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.
No comments:
Post a Comment