MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[sumander]

Greg, I hope you are right about the Land of Lincoln being basketball crazy, because it is going to need to be to support the four class tournament. MN may be a little different than IL in that we have high school hockey to compete with. The fact is a lot of the casual fans no longer go the the H.S. BB tourney. I for one attended for years with my Dad and Brother. It was a family reunion. We have been to the tourney for 4 or 5 years now. I have not checked to verify this but I will bet that attendance cis still sliding, at best it may have stablized.

They have experimented with having the first round games played outstate and that didn't work. Now they bring in all 8 teams in a class for the games, but there is no consolation games for the first round losers.

I am not sure what the answer is, but they need to find one. IL is headed down a slippery slope. I hope for the fans sake it doesn't end up like MN.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

As an old timer who actually remembers the one class state tourney, there is a lot to be said for going back to it. Even with hockey competing for people's attention, all sessions were sold out well in advance (with the exception of tickets allotted to the participating schools...and those naturally sold out too). At first they had a gimmicky "state championship game" on Monday night, pitting Class A champ vs. Class AA champ, but dropped that for a variety of reasons.

We are seeing the same drop in attendance in hockey, which you younger posters may remember from its glory days as a one class tourney. Now, Class A hockey never sells out, and AA does some rounds some years.

Meanwhile, basketball announces attendance as "23,000 for the entire day"-- whereas the old one-class tourney filled Williams for each session. I realize this was pre-ESPN, and before the national frenzy known as March Madness, etc. but it's a sad thing when the level of talent in MN high schools continues to grow (there are far more D-I scholarship hoopsters from MN now than in the one-class days), the fan interest—as measured by TV ratings & ticket sales—declines almost inversely proportional.

I've heard the same phenomenon is happening in Indiana, which makes Illinois look tame in its basketball fever. The drop-off in attendance there is comparable to MN's when we split from one to two classes.

I'm not advocating going back to one class, but back to two classes would heighten interest and make wining more meaningful. Or maybe one tourney, of 16 teams—8 each from "large" and "small" enrollments.

Or as Stillwater's legendary football coach George Thole said when then expanded the number of classes some time back "why don't we give every team a state championship trophy at the beginning of the year and just play more games"

[sumander]

MM, I also remember and attended the one class event! I don't think we could go back to that. 

I like the Sweet Sixteen where the pairings allowed at least two small schools to make it to the round of 8. In a given year I think there is always a small school that can compete with the big schools. It would have been interesting the last 3 years to see how Braham would have done against, say Hopkins! That would create some excitement!

[Drake Palmer]

"Numbers don't lie, or stats are for liars..."  

Whatever the case may be, there's no doubt the attendance figures and interest has declined considerably since the early 70s.   Just a quick glance of the MSHSL basketball yearbook show attendance figures that topped out at 140,313 for the the 1971 state basketball tourney. On the other hand,  in the past three years the approximate attendance totals have been:

2006 - 67,002
2005 - 70,527
2004 - 61,395
___________________________________________________________

CMob -

I forgot to respond to your reply to my question yesterday.  It's uncanny how Carleton seems to zero in on specific recruiting needs, starts looking for players to meet the basketball needs & demanding academic requirements of Carleton, & then manages to to find them!  

Last year was the successful recruitment of Zach Johnson as a replacement for Kyle Beste,  & Jay Melson to plug in at a guard spot.  (Although Melson's gonna have to start working more on his perimeter shot to replicate the efforts of Mr. Baquero.  )

If the Knights can land Forest Lake's Nate Robertson, they'll have found themselves another quality post player.  I've seen him play a couple of times & he's a tough cookie.  He slightly taller than Big Fork, athletic, a solid, back to the basket type of post player, & already has pretty decent size for a high school kid.  The one thing he doesn't seem to possess is that outside J like Forkrud, or at least I never saw him shoot from the outside.  This  could be a result of the type of offense that Forest Lake ran.

[SUMMIT!!!!!]

Drake- is that 67,000 figure the combined total of all four classes over 4 days? if so, they could almost play rounds in the Cage and not turn peole away. (NO, OAS, that was not a knock on Mac or the Cage)

[Drake Palmer]

Mose - I double-checked the MSHSL site & those are indeed the numbers they list for the  tournament attendance.  They're not able to give a breakdown of attendance by class, but daily totals for each day of the state tourney.

If you're interested, here's a link to last year's yearbook

http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/activitypage.asp?actnum=402

[sumander]

Maniac & Drake, What did you guys think of the Sweet 16 format and are you hearing any rumblings from the coaches about changing the Tourney?

[TommieHoops4Life]

The state basketball tournament was at its best at the St. Paul Civic Center in the Sweet 16 format. I remember watching Minneapolis North go down to the wire with Chisholm (I think) back when Khalid was running the show for the Polars. El-Amin had to hit a pull-up three at the buzzer to win the game. It was amazing. I would have loved for Braham to face Hopkins, knowing that the Bombers had their streak end this year at Bethel against Eden Prairie. I also watched the DeLaSalle/Duluth East matchup, and when the game got to 20 points in the second half, you could hear on TV the DeLaSalle fans cheering "We want Hopkins!" I think they should at least consider going back to the Sweet 16 format, or maybe even having the A and AA faceoff, and the AAA and AAAA champ face off, then have those two winners play for the title. I don't know, just a random thought.

I watched the second half of the Winona State game Saturday, and I thought I heard someone say that Zellman, who went for 26, was playing on a broken fibula?! Can anyone else confirm that they heard that?

[Touchdown Tommy]

10-4 TH4L.  They said it was the non weight baring bone of the lower leg which I believe is the fibula (as opposed to the tibia).  Good showing for WSU.

[sumander]

TH4L, I believe it was Staples not Chisholm that North was playing. I will do some research and get back to you with details. I attended the tourney in those days. Some real exciting games and some snoozers. Anything is better than what we have now.

[Drake Palmer]

Sumander - the Sweet 16 was a nice format!  The game between Staples Motley & Mpls North in 95 was very cool.  At any rate, a 3 class format would be an improvement over the current 4 class tourney system. However, from what I've heard, many of the school administrators & COACHES are still in favor of this format mess.  And they're the ones who greatly influence  the MSHSL board of directors.

So now what they're proposing is to to have the coaches seed the tournament once the 8 sectional winners from each class have qualified for state.  As far as I can tell, all this really does is somewhat level the playing field, not create more fan interest.

If the seeding would have been done this year, I think with the exception of Class A, the outcomes would have been much the same as they turned out.  In Class AA we would have probably seen a Braham & Pelican Rapids match up in the finals rather than the semis; DeLaSalle beat both contenders to the throne in Duluth East & St. Thomas Academy in 3AAA;  & Hopkins won 4AAAA.

10-4 TH4L. They said it was the non weight baring bone of the lower leg which I believe is the fibula (as opposed to the tibia). Good showing for WSU.

TDT - you're close. It was Zack Malvik the pg who had the broken leg, not Zellman.

TH4L -Staples- Motley, not Chisholm.  Wasn't there a kid named Blaine Joerger or something liked that who was a stud for them? And, why we're at it, while Sumander has come up with some solid posts in his 1st year on the board,  it was Funbballer who finally verified Ryan Shimek's relation to Joey Shimek.

Where are the real journalists anyway?!? 

 

[sumander]

TH4L, 1995 North beat Staples 54-52 in the first year of the Sweet Sixteen format. Great game.  Lynn Peterson of Staples had some great teams back in those days. He always seemed to run into a buzz saw somewhere along the way.

The Next year North routed a completely outmanned Fertile Beltrami team 80-47. After 1996 it went to the present 4 class system.

[columbianmaffia]

drake

one more player that CAR had last year but will be new is big john hanks from leroy who was out all season after having surgury from a football injury

[Willy Wonka]

Drake - Color me bad, but I actually have had work to do these past few weeks.

On a sidenote, I spent the last weekend dominating the state tournament for old guys at Hopkins. There were about 100 teams there I bet with many familiar faces - Luke Witt, Beste, little Gilbert, Repasky, GAC class of 2004, Wahlberg, Schlenker, J-W-P and MSU grad Zemke, Jaunich (sp?), Nate Tubbs and other early 90's Gophers, a fat Kyle Sanden, Vinnie Greier made an appearance Saturday supposedly...good ball to play and watch.

Playing Class C with/against other former D2/D3ers, my team dismantled Zemke's team — which beat little Gilbert's team by 30 the previous game — to advance to the championship. We won the title against a Jaunich/Schlenker combo, proving the Gusties still own the Oles.

It's Tuesday and I still hurt from five games in two days over the weekend. The plaque in my car makes it all worth it though 

[SofaKing]

This just in!

Brian Lebsock has commited to Concordia College. He will be one of the best point guards in the league. Brian played on the AAU team that I coached last summer and I have nothing but great things to say about not only his game, but his competiveness, dedication, attitude, and character. He is a great kid and will strive to be a great player in the MIAC.

Expect his little brother, who is a great shooter with the same attributes as Brian to follow next year. The Cobbs are on the rise.