GBB Out & About: 1AA Tuesday QuarterFinals

1AA QUARTERFINALS: Lake City & Winona Cotter Move On

The weather relented, and the games were on Tuesday in Rochester.

Both top seeds in the 1AA quarterfinal moved on to Saturday (weather permitting). One theme of the night was the youth movement. Both Trench Players of the game were freshman.

1AA is a minefield. There are six teams that are in the top 20 of the AA poll, one fell by the wayside last night. One more (at least) will finish their season tonight. The games Tuesday also featured the HVL vs Three Rivers Conference. Both claimed a win. Tonight, both will claim a win, but that is because they are facing a member from their own conference. Tuesday it was a true test.

One thing that is true about post season is possessions suddenly are hoarded and the flow of the game starts to grind down. In the second game the possession count reached 54. The first game was speedier at 65. But earlier this year LC, when they played Norwood-Young America at Kasson-Mantorville had a whopping 88 possessions. It should be noted that game went to an extra four minutes. But even Winona Cotter in a game at the St. Thomas Thanksgiving Event had a possession count of 80 against St. Agnes. Tuesday that count dropped a whopping 25 possessions.

Here is a look at the possession counts: 3- means possessions of 3 touches or less; 7+ is seven touches or more. 11+ is a sub set of 7+.

Team Possessions 3- 7+ 11+
Lake City 65 27 17 5
PEM 64 29 20 6
Cotter 53 17 20 10
ZM 54 26 12 5

This means Cotter had 37.7% of their possessions over 7, LC was at 26.2%. LC had 41.5% of their possessions in the quick category; Cotter was at 32%.

Just so you can gauge the possession count the slowest (or lowest) possession count game was 48/47 with Andover vs Eagan in the Roseville tournament. Expect lower 50s in the next three weeks as teams try to limit dicey, risky possessions.

LAKE CITY 72, PLAINVIEW-ELGIN-MILLVILLE 56

#1 seed Lake City stopped #9 PEM in the opener on Tuesday. The youthful Tigers beat the youthful Bulldogs with more effective shooting and better care of the ball. Part of the reason for the better shooting was shadow cast by LC’s 6-2 Gracy Bany and 6-1 Mya Shones. PEM started off the game with a three, but 3s were harder to come by the rest of the night against the LC zone. With 3:50 left in the half LC was nursing a 21-18 lead. By the break they were up 33-22 by virtue of a 12-4 surge. PEM tightened up the game to 39-33 early in the second half. Seven unanswered Tiger points restored the margin to 46-33. LC displayed balance with six players notching 7 to 20 points. PEM had four in that range.

  LAKE CITY PLAINVIEW-ELGIN-MILLVILLE
POINTS 72 56
REBOUNDS/OFF 26/9 42/19
TURNOVERS 13 23
FTA/% 31/70.96 13/46.15
2FG%/3FG% 57.57/36.36 39.02/37.50
PP100 110.8 87.5
TOP SCORER Natalie Bremer 20 Kayla Rahman 19

TRENCH PLAYER: LC’s 5-9 freshman guard Natalie Bremer with 20 points, a pp100 of 142.9 and joined the 31 Club on the nose.

WINONA COTTER 53, ZUMBROTA-MAZEPPA 38

Cotter’s defense, along with strong possession of the ball and shot selection propelled the Ramblers to Saturday’s confrontation with LC. Guard play is critical in playoff games and Cotter only turned it over every 23.06 touches compared to ZM’s 11.32 touch. In a 53 possession games touches matter. 46% of the Cougar possessions ended in turnovers. 10 of the 25 ZM turnovers resulted in passing decisions, many of which were trying to jam inside to their advantages on the blocks. But that height was never capitalized on due to the miscues. In real estate it is location, location, location. Same with shot selection in basketball. Cotter was 6/9 inside (10/13 adding lay ups). ZM was not too far off at 4/8 (8/13 with lay ups). The frustration for ZM was the number of attempts in choice real estate. The game was low scoring in the first half with the Ramblers up 19-15 at the break. Cotter scored the first two times it touched the ball in the second half. When Isabel Northrop hit a 3 that gave WC a 26-17 lead. Not counting transition lay ups the next or first time ZM took a shot around the blocks came at the 6:25 mark (and that was fouled). Despite the height advantage ZM only had four offensive rebounds, a 78.9% rate for WC. ZM, when on defense had a 57.8% rebound rate.

  WINONA COTTER ZUMBROTA-MAZEPPA
POINTS 53 38
REBOUNDS/OFF 24/9 15/4
TURNOVERS 16 25
FTA/% 24/79.16 19/73.68
2FG%/3FG% 53.84/28.57 64.28/16.66
PP100 100.0 70.4
TOP SCORER Megan Morgan 19 Two with 12

TRENCH PLAYER: WC 5-8 freshman guard Megan Morgan with 19 points, 118.8 pp100, and a 29 in the 31 Club. She was gold at the line going 13/14.

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