State Tournament Preview By the Numbers: AA and A
The State Tournaments get underway on Wednesday. Here’s what the computer has to say about the Class AA and A tournaments. Class AA SeedTeamSemisFinalChamp1 in ??? 1Rochester Lourdes98.6177.7556.11.8 2Sauk Centre85.1747.8717.845.6 RD "6"Duluth Marshall52.1526.279.0311 4Pelican Rapids62.9415.817.4513 3New London-Spicer47.8522.97714 5Waseca37.066.392.2744 RD "7"Providence…
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Continue ReadingThe State Tournaments get underway on Wednesday. Here’s what the computer has to say about the Class AA and A tournaments.
Class AA
Seed | Team | Semis | Final | Champ | 1 in ??? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Rochester Lourdes | 98.61 | 77.75 | 56.1 | 1.8 |
2 | Sauk Centre | 85.17 | 47.87 | 17.84 | 5.6 |
RD "6" | Duluth Marshall | 52.15 | 26.27 | 9.03 | 11 |
4 | Pelican Rapids | 62.94 | 15.81 | 7.45 | 13 |
3 | New London-Spicer | 47.85 | 22.97 | 7 | 14 |
5 | Waseca | 37.06 | 6.39 | 2.27 | 44 |
RD "7" | Providence Academy | 14.83 | 2.89 | 0.32 | 312 |
RD "8" | Concordia Academy | 1.39 | 0.05 | <0.01 | 51813 |
Favorite: Roseau
Contenders: Holy Family, Proctor, Minnehaha Academy
Sleepers: St. Peter, Albany, Caledonia
Long Shots: Redwood Valley
Analysis
The correct five teams were seeded. My only minor gripe is seeding Proctor fifth. If I was seeding the tournament myself, I would switch them with Caledonia which means absolutely nothing since they would play each other anyway. I think you could make an argument for them being the third seed, but Minnehaha is probably the right call there as they played arguably the most difficult non-conference schedule in AA. Proctor’s schedule rates 13th in Class AA while Caledonia’s comes in at 83rd. The reason I say this is only a minor gripe is because Caledonia just came out of a very tough section 1AA, which currently rates as the second best section in AA. Proctor won section 7AA, which the computer sees as the sixth best of eight AA sections.
Redwood Valley pulled off a gigantic upset to reach the state tournament, and they were rewarded with a matchup against a Roseau program that has won at least one state tournament game in each of the past four years. Caledonia fits in with St. Peter and Albany in the sleeper role mainly because they face a tough draw. As the four seed, they first face off against Proctor who enters with the third best computer rating, followed by presumably Roseau, who sports the highest computer rating. Caledonia being seventh on this list is more an indictment on their path than the quality of their team. St. Peter is an intriguing team that has played better of late and could surprise even though they have ten losses. Albany knocked out the defending state champions in section 6AA so they enter with a bunch of confidence as well.
The four teams with the best chance to come away as champions are all separated by a reasonable amount. The computer sees about a 40% chance of a Roseau vs. Holy Family matchup in the finals, but individually the semifinals could provide some interesting matchups. Roseau has a potential northern Minnesota rematch with Proctor, whom they beat 70-46 in December. Although that was a long time ago, you can bet it will be on the minds of all involved. The possible Holy Family vs. Minnehaha Academy matchup is intriguing as those teams played common opponents to similar scores throughout the season.
My initial thought was to pick Minnehaha, but the difficulty of their path to the championship beginning with their first round matchup gave me cause for concern. I’ll go with top seeded Roseau. The only loss to a Minnesota team came against an Alexandria team that was one basket away from making the AAA state tournament.
Class A
Seed | Team | Semis | Final | Champ | 1 in ??? |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2 | Cromwell-Wright | 94.74 | 84.22 | 76.93 | 1.3 |
1 | Minneota | 93.1 | 55.79 | 8.93 | 11 |
3 | Henning | 97.51 | 14.1 | 8.47 | 12 |
5 | Heritage Christian | 60.34 | 28.51 | 3.64 | 27 |
4 | Waterville-Elysian-Morristown | 39.66 | 15.07 | 1.34 | 74 |
RD "7" | Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa | 5.26 | 1.67 | 0.7 | 143 |
RD "8" | Red Lake | 6.9 | 0.63 | 0.01 | 10440 |
RD "6" | Fillmore Central | 2.49 | 0.01 | <0.01 | 146200 |
Favorite: Minneota
Contenders: Mountain Iron-Buhl, Menahga, Ada-Borup, Heritage Christian, Goodhue
Long Shots: BOLD, Red Lake
Analysis
I have no issue with the seeding in this class. You may find that hard to believe considering that the computer has MIB rated #1 and they didn’t receive a top five seed, but I also believe a computer shouldn’t tell the whole story. If you seed MIB, you have to take one of the seeded teams out. Heritage Christian came in as the fifth seed and they won at MIB less than two weeks ago. You maybe already know my feelings on having the outcome of one game determine seeding, but when you combine that win with their computer rating (6th of 8), and their record (only 2 losses to highly rated AA teams) I don’t have an issue with it.
In my view, there are six Tier 1 teams and two Tier 2 teams. BOLD and Red Lake have the ability to pull off an upset, but that is exactly what it would be, an upset. For the remaining six teams, I honestly believe any one of them could beat the others on any given night. The computer rates MIB at the top, but they have losses to Goodhue and Heritage Christian already. Minneota is undefeated, but of the six Tier 1 teams, their schedule rates 5th in difficulty, only ahead of Heritage Christian. Goodhue and MIB both have the most losses of the Tier 1 teams with five, but they have played the 1st and 4th hardest schedules in all of Class A respectively.
I’ll agree with the computer on this and pick Minneota to win it. Southwest Minnesota didn’t produce a ton of great teams this year, but Minneota has beaten every Minnesota team they played by at least 14 points. I don’t think they will continue that through the tournament, but I think they will come away champions.