--you gotta be a geek to know about Brooke Olson but I'm up to it. Olson led the UMD women to the Northern Sun regular season and post-season titles, scoring 22 ppg with 8 rebounds.

6 (tie). Julia Bengtson, Becker, and Paige Meyer, Albany--2 super point guards who led their team to state titles. Bengtson the magician, the finesse girl; Meyer the bulldozer. Bengtson's numbers were 15-5-4-3, Meyer's were 20-8-9-4, but of course Bengtson had a vastly better supporting cast and that's the point. Bengtson made everybody better.

8. Maya Nnaji, Hopkins--OK, Nnaji may very well have been the best female high school player in the state but 1) Hopkins didn't win the title, and 2) Nnaji gets another chance this year. Her numbers were 19-6-2 and of course it came against the toughest competition in the state.

9. Marcus Carr, Gopher men--there was a time when Carr might have been the player of the year, but that was before the Gopher men went on the road. Remember when the Gophers beat rated Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan and was rated as high as #16. After that, they went into a major tailspin and finished 14-15 and 6-14 in the Big 10. Carr scored 19 ppg with 4 rebounds and 5 assists, but it was more like 24 ppg at home and 14 on the road.

10. Anthony Roberts, St. Cloud State--led the NSIC in scoring at 22 ppg and added 8 rebounds. 

In summary, the one player I considered for #1 aside from Holmgren (and Bueckers and Suggs) was Kneepkens. What she did was historic. 67 points! No girl has ever done that before. But Holmgren being the #1 recruit in the country is historic, too. Right now, today, Holmgren is averaging 13 ppg with 8 rebounds and shooting 61% at Gonzaga. Gonzaga is 13-2 and rated #2. Meanwhile, Kneepkens has worked her way into the starting lineup at Utah. She has now started 3 games and played in all 11 games, scoring 11 ppg with 48% shooting and 4 rebounds. The Utes are 8-3 and unranked. Advantage Holmgren, but Kneepkens will be a star in high D1 long after Holmgren has disappeared into the NBA.