FOUR WEDNESDAY GAMES FROM THE MELTDOWN: 3 SEMIS & 1 FINAL

You might have called this day three blowouts and a nail biter. I charted four games, all on the right side of the bracket. This was due to conflicts with my schedule later in the afternoon, there was no wall to wall coverage. I did see the champs for the top division across the top three age groupings, but only charted the 2019 championship. There the Nike National Champion All Iowa Attack fell to a sister EYBL team Midwest Elite out of Chicago in running time. That was the norm for the day with three games ending up in running time at one stage or another.

Benches and Balance equals Ws. The benches were extremely productive on Wednesday with three teams sniffing the rarefied air of the 170s. AIA 2019, in their first game had a 176.9 bench; AIA 2020 172.2 bench and Midwest Elite had a 171.4. The only bench that didn’t keep up was NT 9 Sinn with a 57.1. The NT starters made up for it with a 106.5. As for balance, AIA 11 in their first game had six players score six or more. AIA 10 did them one better with seven. MWE had five players score more than eight.

Another commonality of the games today was the featuring of an All Iowa Attack team in all four games. In case anyone has missed the memo; Attack teams can shoot. Specifically, they can shoot 3s. In the four games the program made 27, with the Sophomore (2020) champs connecting for 11 in the semifinal win over the Fury. The Attack teams, besides the shooting, have an attack mindset, hence the name. The teams throughout the program have similarities with spacing, looking out for each other, playing alert, smart basketball and driving opponents crazy. They are classic overachievers. Wednesday Attack was in three of the title games taking one. The pipeline is full.

The basketball Wednesday was productive, only more so for the winners. The average pp100 for the day was a healthy 99.9 with an average of 52 points. However, that masks the real impact of the day. Winners averaged 62.75, and losers 41.25 for a spread of 21.5. The pp100s also matched that gulf of 40.25. Three winners cracked the century mark, in fact all three cracked the 115 mark. For comparison sake in the 2018 high school season the best mark I charted was 126.9. Last summer the best I had was a 150, but that was a team against the little sisters of the poor. The next best score was 132. Wednesday those numbers were bested in one day. And these games today were title games at the end of the season: The best versus the best. No one was playing Papier-mâché defense. Comparing the best to the worst on the day pp100 the gap was a Grand Canyonesque 85.6. So why the chasm? Fatigue? Six games in three days? Frayed and fried nerves?

The tightest contest featured two teams in the ninth grade division, but one was an eighth grade unit. North Tartan 9 Sinn beat an All Iowa Attack team full of 2022s. It was tight out to 30 all. Eight unanswered points put the home town NT team up 38-30 after a 3 by Jada Johnson with four minutes left. Time to get comfortable? Not when facing an Attack team that can dial up instant comebacks with long range snipers. In three possessions Attack tied it at 38 with a pair of 3s and a rebound basket. Cassidy Carson gave Attack a taste of their own medicine with a three of her own to break the tie and pull ahead 41-38 with 1:40 to go. It remained a one possession game the rest of the way until 1.8 seconds left when NT cashed in two at the line.

Once upon a time in 1871 there was a fire that burned down Chicago. On Wednesday Midwest Elite came out on fire scoring on their first four possessions and built a 10-4 lead that would not be seriously breached and . Sophia Nolan set the table with a quick seven points out of the ten. Nolan would only score three more the rest of the game, but the mood had been created. By the five minute mark MWE already had 31 points. MWE had enough for running time with nine minutes to go (55-35). Breanna Beal continued to showcase her talents with another stellar performance. For the second straight day she was player of the day for the tournament. It wasn’t all Beal. Besides Nolan, the rest of the team stepped up with the MWE bench delivering a 171.4 pp100. MWE also beat AIA at their own game behind the arc 7-5.

TEAM	POINTS	PP100	SCORER
All IA Attack 17 NIKE EYBL	72	141.2	Kylie Feuerbach 18
Tree of Hope 17 EYBL	49	98.0	Jordyn Jenkins 19
All IA Attack 10 NIKE EYBL	73	135.2	Grace Larkins 17
MN Fury 2020 Gauntlet	30	55.6	Two with 7
North Tartan 9 Sinn	45	86.5	Jada Johnson 13
All IA Attack 8 Nike Jones	41	78.8	Hannah Stuelke 19
Midwest Elite 17 EYBL	61	117.0	Breanna Beal 21
All IA Attack 17 NIKE EYBL	45	86.5	Greta Kampschroeder 11

 

TRENCH PLAYER

GAME 1: Kylie Feuerbach with 18 points, 150 pp100, 7/11 on 2s; and 28 score in the 31 Club

GAME 2: Grace Larkins with 17 points, 141.7 pp100, and a 24 score in the 31 Club

GAME 3: Cassidy Carson with 11 points, 183.3 pp100; 3/5 on 3s; and a 17 score in the 31 Club

GAME 4: Breanna Beal with 21 points, 131.2, just missed the 31 Club by one.

PLAYER OF THE DAY: TOURNAMENT: BREANNA BEAL (second straight honor).