A Great Weekend for Minnesota
As reported here last week, Minnesota girls scattered to the 4 winds over the weekend to Lou’a’ville, KY; Frisco, TX; Ames, IA…. And a scan of the various tourney Web sites shows that Minnesota teams performed very, very well. Fury 2019 Blue, North Tartan 10 Elite, North Tartan 9 and Stars Nelson came away as division champions.
We’ll have a separate report on this week’s featured clubs (the Heat) and teams (Crossfire Theisen).
Run 4 the Roses
A dozen or more Minnesota teams made their way out to Lou’ville, Kentucky, last weekend to Run 4 the Roses. North Tartan 9 and Stars Nelson came away as division champions, which is to say, they finished up unbeaten. Still, several other teams played pretty well.
As we said, North Tartan 9 won their division, the 14U Showtime. They swept 4 pool games by the ridiculous average of 79-29. In the bracket NT9 defeated Exodus NYC Gold 9 64-33, FGB Team LaDazhia Williams 9th 60-33 and WV Thunder 51-45. (The overall average margin was 69-34.)
Stars Nelson won the 15U Classic division. They won 4 pool games by an average of 60-38. In the bracket they defeated CT Heights 58-48, Mac Basketball Mac 61-54 and Team Miller Taurin 73-54. (The overall average was 62-44.)
Stars DeSart won their pool at 4-0, and defeated CT Impact 11 West 60-50 in the bracket. They lost to SEMO Dream 16U in the bracket semi 53-50.
North Tartan (I think this was Coley) went 1-3 in the pool but won 3 bracket games and the Silver championship of the 15U Showcase division. NT Tru went 3-3 overall in the same division/different pool.
Rochester Shock went 4-3 overall and finished second in the Silver championship of the 13U Stripes division. Heat Smetana went 3-2 overall. Metro Stars Wiese went 3-3. Stars Buerman 2-3. Heat Vang 1-4 and the Warriors 0-5.
UA Cup
Meanwhile, 4 Stars teams opted out of the Run and competed for the UA Cup, also in Lou’a’ville, and came away with an overall record of 15-5 and three division runners-up.
Stars Hersch finished 2nd at the highest level, the Cup Division championship. They swept 3 pool games by an average of 64-37, then defeated MD Lady Tigers 63-47. In the final, they lost to Team Phoenix Elite 59-36.
Stars Amundson went 3-0 in their pool in the Elite Red, and defeated Toledo Thunder Red 57-37. In the Elite Red final they lost to Chair City Phoenix Elite 50-49.
Stars Antl made it to the Elite Blue final. They swept 3 pool games and the bracket semi by an average score of 54-33. In the final Team Iowa Navy prevailed 37-33.
Stars Walters went 3-2 overall in the Cup division, finishing 2nd in the 2nd level championship.
Combining the Run and the Cup, 7 Stars teams went 29-9.
PBR
The Fury’s elite teams—2018 E, 1018 G, 2019 B and 2020 B—went to Frisco, TX, for the PBR Super 64 National Championship, and came away with one very nice trophy and a combined record of 14-5. The 2019 Blues won the championship of the Oklahoma Division, the 2nd division, winning 6 straight games by an average of 57-37. In the final it was Fury 2019 Blue 59 Louisiana Lightning 39.
In the top division, called Texas, the 2018 Elite split four games. Also in the Oklahoma division, the 2018 Gold went 3-2, losing in the semi-finals to Triumph 46-42. In the New Mexico division, the Fury 2020 Blue went 3-1.
EYBL
North Tartan 11 EYBL played a league slate, also at Lou’a’ville, winning 3 games while losing 2, and out-scoring the opposition by an average of 51-41.
Simply the Best
14 Minnesota teams travelled to Ames, IA, for Simply the Best. MN Basketball Academy sent 4 teams, the Rise 3, Tartan 3 and the Comets 2.
North Tartan 10 Elite came away with 6 straight wins and a division title in the 10 Black division. They defeated Retro Hoops White 47-31 in the division final. Tartan 11 Elite went 4-1 and finished 5th in the top division, the 11 Red. Tartan 9 West went 2-3 in the 9 Red division. In total, Tartan went 12-4.
Two of the three Rise teams went 4-1, with the Rise 10 finishing 2nd in the 10 Red division. They knocked off EJ Hoops 16 Elite 63-43 in a semi, but lost to OSA Crusaders 10 National 54-36 in the final. Rise 8 went 4-1 in 8 Black, and Rise 11 went 2-3 in 11 Black. Overall, Rise was 10-5.
No other Minnesota team was better than .500, however. Comets 11 Select went 1-3, and Comets 9 Elite went 2-3. MBA Tichy went 2-3, MBAA Brown 2-3, MBA Johnson 0-5 and MBA Seifert 2-3. The other entries were Suns Froehlich (1-4) and 43 Hoops Johnson (2-3). In sum, Tartan and Rise went 22-9, the others went 12-27.
As best as I can tell, all of these teams combined—from R4R to PBR to Simply the Best and everything in between—won 103 games while losing 79.