1.) Arthur Hill: They beat Saginaw High in their first meeting, but I’ll just predict a loss right now in the rematch on Saturday. Maurice Jones is Mr. Basketball.
2.) Saginaw High: The Trojans are riding high after victories over two of the top teams in the state — Kalamazoo Central and Romulus. Great backcourt. Great big man. Great team.
3.) Saginaw Buena Vista: The third-best team in Saginaw this year could probably move to Flint and be its best. Junior George Goodman is wicked good.
4.) Saginaw Heritage: Seniors AJ Thomas and James Johnson are really good, but how do you explain the loss to Flushing? The Hawks can score points, but they routinely get dominated in the post.
5.) Bridgeport: Who’s playing better than senior swingman Darvin Ham? The 5th-best team in the Saginaw-area beat Flint’s best, Powers.
6.) Mt. Pleasant: The Oilers have one of the state’s best players in 6-5 senior Trey Zeigler. Without him, they’d be sharing a seat at the table with Midland Dow.
7.) Ithaca: Creed Stapleton is 6-7 and having a really strong season. This is Gavin Raath’s class C darkhorse.
8.) Freeland: Looks like the TVC Central’s best. That will be decided this week when they play Shepherd.
9.) Mt. Pleasant Sacred Heart: It’s hard to put a class D team in the top 10, but MPSH is legit. They’ve won 10 straight.
10.) Sanford-Meridan: This team was 8-0 and ranked in the top 10 in the state in class C. Then they lost to Clare. C-L-A-R-E. They still belong, though, in spite of the blemish.
Sanford Meridian is Class C. Clare is a pretty good athletic team and the wrong one to have a bad night on. Might be a Meridian vs Buena Vista game in the playoff future.
Yeah I just caught that too. Thanks.
Although BV just clobbered Sanford, who got off to a bad start and never recovered. Still think these two meet somewhere in the playoffs. BV’s got a huge advantage because Meridian’s non conference isn’t as strong as BV’s schedule of A/B teams.
Dont think id be so quick to diss on C-L-A-R-E. they played Sacred Heart to the last possesion having them down at half. They play 4 senior, 3 sophmores and 1 junior for the most part, and the 6’8″ sophmore is getting looks now on the recruiting front (including Central). Do they belong in your top 10, maybe not but they dont deserve the knock down either.
Good point about Clare taking Sacred Heart right down to the wire! Think the Jack Pine is a solid C/B league typically and this year. The Clare losses to teams like Sacred Heart and beating Sanford Meridian support that take as correct. Think the BV vs Sanford game falls closer to bad game oddity than bad team indicator!
While Midland and Midland Dow are struggling this year, Midland kinda dissappointingly so, one thing you can count on is throw all records and roster talent advantages out the window when this rivalry game comes around:
http://ourmidland.com/articles/2010/01/30/sports/2391511.txt