View from the Corner Desk

Prep basketball heats up fast!

So the biggest boys basketball game of the year in the Upper Peninsula is here, and it’s just the second week of the season. Marquette, possibly the best team in the U.P., travels to Negaunee’s Lakeview Memorial Gym to meet the Miners, also possibly the best team in the U.P. You might think the game will tell us who the true Kings of the Court are this season. But it might not.

Unless the game is decisive, it’s almost a no-win situation for Negaunee outside of the record books. They’re playing at home, a bonus given the home-court advantage at Lakeview is among the best in the U.P. They’re playing a shorthanded Marquette team without its starting or backup point guards.

On top of it, the season is early. Who is playing best right now may not necessarily be the best team at the end of the year. And the teams meet just once.

But, looking at some individual matchups, how Negaunee handles the the size and scoring ability of Joe Simon, the defense and rebounding of Erik Powers, the perimeter and penetrating threat of Brian Carter, and what Marquette can do about slowing down Nick Benaglio and Travis Swanson, while still watching Anthony Katona and Dan Ellis on the perimeter, will inform us about the quality of both teams.

It should be an excellent game.

In related news, the Detroit Free Press announced its list of Top 100 players. No Yoopers made the Top 25 list, who had short bios written about them, but three made the 26-100 list: Marquette’s Tyler Geary, Negaunee’s Travis Swanson and Cedarville’s CJ Paquin. A standout player since his sophomore year, Swanson is undoubtedly deserving. Paquin proved himself quite a player during last year’s playoffs. No offense to Marquette’s Tyler Geary, who is a great ballhandler and entertaining player to watch, but if anyone, teammate Joe Simon deserved that spot.

U.P. GLANCE

With prep basketball fully upon us, we can start to get a feel of which teams are going to be good this season.

BOYS

We figured a few teams would be pretty good: Marquette, Negaunee, Houghton, just to name a trio of Class ABC teams. In Class D, Cedarville and Forest Park were no brainers, as well.

Stepping into the big schools fray, Escanaba’s only loss came to a powerhouse Negaunee team. Its three wins, though not the most quality of opponents, came by an average 14.3 points. So we’ll keep it in mind. Norway might round out a pseudo Top 5 for ABC. I’ll call Menominee a bubble and say Gwinn intrigues me with Derek Nyquist and Kyle Aho being a good combo. Being early in the season and having seen just one boys game in person this year, it’s hard for me to make an actual Top 5 with any real confidence. Once UPSSA starts voting however, I’ll put my rankings up, too.

Rapid River seems a pretty good addition to the D list after handing Bark River-Harris its first loss of the season, at BR-H nonetheless. I’ll toss Watersmeet, Ewen-Trout Creek onto the list. Engadine and Superior Central make my bubble.

GIRLS

On the girls side, the assumption was Westwood would be great (quite true) and Houghton would be rebuilding (also true after losing the Asiala sisters). But rebuilding, for Gremlins coach Julie Filpus, can apparently coexist with winning just fine. Houghton is an undefeated 5-0. Throw in a 5-0 Iron Mountain team, and you’ve got what appears to be a 3-way race for top team in the Upper Peninsula in Class C (or top team, period, really). Hancock remained undefeated with a 23-22 victory over Calumet. And suddenly, looking for a No. 5, I’m thinking the Great Northern Conference gets shut out, because St. Ignace is 3-1, with the loss coming to much-larger Petoskey, and victories coming against Cedarville and the Sault.

Moving on to Class D, I know Carney-Nadeau is always good. No change there. Superior Central looks like it hasn’t found a team to challenge it yet, as its four wins have come by an average of 23.25 points. As noted, Cedarville’s only loss came to St. Ignace, but the Saints have otherwise been impressive. After losing to Forest Park to open the year, North Central has won three since. And finally, I’ll say I don’t know anything about Brimley, but the Bays have won three games on the road to start the year. They could be a team to keep an eye on.

Finally, I’ll note that it’s too bad the former UP-Basketball.net Web site is down. They hope to get it back up in January, a message on UP-football.com said. In the meantime, Alumnac is an excellent resource for U.P. boys and girls standings (complete with cross referenced schedules/results and all sorts of stuff) and an upcoming schedule. It sometimes lags a day behind, but it’s a good reference (used for the roundups above). Also, Radio Results Network Sports is pretty good about getting scores up.

(Hat-tip Houghton sports editor Pete Pietrangelo for the Freep and Alumnac links.)