A Look Inside Our 2018 Player Ranking Update
Coming soon to your favorite basketball Web site (Northstar Girls Hoops, that is) is our almost-quarterly player ranking updates, starting with 2018 and continuing with 2019, 2020 and 2021. As we were updating the class of 2018, we gave special…
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Continue ReadingComing soon to your favorite basketball Web site (Northstar Girls Hoops, that is) is our almost-quarterly player ranking updates, starting with 2018 and continuing with 2019, 2020 and 2021. As we were updating the class of 2018, we gave special attention to our top 5 because 5 is typically the number of Ms. Basketball finalists.
Of course, anything we have to say about Ms. Basketball is mostly for fun, as this is not our award. We do not choose Ms. Basketball. We have nothing to do with choosing Ms. Basketball. We award a Player of the Year award, which is not necessarily given to a senior. And, secondly, we don’t really claim to have a clue what the criteria for Ms. Basketball are. Is it awarded based on the senior year? Last year’s award seemed to be. Or, is it a career award? We’re not sure.
Still, Ms. Basketball is a big deal and in ranking our top 5, we thought they ought to be the 5 players that we would choose as Ms. Basketball finalists, as of today. Considering that the senior season is less than half finished, our criteria right now emphasize the overall career, not the senior year particularly. That could change in March. So like I said, this is mostly for fun at this point. In any event, here are our top 5 players in the class of 2018 as of today. The rest of the class of 2018 ranking will follow shortly.
1. Sam Haiby, Moorhead, 5-10, combo guard (going to Nebraska)
Of course you’ve heard that Sam injured her knee recently. It is a torn meniscus, as Moorhead AD Dean Haugo and coach Jed Carlson described it to us recently. So there is an expectation that she will return to the court before this season is out—in about a month, according to coach Carlson. This is of course pretty crucial because if she missed January, February and March, and if Ms. Basketball is a senior year award, it would be pretty hard to give her the award.
But it would be terribly premature to write her off just yet. In a dozen games this season, she is averaging 27 ppg with 7 rebounds and 6 assists against a fiendishly tough Class AAAA schedule. Those are Ms. Basketball numbers, as are her 3 different games with 40 points or more. So right now she is clearly a Ms. Basketball finalist and, based on the expectation that she’ll return before this year is out, we’ll still call her the favorite for Ms. Basketball 2018.
2. Carmen Backes, Chisago Lakes, 6-2, forward (Wisconsin)
Speaking of knees, Backes missed a good portion of last season and also all of last summer with a knee injury. Last week we were told that she is about 80-85 percent and that her minutes are still being limited to 12-14 minutes per half. Well, she played 14:30 per half in the game we saw, a 71-70 loss to St. Francis. She scored 19 points in the 1st half, looking to be at well over 80-85 percent. In the 2nd half she scored just 4, however, and looking more like she was indeed running at 75-80 percent of her pre-injury self.
But, since then, Chisago bounced back to win at North Branch 70-54 as Backes scored 32 points with 11 rebounds and 4 steals, and 68-60 at Grand Rapids as she poured in 37 points with 15 boards, 2 assists and 2 steals. If that’s not 100 percent, it’s a pretty good facsimile.
So Backes is now back in the running for Ms. Basketball and, if Sam Haiby should happen to be out for more than a month, she is now the #1 alternative. Which is fitting because she herself—Carmen Backes—was #1 on this list before her own knee injury a year ago. Welcome back.
3. Megan Walstad, Eastview, 6-3, post (Milwaukee)
Walstad also had some leg injuries but fortunately they’re now a couple of years in the rear view mirror and she is celebrating her senior season by playing strong down low for the Lightning. She’s not the huge scorer that Haiby and Backes often are, but she does everything for Eastview, as evidenced by her numbers—15 ppg, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 3 blocked shots. In the big, big win over Hopkins over the holidays, she contributed 15 points, 12 boards, 3 assists, a steal and 2 blocks. And because she does it against one of the state’s toughest schedules, we moved her up from #4 to #3 in our rankings.
4. Ayoka Lee, Byron, 6-5½, post (Kansas State)
Yokie Lee remains a hard player to peg because she is a very unusual player and because she doesn’t play the toughest competition day in and day out. There’s also the fact that posts are hard to peg because they are so dependent on their teammates to get them the ball. At the Breakdown Invitational, Lee’s guards weren’t able to do that and so Monika Czinano outscored her 20-13 and Watertown-Mayer defeated the Bears 49-41. That doesn’t mean Czinano “outplayed” Lee or played better than Lee, it means she got more touches and was able therefore to be a little more productive. With the same number of touches, we still think that Lee, with her 6-5½ size, would be more productive than any other post in the state. I mean, who knows, maybe she would be #1 on this list. It’s hard to say either way.
5. Morgan Hill, Mpls. South, 5-9, shooting guard (undecided)
Hill remains one of the state’s most productive offensive players with 27 points per game. She also adds 7 boards, 3 assists and 3 steals. She has always been able to get to the rim, but she has been finishing better and better over the years, and she has become a more complete player. And, so, we’ve moved her up from #7 to #5 in our rankings, making her from our particular perspective a potential Ms. Basketball finalist.
Just Ms-ed Out
That also means that Krystal Carlson, who was #5 last fall, and Megan Walker and Emma Grothaus, just ms-ed out (get it?), among others. Carlson is like the Energizer bunny, she just continues to be one of the state’s most productive players across all statistical categories, and yet there’s the fact that she didn’t get any high D1 offers and is going to D2 Sioux Falls. This leaves prominent high school and AAU coaches scratching their heads, and us, too, but she drops from #5 to #7.
You may have heard that Megan Walker is also out with a knee injury. Megan tells us that she went up for a layup in the Elk River game, and simply came down and landed awkwardly, tearing her PCL. She will be doing physical therapy for the next 2 months or more, but there is a chance that she could come back in 2 months, just in time for the playoffs. But not a good chance. Coach Leah Dasovich agrees that it’s “unclear” whether she’ll be back in 2018 or not, but says “it is unlikely.” But, either way, there’s every reason to believe she’ll have a 100 percent recovery from the injury. All of this pretty much puts an end to any thoughts of Megan Walker as a Ms. Basketball finalist, but she certainly remains in our top 10 2018s.
Meanwhile, Emma Grothaus is having a great senior year—not to say that anybody we’ve mentioned here is not. But Grothaus has been especially productive, scoring 23.5 ppg. And, the tougher the opponent, the more productive she’s been—almost out-scoring DeLaSalle single-handedly with 32 points in an early-season 51-36 win over the Islanders. Then she scored 24 in a 9-point win over Woodbury, and 28 in a 9-point win over Tartan.
Emma moves up from #9 to #6 on our list, and was the final player to be bumped out of our top 5.
So there are our top 5 players in the class of 2018, and 8 of our top 10. I will mention that the other 2 top 10 players are both newcomers to our top 10. As a result, you can also infer that 2 players have dropped out of our top 10. The newcomers are Czinano at #8 and Heaven Hamling of Grand Rapids at #10. Czinano has been a tower of strength, single-handedly fill much of the gap caused by the graduation of guards Claire Killian and Kirstin Klitzke. She is averaging a mind-boggling 26 points and 18 boards.
Hamling has led Grand Rapids into battle against a vastly tougher schedule this year as the ThunderHawks make a run at a possible state tournament berth and, who knows beyond that? She is averaging 19 ppg and scored a remarkable 35 against none other than the Hopkins Royals.
Coming Soon: Next week, our top 250 2018s, both tables and additional analysis. The following week, the 2019s. The week of the 29th it’s the 2020s, and the week of February 5 it will be the 2021s.