Recruiting and Player Profiles

Fun Facts Some odds and ends from the mailbag and elsewhere. Thanks to Matt Pederson for an update to Minnesota girls scoring records, several of which are quoted here. 3,000. Never have more than 2 girls surpassed 3,000 career points in a year. Until now. Lindsey Theuninck, Mankato Loyola; Halley Busse, GFW; Kiley Borowicz, Roseau; and Chelsea Mason, MIB, all did it. Mason needed 3 state tournament games to get there. Kaylee Kennedy of Littlefork-Big Falls finished at 2,505. Carmen Backes, Chisago Lakes and North Tartan, has committed to Wisconsin. Ironically, the Badgers first saw Backes because they were trying to recruit Madison, WI, native Estelle Moschkau, her teammate at Tartan, where Backes is one of just 3 girls to play on Tartan’s top team as a freshman. Backes had whittled her list of colleges to Minnesota, Princeton and Wisconsin when she announced that she would go to Badgerland. She is missing her final season of summer ball with an ACL, however, but expects to be ready for her full senior season at Chisago. Kiley Borowicz also finished at #4 on the career scoring list in state tournament games. Jordan Ferrand, White Bear Lake and MN Fury, and Sydney Stapleton, Centennial and North Tartan, are going to South Dakota State. Ferrand was reported to be considering DePaul, Missouri State, SDSU and Wake Forest. One report said that Sara Stapleton, a year younger than Sydney, was an SDSU recruit but, no, at least for now, that would be Syd. Chelsea Mason also broke the record for most steals in a career, surpassing Rebekah Dahlman. She also came close to Marissa Janning’s record of 458 career 3-pointers. Kayla Mershon, Minnetonka’s 6-3 junior forward, has committed to Nebraska of the Big 10. (It still sounds funny to say that.) Mershon has long been regarded as a player of immense upside potential, and the folks from Nebraska obviously agree with that. More to the point, Mershon’s production also climbed this past year to 12 ppg (2nd on the team) and 14 ppg at the state tournament (also 2nd) compared with 5 ppg the previous year when, of course, she came off the bench for the eventual state champs. The Skippers won 16 games while losing 14 in a rebuilding year, but next year they will enter the season as Northstar Girls Hoops’ #3AAAA team. Grant McGinnis. Some of you know Grant McGinnis, who tells me he saw 147 girls basketball games last year. Some of you also know that my wife and I have had some health issues this year, and that Brett is a new dad. So Northstar Girls Hoops is thrilled to announce that Grant McGinnis will be covering the AAU State Tournament for us next week, and we hope and believe that he will be writing for Northstar Girls Hoops on a more or less permanent basis after that. I am betting that none of you know that Grant is from Winnipeg, where he was a sportswriter who covered and traveled with the Winnipeg Jets for 5 years. Welcome, Grant. More Numbers. Northstar Girls Hoops covers the top 4 divisions of summer basketball and we published some lists the other day showing how various clubs did at the AAU Prelims. It was pointed out that the clubs, however, play in 8 age groups and that the lists would be a bit different if you counted all 8. So, we did that, too. • Most #1 seeds—Tartan 3, Fury 2 • Most #1 and #2 seeds—Fury (including Fury and SMF) 5, Stars 4, Tartan 4 • Most #1, 2 and 3 seeds—Tartan and Fury (including SMF) 6 each, Stars 5 • Most #1 through #4 seeds—Fury (including SMF) 8, Tartan 7 • Most #1-#5 seeds—Fury (and SMF) 9, Tartan 8, Stars 8 • Most #1-#6 seeds—Fury (and SMF) 11, Tartan 10 • Most #1-#7 seeds—Tartan 13, Fury 12 • Most #1-#8 seeds—Fury (and SMF) 14, Tartan 13 • Most #1-#9 seeds—Fury (and SMF) 15, Tartan 14 • Most #1-#10 seeds—Fury (and SMF) 15, Tartan 14, Stars (including Stars THE 11) 14 Officiating at AAU Events. Of course we get comments about officiating at AAU events. The gist is that officials at AAU events let too much go and the games are too physical. “I saw numerous players get hurt (this summer), says Chris Jester, “and in my opinion this is directly (attributable) to officiating in AAU games.” Chris tells us he has seen at least 5 concussions so far this summer season. One of them, to SMF 2018 Blue’s Syd Schultz, was directly attributable to SMF’s collapse. After 2 very impressive wins over elite opponents, they got blown out twice playing without Schultz, who is a powerful inside scorer. “The teams that run the tournaments and the refs themselves will tell you they need to keep the games on time and if they call every foul the games will go forever,” Chris added, “I understand that argument but it’s not valid when it comes to the safety of the player.” We’ve said as much many times over the past 4 years. Instead of promising teams 4 or 5 scrimmages in a weekend, why not 3 real games of basketball? Are teams going to avoid a tournament that promises 3 real games of real basketball? Jocelyn Russell of Silver Bay had the year’s highest scoring game with 52 points on February 2. It ties for #12 on the all-time list. Mikayla Van Nett of St. Paul Como tied the state record for 3s in a game with 13 on February 9. Danielle Williams of Zimmerman set a new state record for steals in a season, but the exact number is unclear. It’s more than the previous record of 216.