Los Angeles Rams

Los Angeles Rams

Sunday, July 12, 2020

Mid-Summer Update


Didn't want to have to brush too much dust off of this blog so thought it was time to make an entry and try and catch up on things. 

First, undoubtedly the big news broke this last week Thursday that longtime Hopkins Head Coach Brian Cosgriff decided to step down from his position as Head Coach of the highly successful Royals program.  His 21-year career at Hopkins helped put the Royals program on the map and his overall record of 569-67 says a lot about how incredibly successful this program has been.  "Coz" has had a lot of great players come through his program over the years but probably none better than recently graduated senior Paige Bueckers who is UConn-bound.  The Royals lost tough state title games three years in a row (Minnetonka in 2016, Elk River in 2017 and Eastview in 2018) but they set the state ablaze in 2019 by coming from behind and blowing out Stillwater in the state title game to complete an undefeated season and were well on the way to doing a repeat this time around before Covid-19 decided to put a fork in everything.  Perhaps easing the disappointment of not being able to finish things on their own terms, ESPN voted Hopkins the number-one girls basketball program in the country. 

I have to admit that I was caught somewhat off-guard when I heard the news this last Thursday afternoon.  I just wasn't expecting it - at least not now anyway.  There was a part of me that wondered as to why he chose now to pull the pin.  I essentially came down to two possibilities - (1) that the Royals were now in the APB (After Paige Bueckers) era and perhaps he felt it was best to leave on a high note or (2) he simply woke up one morning and just decided he didn't want to do this anymore.  I really don't know for sure.  What I do know is that Minnesota Girl's High School basketball has lost a tremendous coach and leader and his presence on the sidelines will be missed.  "Coz" was always a pleasure to talk to and even in tough times after tough losses he was professional enough to give you a candid explanation as to what happened from his point of view.  The big question now is who does Hopkins get to fill this Head Coaching spot?  If I had to venture a guess right now, I'd think that they'd be more apt to stay within the program....Perhaps Cosgriff already had someone in mind to take the reigns when he decided to step down.  Of course, they could always go outside and bring in someone new but I think that's unlikely given the success the program has had over the years. 

On a somewhat brighter note, I was able to go down to Bloomington Kennedy High School around mid-day today and catch some of the AAU action that was going on there this weekend.  First, it was just simply good to - finally - be able to see some basketball action again.  I was wearing a mask (like almost everyone else), of course, but considering where we were just a few short months ago with this pandemic, it does offer a bit of hope.  I know that there have been other AAU events going on around the country so hopefully things will be able to continue with all the precautions being taken. 

On the MIAC Women's basketball front, I did find out this afternoon the the MIAC Athletic Directors recently voted to go from a 20-game conference season to a full, round-robin 22-game conference season.  I have to confess that I was not happy about this decision by the ADs when I learned about it.  First, I understand that an 18- or a 20-game conference schedule inevitably led to a lot of problems with some schools facing in inordinate amount of upper-tier opponents and consequently reducing the chances of picking up victories against lesser opponents.  I hate to make it sound like that but that was - unfortunately - one of the realities of it.  Now, with a full 22-game conference schedule, everybody plays the same amount of conference games which I suppose is good in some ways.  However, my big sticking point at the same time is that this full slate of conference games now reduces the amount of non-conference games you can play to three.  In my humble estimation, this is a bad deal for the conference as a whole because it reduces the number of opportunities where the top teams can play those regionally-ranked opponents from other conferences that could mean a better chance of getting into the NCAA Tournament when late February/early March rolls around.  It would be one thing if the NCAA simply allowed teams to play more games but this doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon at the DIII level.  The other interesting angle you can look at is that a full 22-game conference schedule may be very beneficial for a school such as Concordia as their opportunities to play non-conference teams is not as big as a school in the metro area such as, say, a Bethel or an Augsburg or a St. Kate's.  Anyway, I'm not liking this too much and would appreciate any thoughts you might have on this matter.

Stay healthy and stay safe. 

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