2018 in Review: Breakout Player of the Year

As most of you know, we cover varsity basketball teams and players in the winter, and 8th through 11th grade teams in the summer. And, so, Adalia Mackenzie, Park Center’s “precocious” freshman forward, first came to our attention last summer as a member of Tayler Hill Elite’s loaded 2021 squad. We saw her squad stumble against Stars Hersch in the AAU state prelims, then settle for 3rd place with a 55-34 thrashing of the Fury 2021 Blue. 2 weeks later there was no such stumble in the AAU state tournament as the Hills defeated Fury again 55-36 to win the state title. Make no mistake, the Hills were point guard Jade Hill’s team. Jade ran the show out on the floor, scoring, passing, protecting the ball. Most of the scoring was done by Jade herself and by power forwards Kierra Wheeler and Dora Okpara, who pounded the offensive glass to create offensive opportunities for themselves. Andrea Tribble and Chynna Young got some looks on the perimeter. But, wait. Who is that gazelle on the wing? Who is that running the floor like the wind, but not taking (hardly) any shots? Oh, that’s Adalia Mackenzie. She goes to Park Center. Wait, did you say McKenzie? Is she related to the McKenzies? Yup. Wow. She’s got basketball genes. She’s got a long, 5-10, athletic body, she runs and jumps, she looks great. But where is she in the scorebook? She hardly ever shoots or scores. What’s with that? So we rated her #18 among the 2021s and said that she had all kinds of upside potential. Fast forward to the high school season. Suddenly, in less than a week, she became no longer just a bundle of awesome future potential. Within her 1st week of varsity play she became a producer. She scored 10 in a win over Eden Prairie. She scored 13 in a win over Prior Lake. Then she scored 14 with 14 rebounds in a 3-point loss to St. Michael-Albertville. She quickly became a model of consistency, scoring in double figures in 8 of Park Center’s 9 games before the 1st of the new year. By January we were moving her from #18 to #4 on our list of 2021s. And by the time March came around, she was in double figures in 18 of 21 games with a high of 25 against Irondale followed by 21 against Elk River. Then, in the sections against favored Centennial, in the Pirates biggest game and biggest win of the season, she poured in another 25 points. She finished as the Pirates top scorer at 14 ppg and its top rebounder with 7. She added 2 assists per game and was the team’s top shotblocker. So that is the trajectory of her season. But McKenzie not just a set of numbers. Here’s what our reporter Grant McGinnis said about her after that “epic” win over Centennial in the sections. “When you talk about Park Center freshman Adalia McKenzie, it's difficult not to focus on her ultra-fast feet, which are probably her greatest asset. On Saturday afternoon, it became obvious that McKenzie's oversized heart might be what ultimately propels her to big-time college basketball. The 5'10 guard put on an epic display of effort, intensity and will to win, an heroic combination of rebounding, scoring and defense that led Park Center to an overtime upset of top-seeded Centennial in the Game of the Week.” “It feels so great!” McKenzie told McGinnis afterward. “I am so excited and full of joy right now.” Josh Hersch, who will coach McKenzie this coming summer on his Minnesota Stars 2021 squad, said, “Wow! I mean, everybody knows about Adalia the athlete. Today we saw Adalia the basketball player. She is an unselfish kid. She is a smart player. She scored 25 points but I don't even care about that. It was her willingness to work hard that impressed me. She just wanted the ball more and she went and got it. She just made winning plays.” “What she did defensively on Sara Stapleton was arguably the biggest part of the game,” Hersch added. “We love Sara. She's one of the best Stars' players and she is truly great, but Adalia was not going to be stopped.” McKenzie admitted that the matchup seemed daunting at the outset. “At first I was a little nervous because she's D1 and I'm a freshman,” she said. “I just told myself that I can't play like a freshman. I didn't want her to get easy points on us. My focus was on stopping her and once we stopped her we could stop everybody else.” Two nights later, it was Park Center that stumbled to a 61-45 loss in the section final to Roseville. Adalia scored just 11 points and looked a little more like a freshman against coach Jeff Crosby’s grind-it-out, defensively obsessed Raiders. But over the course of her freshman season, and especially in that huge win over Centennial, McKenzie proved herself to be one of Minnesota’s best freshmen and best overall girls basketball prospects. And she became an easy choice as our Breakout Player of the Year award. Photo credit: MNBasketballHub