2020 Minnesota Girl's State Tournament - Class AAAA Semifinal Game - Hopkins vs Stillwater 3-12-20

The first game on tap on this Thursday night would pit top-seeded and undefeated Hopkins against fifth-seeded Stillwater.  The Royals breezed past Cambridge-Isanti on Wednesday morning while the Ponies summarily dismissed Park Center in their opening game yesterday.  And while Hopkins would be the heavy favorite in this one again, there was no reason to think that Stillwater wouldn't be able to provide the favorite a bit of a run for their money.

This game, of course, would be a rematch of last year's state title game and a score in the paint by sophomore forward/post Maya Nnaji at the 16:24 mark of the first half would give Hopkins a 4-2 edge.  Freshman forward Taylor Woodson's lay-up at the 13:51 mark pushed the lead to 10-4.  By the 10:52 mark, the Royals had expanded that lead to 16-4 and compounding Stillwater's problem was that they were certainly getting opportunities to score but they were unable to capitalize on a lot of those opportunities.  A "3" by - who else - senior guard Paige Bueckers at the 10:32 mark grew the Hopkins lead to 19-4 and would grow to 21-4 when sophomore guard Amaya Battle knocked down a jumper at the 9:30 mark.  Stillwater finally broke its prolonged drought with 8:03 left when speedy junior point guard Alexis Pratt knocked down two free throws after getting fouled but the climb back into this one was steep to say the least and although Pratt would score on a nifty drive and lay-up with 6:32 left, the Ponies were still staring at a 25-8 deficit.  Senior forward Liza Karlen's jumper with 5:32 left dented this cushion a little bit with Stillwater down 27-11 and one more Pratt free throw with 5:12 left reduced the deficit to fifteen at 27-12.  A Pratt "3" with 4:20 left made further inroads with the deficit cut to twelve at 27-15.  This got the attention of Hopkins as they went back to work re-establishing its cushion.  A pretty drive and finish by Bueckers with 1:43 left got the lead to seventeen and 33-16.  Stillwater would get a lift on a "3" by Liza Karlen with :48 left to get the deficit back down to twelve at 33-21 and Liza Karlen's offensive rebound and putback with just :12 left had the Ponies feeling infinitely better about themselves down by just ten at the halftime break at 33-23.  A quick check of the halftime stats show that Stillwater was guilty of 20 first half turnovers but was able to make some of that up on the rebounding end where the Ponies held a 19-16 advantage.  And Stillwater wasn't shooting all that badly either despite that extended drought they had as they were 3-6 from behind the arc for 50% and were 4-6 from the charity stripe for 66.7%.

Hopkins would increase its lead to fourteen at 37-23 by the 15:11 mark of the second half and two Bueckers free throws at the 14:53 mark would up the lead to sixteen at 39-24.  Stillwater would reduce the deficit to eleven when Liza Karlen connected with a lay-up in transition at the 12:14 mark at 39-28 that provided a ray of hope and another Liza Karlen lay-up would keep the Ponies in that eleven-point range a bit later.  But that ray of hope soon fizzled out by the 9:50 mark as Hopkins had their cushion built back up to eighteen at 48-30.  With 7:13 left, that lead grew to 51-32 and it was evident that whatever small window that Stillwater may have had at the beginning of this second period was now gone for good.  With 4:52 left, Hopkins was enjoying a 55-36 advantage and with 3:16 left Nnaji would connect with a lay-up that drew a foul in the process and her ensuing "and one" gave the Royals a twenty-point cushion at 58-38.  Bueckers would give the crowd at the Barn something to roar about with her steal and lay-up the other way with 1:45 left and Hopkins cruised their way into Saturday night's Championship Game with a convincing 66-40 victory.   

Stillwater Head Coach Willie Taylor was in the press conference afterward along with both Liza Karlen and Pratt.  Taylor on falling behind early:  "When you're playing that team (Hopkins), you just can't do that....You just cannot come into that first half like we did....And we had twenty-one turnovers in the first half; we're averaging about ten to twelve a game.....We had problems with their press because we didn't practice against it....We hadn't been pressed all year long and being pressed today, I knew it'd be tough."  I mentioned to Taylor that I thought his squad did a good job of tightening things up early on in the second half and there was a small window of opportunity for them but it quickly shut on them.  "A couple of things....Our kids work hard; they work really hard....When we started to make our comeback, I don't think we did what we normally do....We had our shooters open but when we got pressed we got down on ourselves and that hurt us....Second, Paige Bueckers....She's good.  Really really good.  When she was on the floor, she was coaching her team....She's a very talented basketball player and she's a coach on the floor."  Pratt talked about how small the passing lanes were on offense against Hopkins and even when she thought she made a good pass, they were always there.  Taylor lamented about all the missed lay-ups his team had in just the first half alone.  "You can't have all those missed lay-ups....You have to make those!"  Hopkins Head Coach brought both Bueckers and Woodson into the Hopkins portion of the postgame press conference.  Cosgriff on his overall thoughts of the game:  "Survive and advance!.....I mean, honestly, they're a very good team and we watched a ton of film on them.....Unfortunately for them, I've got Paige Bueckers and she makes everybody else good out there....We've got some good young players coming up so we're just happy to be moving on to the next one."  I mentioned to Cosgriff that I thought Stillwater did a good job of tightening things up a bit by the halftime break and I asked him about what adjustments he felt he needed to make coming into the second half.  "Well, I felt we needed to become more aggressive....I felt that we became a little bit complacent and we weren't transitioning the basketball as well as we should have and some of our players became tentative and we talked about that at halftime....We wanted to be pushing the ball and attacking the basket."  Cosgriff felt that his team did a better job in the second half of limiting whatever runs that Stillwater made.  Bueckers noted that it was still something of a disappointment that her squad didn't win state championships in her first two years at Hopkins but getting last year's trophy helped make up for that and that she wanted to get one more.  Cosgriff also noted that anyone who thinks that his Hopkins teams aren't going to press you is sadly mistaken.  "It's what we do....If anyone thinks that we're not going to press you, you haven't done your homework." 

A check of the final box score shows that that darn Hopkins press did indeed force 31 Stillwater turnovers on this Thursday night and although Stillwater's Liza Karlen was a monster on the board on this night with her 14 rebounds, it wasn't enough to overcome that.  Somewhat ironically, it would be Woodson's 21 points leading all scorers on this night while Bueckers would add 15 points and Nnaji would finish with 12 points.  On the Stillwater side, just a monster night for Liza Karlen with her 17 points and those 14 rebounds for a "double-double" and Pratt would finish with 13 points.