Here are a dozen candidates for Player of the Year. Heck, some years I have a hard time coming up with 5 or 6 good candidates so, yes, it’s been a great year for Minnesota basketball.
Isaac Asuma, Cherry boys. Asuma led Cherry to the boys Class A state title with a line of 18 ppg-9 reb-7 asts-2 stls. He’s a 6-3 combo guard who plays good defense, pounds the boards and is extremely unselfish with the ball, with those 7 assists. Now, you may know that he has moved on to the Minnesota Gophers where the reports out of fall practice have been good.
Joey Batt, Minnesota State Mankato women. Joey, a 5-9 guard from New Ulm, led Mankato to the NCAA D2 title and a 32-5 record. Her contribution was 16 ppg-3 reb-3 ast-4 stls. Her stock in trade was her in-your-face ball defense, and she set the tone for a Mankato team that created turnovers in bunches. She was named 1st team all-American.
Mara Braun, Minnesota Gopher women. The Gophers have new hope under coach Dawn Plitzeweit, and much of that hope rests on the mid and long-range shooting of 6-0 guard Mara Braun. Her line last year as a sophomore was 17 ppg-4 reb-3 ast. She missed several games late in the year and the Gophers lost most if not all of those games. So she was indispensible, and she will be indispensible to a possible rebound in 2024-2025.
Napheesa Collier, Minnesota Lynx. You may recall that Collier sat out 2022 to give birth to daughter Mila. And, so her status in the WNBA became somewhat diminished. But she roared back this year with a line of 20-10-3-2 to finish #2 in WNBA MVP voting, and to lead the Lynx to a surprising 30-10 record and a place in the WNBA finals. She recently became the first player in WNBA history to have 25 points and 10 rebounds in 3 straight playoff games. The 6-1 forward is all all-WNBA on defense.
Mike Conley, Minnesota Timberwolves. Ant Edwards may be the new sheriff but Mike Conley was totally indispensible as his sidekick. Late in a close game, you wanted nothing more than to see the ball in Conley’s hands. As coach Chris Finch said more than once, you can be pretty sure that Conley will make good decisions with the ball. He’s just 5-0 tall and 37 years of age, so I’m not sure how long he can keep it up, But, as good as Gobert and KAT and Jaden McDaniels were, I thought Conley was the Wolves’ 2nd best player though his line was a modest 11-3-6.
Aaliyah Crump, Minnetonka girls. The 6-1 junior combo guard led Minnetonka to the state AAAA title with 24 ppg-7 reb-3 ast-2 stls. As a junior of course she was not eligible for Ms. Basketball, but its not at all obvious that she wasn’t the best player in the state. She recently announced that she will be playing college ball at Texas, and she has transferred Montverde basketball academy for her senior season.
Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves. “I’m the number one option,” Edwards famously said, and that was at the Olympics where his teammates included LeBron and Steph and KD and all of those guys. So, OK, he wasn’t really the number one option. But he sure as heck is the number one option for the Timberwolves, and he was good enough at 26 ppg-5 reb-5 asts to lead the Wolves to the NBA’s 4th best record and to the conference finals.
Dawson Garcia, Minnesota Gopher men. The 6-11 forward is the Gophers backbone at 18 ppg-7 reb-2 asts. I don’t even want to think about where the Gophers would be without him.
Jackson McAndrew, Wayzata boys. The 6-9 forward had his team rated #1 all year long before losing an upset to Minnetonka in the state final. He scored 24 ppg with 10 boards, and is now playing ball at Creighton.
Olivia Olson, Benilde-St. Margaret’s girls. Led Benilde to its 2nd straight state AAA title with a line of 25-7-2-2. She is now playing at Michigan.
Courtney Williams, Minnesota Lynx. The perfect analog to Mike Conley, she is the Lynx player you want to have the ball pretty much as much as possible. Well, she’s not a perfect analog to Conley in that she’s somewhat more aggressive, somewhat more prone to turn it over. But it is her attacking mentality, along of course with Collier’s ability to finish, that makes the Lynx offense go.
Malik Willingham, Minnesota State Mankato men. The NSIC player of the year led Mankato to the national championship with a line of 19-4-4-2.
So there’s an even dozen Player of the Year candidates. We’ll be handing out the awards next week after the Lynx season has come to an end.
