MBB: Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference

[sumander]

Here is a story from the Rochester Post-Bulletin on the Star of the North games. Wonka and crew got bounced in the quarters! Looks like his sisters carried the mail though.

[Willy Wonka]

Wow El-Amin goes from Turkish League/FIBA star to a basket ball tournament at at high school.

Not to worry, El-Amin's a hoops hound & he lives for the sport.  This is the off season, so he comes back home to Minny, chills & then plays basketball all over the place.  Typically you'll find him doing a couple of games a week at the Howard Pulley Pro-Am league in St. Paul, late June - mid July.  Then late July, he pulls up his tent & heads back overseas.  Maybe if we're lucky, our favorite poster from Rochester will be able to give us a first hand review of the tournament along with El Amin & other players next Monday. 

My full report will be on your desk by midnight, sir.

[Drake Palmer]

Wow El-Amin goes from Turkish League/FIBA star to a basket ball tournament at at high school.

Not to worry, El-Amin’s a hoops hound & he lives for the sport.  This is the off season, so he comes back home to Minny, chills & then plays basketball all over the place.  Typically you’ll find him doing a couple of games a week at the Howard Pulley Pro-Am league in St. Paul, late June - mid July.  Then late July, he pulls up his tent & heads back overseas.  Maybe if we’re lucky, our favorite poster from Rochester will be able to give us a first hand review of the tournament along with El Amin & other players next Monday. 

My full report will be on your desk by midnight, sir.

Sweet-- our embedded sports reporter returns from the hoops front lines with an in-depth report.  Looking forward to it. 

[Pat Coleman]

Rochester paper says El-Amin was a no-show.

[Willy Wonka]

Attempting a mid-season quality post during the middle of the offseason. Deal with it

Star of the North report
The tournament was straight *packed* with talent. No point illustrates this better than 80% of UST's starting lineup from 2006-07 (Minus Dwyer, but with Neal Anderson and another big black post who was solid) and a decent if depleted Winona State squad (minus John Smith but with Flowers and others) failing to make it into the winner's bracket out of pool play.

To further this point, Wonka's team was pooled with a bunch of former D2ers and the UST team. The D2ers, led by former SCSU standout Nate Miller, were defeated in last season's semis by around 15 and again this time by 28. Wonka's team then beat the UST squad by 6ish before Gilbert absolutely destroyed us after tanking it in pool play.

Random Thoughts From A Cluttered Mind

• Most of the top-tier MIAC teams were represented. The worst team was GAC, who played without Doble and Wittwer.

• Wittwer played with a team from Bethel who I never got to see play. They won their pool and got beat in the semis I believe but bounced back to destroy the SJU team (more on them later) to finish third.

• The Tommies lost by 10 to Miller's team in their first game and Ike, Keating and the DWade-jersey wearing coach were all kicked out. Ike apparently blew a gasket when he fouled out (he thought he only had 3...can someone check to see if Clem is on Fritz's payroll?). I can only guess that the Tommies thought it was March 3 again and their opponents were supposed to roll over after the tip. There was no way they should have lost that game. Zero. I would have bet my car on that outcome...good thing Treasure Island hasn't tickled my fancy yet, I guess.

• Keating was either really hung over, didn't try or just isn't very good based on our game at 2:30 p.m. You know what my guess is. I don't think he scored and I know he barely played in the second half.

• Ike has been schooling Dan Coleman in summer workouts, apparently. Yes, the same Dan Coleman who Tubby has been heard saying "is farther along than Tayshaun at this point in his career." I feel like Bill Simmons trying to swallow the Ainge rhetoric and it hasn't even been a year yet...

• A Bloomington/UMD team beat Gilbert's squad by 1 in the title game. I didn't get to watch them play, but the names are familiar: both Ohmes, Andy Healy, Brian Sykora (who was legit bad, supposedly) and a few others I didn't recognize. Their big man was supposed to be UMD senior John Vaudreuil, but he tore something in his knee (ACL, they think) during garbage time of the first game. He put up 13 PPG last year and was the subject of a heated, drunken argument at the bar afterwards: who's better, he or Espo? Both teams drew their line in the sand and refused to budge one inch.

• The SJU team picked up SDSU freshman post Tyler Cain and took fourth place. They had an easy route, considering the other brackets, and got smoked by 20+ in the third-place game. Westman and Brink were the most familiar faces.

• Old-timers might recognize the name Martin Coon, from freshman fame at Olaf before transferring to Northern Iowa, I believe. The rest of his team was terrible, but I needed an Ole reference

• Jay Anderson (Oregon, through Faribault) played and was knocked out early, as was former Kenyon-Wanamingo/SCSU player Joe Evert.

• Gilbert dominated our 6-10 former D2 Player of the Year, Kyle Behrens. I played with and against him years ago and he's gotten *much* better, which he should have. I bet he had 10 dunks and 30-40 points against us. That said, we turned it over in the lane down 2 with 2 seconds left and most people watching thought we'd beat them fairly easily if we played again...terrible way to end the tourney.

• Gilbert showed up at halftime of their first game and his team beat a terrible Rochester team made up of mostly high school players by 4 after trailing most of the way. He then skipped Saturday morning's game (a crushing defeat) before playing us in the first round. Khalid never showed, obviously.

• Neal Anderson may still be a terrible rebounder, but he's a nice guy. And lucky to be in Vegas on a work trip right now.

• And, exhale. With twenty seconds to spare on my self-imposed deadline. I always was an overachiever

[Terry Kukla]

To correct a few errors in Willy's post:

Bethel did not win their pool. They were beat by 25 in their first game to the TwineBallers and then beat the Winona State team.

The TwineBallers were 7 Jefferson guys and 1 Osseo grad.

Bryan Sykora who Willy says was "legit bad," would probably have taken the MVP award if there had been one. And will be playing ball up at Duluth this coming season.

And I will continue to argue that John Vaudreuil is a better player (right now) than Doug. But tough to compare Doug, who is more of a crafty outside post to John who, although hits the 15 footer, would much rather drop step his 6'7" 260 frame right at the hoop and dunk on you. John will find out today what the status of his knee is.

Hopefully the T.Ballers and Willy's Boys will be able to meet up at some point on the court. The Ballers 100% healthy and the Boys 100% rested (not after moving hot air balloons around all day).

[sumander]

Willy, Outstanding post! Thanks and +k! Wish I could have seen some of the action.

[piperinsider]

From John Millea of the Star Tribune:

Above And Beyond Award: Early one morning during the state track meet at Hamline University, Hamline athletic director Dan O'Brien walked through the roomy building that houses the press box. In a lounge area, he discovered a coffee table that was littered with the previous day's donut crumbs, tattered napkins and crumpled coffee cups. He gathered up the refuse, wiped the table clean and said with a smile, "Do you think Joel Maturi does this?"

[Drake Palmer]

Nicely done Willy, + k as well!

In fact, the hometown fairhaired son was garnering much ink from the local, Rochester media over the weekend. Here's another article covering the Star of the North Games.

Pat - It's always a guessing game where & when the "big name D1 stars" show up for summer league games & tourneys.  Last year, El-Amin probably played half of his team's games during the Howard Pulley Pro-Am, then bailed out for the league playoff semis. Yet on the other hand, there was Trenton Hassell from the T-wolves playing in the Pulley championship game. 

If CMob wasn't in dirty Jersey he might have my back - but I still contend those Bloomington Jeff teams from the early 2000s were pretty doggone nice - Sykora, Vaudreuil, Dan Wheeler from this year's D3 champions - Amherst, Lien, Ohme, etc.   I might have to  take in a UMD-Winona State matchup next year to see Vaudreuil & John Smith from Winona duel in the post.
   

[Terry Kukla]

Drake, that was a solid class of Jefferson grads, but lets not forget about some other ballers who started that State Tournament run T. Brown, Zilka, Meyers, Healy, myself as well as a younger Sykora.

[akronbball]

Drake, that was a solid class of Jefferson grads, but lets not forget about some other ballers who started that State Tournament run T. Brown, Zilka, Meyers, Healy, myself as well as a younger Sykora.

I don't know how i found this forum, but I believe the Jefferson squad mentioned above would beat the younger class if nate ohme didn't play since he was pretty much a bum.

So when are T.Ballers and Willy's Boys going to play? im saying i would drop at least 30, easily.

[Willy Wonka]

Kukla - Sheesh, this is the thanks I get for passing along a scouting report on the Federers? I guess I'll keep my mouth shut next time. At least tell me you're posting with your knee-highs on to honor your son

I've only heard rumors of Sykora's skills and didn't get to see him play this weekend, as I said above. However, my Rochester source said he saw him play and was far from impressed...maybe he just caught him in a bad stretch? The UMD web site seems to be pimping his signing enough for all of us, in any case.

No reactions to the UST blowup? I thought for sure that'd get some type of response.

I'd try to set up the dream matchup for this weekend, but I think my team needs some time to regroup. After the John/Espo argument, we got into a religious debate that lasted until nearly 5 a.m. and one of our big men didn't get out of bed until suppertime on Sunday. And then went back for a nap afterwards.

Oh, and I promise I could hold akronbball to 28 and not a point more. In my glory days, I held Big Gilbert and BVT to around 23 a game — I doubt I've slipped 7 more points. Yet.

[Terry Kukla]

Willy, your scouting report of the Federers was solid.

I'd like to hear what your scout thought of the rest of our team...there were stretches in this tourney where we looked like we couldn't have won the girls 8th grade division. We started out 2 or 3 of our games down 10 nothing. We pretty much did just enough to win each game we played in. That's kind of how we roll. We actually played pretty pathetically.

I didn't hear much about the St. Thomas blow ups. I did hear that the person working the books in that game was very sketchy and needed to be watched.

After the discussion at Gilligans we just continued to drink more - which was a direct cause of the zero warm up time and 0-10 start against the Johnnies.

You could hold AkronBallz, but you still don't have anyone on your squad that can stop Bulls. No one does.

[concordia of the north]

religious argument?

[localcoach]

O.k. Drake, et. all - In the "bombshell" department  , I have it from a reliable source that Hamline will be looking for a new head coach very soon.  Apparently Coach Wohler is in fact headed back to the high school ranks.  The destination is supposedly Orono.  I will try to get further confirmation.