A blue crew, so far

It was a learning experience. That's what people involved with the Minnetonka Skipper basketball program have to keep telling themselves about everything that has happened so far this year. The student athletes involved with the program have been through more off the floor drama than any team I can remember in recent years.

Coming into the season Minnetonka was given the preseason rank of second in state despite falling below .500 a year ago. And how could they not be ranked high considering all the potential college basketball players this team takes the floor with each night? With state tournament expectations before they even took the floor Minnetonka already had issues. Before even taking part in one practice the mindset was state title but last year's 12 win season proved they didn't know how to even get over .500 yet. Add in the torturous schedule and it was certainly an up-hill battle from the start. Back in early October then head coach John Hedstrom talked about his team's daunting list of opponents.

"Our schedule is tough, we have 25 games and only ten at home," Hedstrom said. "Having only five teams in our conference we are at the mercy of other schools to find 17 non-conference games. The way the games ended up we have 15 games in the middle of the season, from December 19th through February 12th where we have one home game. We have to get the games when we can - and not concern ourselves with home and away balance. It is simply the best we can do.

"We had played many of the Lake conference schools but this year with Chanhassen coming in they now have an even number of teams so four or five games were dropped from the (Minnetonka) schedule. We are playing Columbia Heights two times this year and they are not in our conference. We are playing Columbia Heights, Robbinsdale Cooper, Benilde-St. Margaret's, and Spring Lake Park, all top teams in the North Suburban Conference. We have tough games, as usual."

As tough as those teams from the North Suburban are that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Classic Lake schedule includes pairs of games against defending champion Hopkins, Robbinsdale Armstrong, and Edina. The Skippers also have faced Henry Sibley, Waconia, Champlin Park, Chaska, Minneapolis North, Cretin-Derham Hall, Minnesota Transitions, Lakeville South, and Linn-Mar who is one of the elite programs from Iowa.

So entering practice the Skippers were forced to play a game schedule filled with land mines and lofty expectations for a team that was under .500 in 2008-09. But that didn't seem so bad considering the team has a senior group of Tor Anderson, Cole Stefan, and Leonard Glass who are likely to get basketball scholarships plus some pretty good juniors and sophomores.

Fast forward to the season opener at Waconia and the quickest thing one would notice is Anderson, Stefan, and Glass in dress clothes. They had been suspended for the first five games for a state rules violation and quickly Tonka became the most talked about team in Minnesota. And not in the way they were hoping. So Minnetonka followers took a deep breath and watched as Tonka lost to Waconia by six, Chaska by seven, and Cooper by five.

Two and three didn't seem so bad and the three seniors joined the team for game six against Benilde-St. Margaret's promptly beating the state championship contending Red Knights 71-70. The Skippers won two of three at the Catholic Spirit Tournament and then took to the Target Center where Stefan went crazy with his scoring ability putting 40 points on the board. Problem was Minnetonka lost by 17 points and the Skipper bench was definitely stewing with discomfort from the head coach down to the end of the bench. Days later there were rumors of more issues from that game but nothing surfaced.

Three days later the Skipper found themselves in a serious hole against the class A number one team Minnesota Transitions. Tonka would come back taking advantage of a thin Wolves bench (that wore MTS down some) to win late on a Tor Anderson jumper. It sounded like a game that could build a team's momentum as Tonka came back together to beat a formidable foe late.

A day later assistant coach Joe Burger was sitting in his office about 20 minutes away from getting dressed for practice. At that time some of the building administrators came to him and said he would be the interim head coach because coach Hedstrom had been placed on administrative leave. The Skippers would play just a day later beating a ranked Rosemount team but then dropped back to back games to Henry Sibley and Lakeville South.

This past Friday night the Skippers found themselves in a battle against 7-7 Spring Lake Park down a couple baskets in the second half. It just wasn't the same Tonka program at this point with their "Blue Crew" fan base basically ignoring the basketball game taking part in their own discussions in the crowd most not even looking at the game. The team defense was a struggle as Panther senior Kwamaine Fitzpatrick scored on a simple drive attack baseline and followed that up with an easy backdoor score as some Tonka players looked on. The second Fitzpatrick score saw him blow by his defender with all the Tonka help defenders about eight feet away. Then there was a defensive mix-up as Tonka players scrambled to recover and a couple of the players had no idea who they were guarding resulting in a wide open Panther shot attempt. The ball missed but Tonka turned the ball over. Then on that possession another shooter was wide open as the Skippers poorly defended a high double screen.

It was at this point I looked at the Mr. Basketball committee members around me and shook my head. I stated something about how these kids just look like they have been emotionally exhausted with all that has happened. They couldn't go online these days without running into a Facebook friend talking about the team issues, or the Minnesota Preps message boards chatting about things that have happened, or the Star Tribune continuing their constant speculation in whatever way the interweb allows. Add in the discussion amongst friends and family and I thought the kids looked exhausted.

Then something happened it seemed. Senior Chad Howard started chatting up his teammates after a play. Howard is a guy who many outside of the Skipper hallways may not have known but he had some incredible scoring performances in the absence of his fellow senior captains. Now the lone senior captain, Howard was trying to get his guys going.

Coach Burger put Howard with Glass, Anderson, the much improved Nick Latzke, and Andy Jones. The unit (with junior Larry Rice chipping in as well) sat down defensively and started to go to work. Howard picked up his defensive chatter as did others and the Skippers started to roll forcing Spring Lake Park into frustration.

Glass took offense to the Panther players and fans chirping at him and produced two of the highest flying flushes fans had seen all season. Glass slammed with such an anger it was like he was taking his team's frustrations out on the rim. Anderson dropped two pretty passes to Glass for these scores plus Tor hit some free throws and a deep three. Jones stepped up big making a couple jumpers and Latzke just did whatever he could to chip in.

The final result was a 76-69 win with Glass and Latzke both scoring 17 points. Anderson put up 16, Howard had ten, and Jones scored eight. More importantly the win pushed Minnetonka back over .500 at 8-7 and they did it coming together to come back from a second half deficit.

Is this the win that gets this team turned around and headed in the right direction? Who knows for sure as the Skippers have the number one ranked Cooper Hawks (who lost this week so they will likely be two or three in tomorrow's Minnesota Preps poll) on Tuesday and conference play starts Friday against Wayzata (who is struggling). But if there was ever something to build on it was Friday's win as the team was struggling and changed directions with a strong team effort from all five on the floor on both ends.