On the Bench with Byron Higgin
When the Minneota boys’ basketball team won its 21st game of the season Tuesday night over RTR, 61-59, they might not have realized it, but they’d stepped boldly onto new ground, plowed a new road and changed Minneota basketball forever.
If there is one sport that has not followed in the paths of football ... wrestling ... volleyball ... girls’ basketball ... golf ... even track and cross country ... it’s boys’ basketball.
“For years, the normal was an average of four or five wins a year,” said one old-time alumnus. While no official records seem to be in place — nobody remembers a 21 win season. Girls’ assistant Coach Dale Kockelman played with some pretty good teams, but said, “We never won that many games.”
He added, “Back then we didn’t even play that many games.” That’s one of the reasons it hasn’t been done before. Early basketball teams played 18 or less games a year. But even in modern times, while Minneota has had good seasons, like 16 or 17 win seasons — the boys’ team has never before won 21 games.
One reason the current squad is not dwelling on winning 21 games is because they have, so to speak, “bigger fish to fry.” They had a big conference game Tuesday night with undefeated Russell-Tyler-Ruthton and they still have a game with Luverne and playoff games to play.
But when the season finally washes out, and we hope it won’t be for three weeks or so, the 2017-2018 Minneota Boys’ Basketball team will go down in history as the team with the most wins — EVER!
It’s a tribute to a team that has worked hard.
The players have put in the time to become good basketball players and they have an excellent coaching staff, led by head Coach Dave Busselman. No doubt the team and coaching staff melds together well and believe in each other.
And the beauty of this team is they lose just two seniors, one starter and one reserve. So they should be able to re-group again next year.
ODDS & ENDS:
•Southwest Minnesota State men’s basketball team earned its second straight Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference South Division championship on Saturday night recording an 80-59 victory over Concordia-St. Paul.
SMSU’s victory, coupled with Minnesota State’s loss at the University of Sioux Falls, gives SMSU the outright division for the second straight season.
The Mustangs, ranked No. 6 in the NCAA Central Region rankings, improves to 21-7 overall, 17-5 NSIC, in earning their seventh straight victory. Michael Lee also scored a career-high with 20 points, connecting on a career-high six 3-pointers.
•MSU Moorhead had two pins and one major decision to distance itself from Southwest Minnesota State in a 25-13 win for MSUM on Saturday afternoon.
Brock Buysse (133) of Minneota picked up an 18-5 major decision to answer a Dragons’ major decision at 125 and even the match at 4-4. Cole Hennen of Minneota beat Mitchell Kotschevar (Minnesota State Moorhead) 6-2. Buysse is 10-12 this year, Hennen is 13-8.
Other former Minneota wrestlers records are: Alec Engler 4-2 and Nick Esping 3-10. SMSU will compete 2018 NCAA Super Region 3 Tournament in St. Cloud, on Feb. 23-24.
•The SMSU men’s and women’s indoor track team competed in the Last Chance Invite at South Dakota State University in Brookings last week.
Southwest Minnesota State will now look ahead to the NSIC Conference Championships in Mankato, on Feb. 23-24.
At the last chance, Emily Gillingham of Minneota was the first leg of the 4x400-meter relay team that finished second in 4:18. SDSU won the race. Gillingham was also ninth in the 800-meter run in 2:28.48.