Here are 7 candidates for our 2018-2019 Minnesota Player of the Year.
Kenisha Bell, Minnesota Gopher women
Google “up and down” and you’ll get a picture of the 2019 Gopher women. They started 12-0, then went 1-7, then finished 7-2 before laying an egg in the Big 10 tournament. And make no mistake, this was Kenisha Bell’s team. She was our joy and our sorrow. She scored 19 ppg with 6 boards, 4 assists, 2 steals and 3.5 turnovers, and shot 41% on 2s, 29% on 3s and 70% on 1s. She was always quicker than quick, a great ball defender, a fearless attacker.
In 2018, the numbers were 20-5-7-3-4 and she shot 43-36 and 73%. So the assists came way down and the shooting dropped a little bit. Of course, in 2018 she could dish to Carly Wagner, Gadiva Hubbard and Destiny Pitts. In 2019, only Pitts remained, and Bell had to do more on offense. And sometimes it showed. The Gophers lost, what?, 5 times when they had a 4thquarter lead? And Bell would maybe push it a little and it just wouldn’t work.
Still, it’s not her fault that Carly Wagner graduated and Gadiva Hubbard got hurt. 21-11 was probably as good as it was gonna get. If the Gophers had lost those 5 games in the 1st quarter instead of the 4th, it just wouldn’t have hurt quite so bad.
Paige Bueckers, Hopkins girls
Let’s wait until her high school career is over before we worry about this best-ever stuff. But, it is true that she led Hopkins to their 7thstate championship in about 15 years now under coach Brian Cosgriff. Shockingly, it’s the first one ever to do so with an undefeated record. Now, the fact is that Hopkins could beat most teams without Bueckers but I admit that’s a stupid thing to say. She was the best player on the best team.
Not only that, but she is the first Minnesota girl to get recruited by Geno Auriemma and not surprisingly she will be going to UConn after this coming season. In the meantime, she’s also won 3 gold medals at her age group tournaments with the U.S. national team, and she has been one of the top 2 or 3 players for the U.S.A. every time. I mean, she may be the best high school senior in the country.
But let’s wait until her high school career is over before we worry about this best-ever stuff.
Booker Coplin, Augsburg men
As the season went along, I kept seeing this name. Booker Coplin. Who the heck is that? It’s not like you’re looking at Augsburg thinking that a Player of the Year candidate is going to emerge. That hasn’t happened in, oh, 55 years, give or take? But Coplin just kept on putting up big numbers, finishing at 28 ppg and 9 rebounds, both leading the MIAC, with 52-43-90% shooting. Augsburg finished 19-9, 13-7 in the conference, with a playoff semi-final win at St. Thomas, of all things, 84-81, a game in which Coplin scored 32 points on 13-of-20 shooting. They came up short in the final at St. John’s losing 82-79 but you can’t hang that one on Coplin. He scored 46 on 17-of-30 FG including 7-of-16 3s. Coplin was named the national Player of the Year in D3. And, hey, the 6-3 guard has another year of eligibility this coming year, so check him out.
Amir Coffey, Minnesota Gopher men
Jordyn Murphy, Minnesota Gopher men
I think most Gopher fans would agree that Jordyn Murphy was the MVP of this team, and it was a pretty fair team. The Gophers finished 22-14 with 2 wins in the Big 10 tournament and one in the NCAA. One more Big 10 win would have gotten them a .500 record in the conference and they would have been 23-13 overall, or maybe better because it might have gotten them a better seed in the NCAA tournament. But, that’s pretty useless, wishful thinking. Still, they were close to being a really good team. On the other hand, while they’ve got some talent coming back, wow, are they gonna miss these 2 guys!?
Coffey was the top scorer on the team with 17 ppg on 44%-30%-74% shooting, and in some of the team’s biggest wins, Coffey played like a man possessed. But it depended a lot on matchups and some nights it just wasn’t there. Murphy was also a mere mortal and had his ups and downs but while his highs weren’t as high as Coffey’s, his lows weren’t as low. He scored 14 ppg on 49-27-68% shooting and of course led the Gophers and the Big 10 with 11 rebounds a night. All things considered, I’d have to stick with Murph.
Matthew Hurt, Rochester John Marshall boys
Hurt won the Mr. Basketball award though, unfortunately, his team didn’t get the job done and he never played in a state tournament. But he was unstoppable going to the basket. He scored 1,068 points, 9th best all-time, in 29 games for an average of 36.8, the 7thbest of all-time. I think he finished with 3,819 career points, #4 all-time, with 777 free throws, #5 on the Minnesota list. He’s headed to Duke, like how many Mr. MN Basketballs before him?
Karl-Anthony Towns, Minnesota Timberwolves
Things started out pretty rocky for KAT and the Timberwolves, thanks to dickhead Jimmy Butler. Butler, of course, requested a trade from the Timberwolves late in the pre-season, then adding insult to injury, he intimated the trade request was because KAT and Andrew Wiggins didn’t play hard enough rather than just telling the truth, that he wanted the trade because he was a dickhead. Then, of course, there was the rumor that he, uh, had, er, well, you know, slept with KAT's girlfriend. Dickhead. Dickhead. Dickhead.
Well, by the time the trade was accomplished, the Wolves were 4-9 and so far down in the dumps that it seemed they would never recover. Against all odds, they did, kind of, winning 3 straight without the cancer man, and eventually getting over .500 at 13-12. They promptly lost 4 straight but got back to .500 at 24-24. But they then lost 6 out of 7 and .500 was never seen again. The Wolves finished 36-44 and whether I should say “a disappointing 36-44” or not is in the eye of the beholder. Better was expected after a pretty good 2018, but after all the Butler BS, well, who knew?
Then, of course, there was the little matter of the coaching change. Erstwhile savior Tom Thibodeau became the whipping boy, and justifiably so. The Jimmy Butler trade, as badly as it turned out in the longer run, was probably a worthwhile risk. But the fact is that Thibodeau was a throwback. He had probably the least interest in the 3-point shot, either on offense or defense, of any coach in the NBA. He was pretty much the last NBA coach to play a double-post. So, after reaching 13-12, the Wolves went 6-9 and on January 6, despite 2 straight wins, the Wolves were 19-21, there was just no bounce in anybody’s step, and Thibodeau was let go. He was replaced by Ryan Saunders, son of the sainted Flip Saunders, and on January 8, Saunders (age 32) became the youngest NBA coach to win his debut in 41 years, since Dave Cowens won with the Boston Celtics in 1978 at the age of 30. Somebody wrote that the Wolves played with “an energy and spirit that was lacking under Thibodeau.” That was true some nights and not others as the Wolves went 17-23 under Saunders.
But, hey, we’re talking about KAT, and he scored about 22 ppg under Thibodeau and about 25 under Saunders. His scoring average of 24.4 was the 2nd best in his 4 years in the NBA. His rebounds, assists and steals were career highs but so were his turnovers. His shooting was down a tich at 56% on 2s and 40% on 3s but he took 17 shots per game vs. 14 the year before as the Wolves needed whatever scoring they could get from their big guy.
So whatever ails the Timberwolves, it ain’t the big KAT, OK?
Player of the Year
It comes down to Paige Bueckers, Booker Coplin and the sentimental favorite Jordyn Murphy. Relative to her peers, it’s hard not to pick Bueckers as head and shoulders above the crowd, but, hey, Coplin’s 78 points against the MIAC’s top 2 powers, on the road, in the playoffs, now, that’s an accomplishment of truly historic proportions. And, again, there’s Murph. Some of you old-timers may recognize him as the 2ndcoming of Richard Coffey, which is to say the 2nd hardest-working Gopher men’s player of my lifetime.
But as much as I love Murph…and, hey, Bueckers gets another chance this coming season…but, of course, so does Coplin. Still, you probably won’t agree with this but Booker Coplin had the best season of anybody in Minnesota basketball in the 2018-2019 season.
Well, that’s comparing Coplin’s play for Augsburg with Bueckers’ play for Hopkins. If you count Buecker’s world championship, then it pretty clearly pulls her ahead of Coplin for our PoY award. Again, that’s Paige Bueckers, Minnesota PoY 2018-2019.
Runners-Up: Booker Coplin, Augsburg men; Jordyn Murphy, Gopher men
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