All-Minnesota team for 08-09

playhosea!

Chad Kolander groupie
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Taking off from the "players who got away" thread, I often find it interesting to see what the all-Minnesotan college basketball lineup would be for a given season. Here is my pick for this year's:

C -- Cole Aldrich, Kansas. 1st Team all-Big XII, Conference co-Defensive Player of the year. Averaged 14.8 points, 11.0 rebounds, 2.6 blocks, shot over 60% from the field and just under 80% from the free throw line. Coming off a monster 13 point, 20 rebound, 10 block game in the NCAA tournament vs. Dayton. Just an absolute beast who has developed rapidly at Kansas.

PF -- Trevor Mbakwe, Miami-Dade CC. Maybe it's cheating to pick a Juco guy, but Mbakwe had a huge season, averaging 16.3 points, 13.2 rebounds, and 2.7 blocks on way to winning conference player of the year. Most imporantly, it seems like his knee and class work were not an impediment for him this year. Very excited about Trevor. I think he could average 10 and 10 in the Big Ten if things break right for him.

SF -- Jon Leuer, Wisconsin. His stats on the year were not amazing (8.8 points, 3.8 rebounds) but he had good numbers after being put into the starting lineup and averaged only 21 minutes per game.

SG -- Ryan Wittman, Cornell. Unanimous first team all-Ivy League. 18.5 ppg, shooting 41.6% from three. 1.46:1 assist to turnover. Arguably the best player in the Ivy despite not winning the award. Scored 18 in loss against Missouri in NCAA Tournament.

PG -- Ben Woodside, NDSU. Summit League POY. 23.2 ppg, 6.2 assists per game. 42.7% shooting from three. Put up 37 points against Kansas in NCAA Tournament. Tremendous career at NDSU.

Honorable Mention -- I'm interested in hearing nominations for honorable mention. Obviously Nolen and Hoffarber are candidates. The "players who got away" thread mentions a couple of other good ones: Romain Martin (E. Illinois) and Noah Dalman (Furman) put up good numbers.

One other interesting thing: every one of my top-5 guys other than Woodside is a sophomore. So are Nolen and Hoffarber. The 2007 MN high school class will really go down as a special one.
 


You're forgetting Matt Janning. He had an excellent year leading his team in scoring at Northeastern and have some big games against big schools. Not saying he should be on your top list but at least be mentioned.
 

Honorable Mention - Anthony Tucker, Iowa. Led the Big 10 in BAC all year. Flip cup champion of December.
 

additions

Good correction and addition of Matt Janning.

I looked up Cody Schilling's stats. He's not at the D-1 level, but he started every game and won conference freshman of the year at Augustana, averagin 12 points and 5 rebounds and shooting 51.2% from three.
 


P.J. Hill from Ohio State grew up in Minneapolis.
 

Jordan Hicks of Loyola Chicago played for Rochester Mayo....23 points and 8 rebounds in a win against #15 Butler.
 


Eayrs

The chubby kid from Roseville (Eayrs) had a solid season for UW-Milwaukee. ... 11.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 34% on 3's, 85% from the charity stripe.
 



I deliberately didn't include P.J. Hill because his numbers weren't that impressive and he's a guy I think Ohio State wishes they didn't have to play as much as he did. I also left Jordan Taylor off because his per-game numbers were bad playing short minutes but he played well in the second half of the season and will probably have a good career.
 

Darren Kent - 6' 10" 230lb Senior Forward - Kansas St from Apple Valley Eastview

9 ppg & 5.8 rpg. IMO he might even push his way into your starting lineup ahead of Leuer.

At least he would add a lot to this team and they might still be playing next week (if they didn't get away).
 

Dahlman

I think that Dahlam has to be consided...18 pts per game and 6 boards...He plays so Big and just out works kids...Very talented just not playing the toughest competion but compares to most of those guys at the top....I would put him above Leuer in the Top 5...
I
 

Kwadzo Ahelegbe 6-2 Soph UNI guard from Tartan 31 min/game, 41%FG, 36% 3pt%, 78% FT, 11.8 ppg, 3.1 assts, 2.7 Reb/game
 



Don't forget about Brett Winkelman...1st team All-Summit, 18.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, and he was also the Academic All-American of the Year.
 

This is stretching it a little but ---- if we would have kept Patrick O'Bryant from getting away to Bradley and he red-shirted a year he would be a senior this year. We would also have to have kept him away from the NBA.
 

what ever happened to Angelo Johnson he played at USC last year and went to Minneapolis Henry for high school.
 

Bear Johnson is sitting out this year after transferring to Southern Miss.
 


There was some controversy when he left USC because it came out that his reason for leaving was that while recruiting, Tim Floyd promised Johnson that he would be a starter beginning with his sophomore season. Apparently the recruits Floyd later signed made Floyd change his mind about this and the promise of being a starter was canceled. So he decided to transfer.

There was some "this is what's wrong with our society" talk when it happened.
 


Don't forget Jordan Taylor (Wisconsin). He started to come on strong towards the end of the year.
 





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