On the Bench with Byron Higgin

Every wonder why southwestern Minnesota is the “hotbed” of boys’ Class A basketball?” Make no mistake — it is!

According to last week’s Minnesota Basketball News Rankings, the following teams were ranked in the top 10: 1. Minneota, 14-0 2. BOLD (of Olivia), 16-0 4. Minnesota Valley Lutheran (of New Ulm), 12-1 5. Springfield, 10-2 8. Mountain Lake Area/Comfrey, 10-1 10. Ortonville, 8-1 Sure, it hasn’t always been that way.

But today the odds are a state champ will come from our part of the state are pretty good.

Who won it last year? Russell-Tyler-Ruthton, of-course. So why is our part of the state so good when it comes to boys’ basketball?

Tradition mostly! While there are been great teams up north (The Chisholm dynasty of past years comes to mind), the last many years the balance has shifted to southwestern Minnesota.

For one thing, summer leagues and camps have become popular in this area and a lot of good athletes give their time and effort to the sport all summer long. Teams and players in other parts of the state don’t attend the camps or have organized leagues as we do in this area.

ODDS AND ENDS:

CORRECTION: Minneota has three wrestling matches at home, not two as I said in this column last week. The third is Thursday against Windom.