TOP 100 EXPO CAMP

This is not really about Club GBB, it is about the summer camp experience:

The Minnesota Basketball News held their Top 100 Expo Camp at St. Benedict’s to open the July charting. This one day event featured mostly players from smaller out of the way schools that don’t go clubbing due to time, distance and expense. I counted only five rostered AAAA players and not all of them showed up. Metro players were few and far between. Same for players on club teams. The exception was Taylor Janssen of Rosemount (and the MN Fury 2020 Yellow) who was named MVP of the camp. Her team won the championship. That was accomplished by winning the three team pool and then the one game play off with the other three game pool.

Despite the Top 100 name, there were only 58 players on the girls side this year with only six teams. (Boys were on the other two courts). Lately there has been eight girl teams and close to 80 players. Why the drop this year? Perhaps having the fourth of July disrupted opportunities. Also Monday may not be the ideal day for a midweek camp.

At any rate, looking at the pp100 numbers saw a solid effort with four teams of the four games I charted scoring above 90. The worst pp100 was 66.7, better than some of the club games I have seen this year. Before you email me about how camp ball is not like club ball I get it—-defense is probably stressed more on the club side, and these teams wouldn’t be sniffing 100 against the big time clubs. Looking at the defense, man was stressed and some players you can tell are from zone systems. They were the players that the offense zipped by. Kia Tower could get to the rim any time she wanted. No one would confuse this group with All IA Attack, but they did nail 3s. One game had a combined 15 with the Bulldogs going 7/13 (53.84%). Both teams in the championship hit for six.

One of the benefits of going to this event is you can observe many players that never get much exposure from clubs or their high school is not close to the top 100 I strive to see: case in point: Shinaana Secondy of McGregor. She had pp100 of 175 thanks to 6/7 shooting (including 2/2 from 3). She had some finishers as well.

The championship was won by the Tigers with balance in the extreme. I charted them in the opener and title game and each time they reached over 90. Balance? The Tigers had nine of their ten players with double digit scores in the 31 club in the title game. In the first game they had six players over 100 pp100 and five players between 8 and 13 points.

Now the action shifts to the club scene. Shoes and their affiliations will be the prime drawing card in the upcoming events. The Adidas family of teams will descend on Chaska and Chanhassen for the Fury’s Mill City Tournament which used to be in April, but now is a warm up for Chicago for many teams.

 

TEAM	POINTS	PP100	SCORER	SCHOOL	GRAD
Tigers	70	98.6	Kia Tower	Bigfork	2019
Bulldogs	48	66.7	2 with 11
Rebels	60	81.1	Lexi Bright 16	West Central	2022
Crimson Tide	52	70.3	Shinaana Secody 14	McGregor	2019
Wildcats	65	98.5	Gianna Kneepkens 11	Duluth Marshall	2021
Bulldogs	62	95.4	Jordyn Glynn 14	Grand Meadow	2019
Tigers	64	90.1	Isabella Hartzell 12	Hill-Murray	2021
Rebels	50	72.5	2 with 8

 

TRENCH PLAYER

GAME 1: Kia Tower of the Tigers (Bigfork). The 2019 guard scored a game high 13 points, had a pp100 of 118.2, was 6/11 on distributions, had one turnover in 36 touches and had a team best 26 score in the 31 Club.

GAME 2: Lexi Bright of the Rebels (West Central). The 2022 guard had 16 points, a 228.6 pp100, 2/3 on 3s; had no turnovers in 40 touches and a team best 24 score in the 31 Club.

GAME 3: Gianna Kneepkens of the Wildcats (Duluth Marshall). The 2021 guard had a team high 11 points, was right on the nose at 100 pp100, did not have a turnover in 50 touches, & had a team best 21 score in the 31 Club.

GAME 4: Maddy Foster of the Tigers (Hermantown). The 2019 guard scored 7 points, had a pp100 of 233.3 and was 6/10 on distributions with 29 touches without a turnover. Her 31 Club score was 15.

AWARDS: ALL CAMP

This was determined by the coaches at the camp (the ones doing the coaching, not the ones doing the note taking).

Ella Vankempen, West Central

Alyssa Rostad, Houston

Hailey Hohenecker, Providence

Alivia Mortenson, Ulen-Hitterdal

Madison Peschl, Foley

Macie Kirckof, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa

Kia Tower, Bigfork

Taylor Janssen, Rosemount MVP

Jordyn Glynn, Grand Meadow

Ava Hill, Mesabi East

Riley Queensland, Grand Meadow

As you can see only Kia Tower made the list on the trench players. No other trench player made the all camp team. You can also see that the Grand Meadow contingent had a good camp with two All Campers, with a third, Skyler Cotton, winning the championship and both games with over 100 pp100. She was a thief as well with a day’s best 7 steals in the first game of the day. 2019 may be super for the Larks.