Preseason Favorites for 2010-2011

With the season having ended it's time to look towards next season and who might be next years state champs and are the favorites to make it to state. Taking into account which teams return the most and which teams also seem to be tough year in and year out.

Division One

Milwaukee Hamiliton- Have to be every ones favorite heading into next year as they bring back everyone from there state team and have six players that are ranked in the top 50 junior for the state.

Madison Memorial- The talent just keeps coming and coming. Junior Junior Lomomba should have a huge year and junior Jamar Morris will be greatly improved. Juniors Tre Burnette, Miles Chamberlain, and freshmen Brendan Ortiz are the other regulars that return along with the addition of freshmen Jester Weah from JV.

Appleton East- Only lose two players from this years state team and return their top five scorers. Sophomre Sam Mader appears to be on the rise talent wise and the juniors of this year will all be going into their third year on varsity.

Milwaukee Marquette- Return their top two players in juniors Quinten Calloway and John Kopriva. Calloway is the point and Kopriva the big man on the inside.

Milwaukee King- Arroyo Edwards leads a very very talented sophomore class. Not to mention Gosz is one of the best coaches around.

Milwaukee Vincent- Another very talented city team that has 6'9 sophomore Phillip Nolan coming back as well as a talented group of underclassmen.

Sun Prairie- Boos is the only player gone from this years team and junior Chris Hawkins and Jordan Noskowiak should be poised for break out years.

Germantown- Have a very good back court in sophomores Zak Showalter and Josh Mongan along with 6'6 Daniel Studer.

As you can see by my predictions next year should be a comeback year for the City Conference after having a bit of down year this past year. Hamiliton is the favorite as I said and Vincent and King should have very strong teams. I also wouldn't be surprised to see South or Riverside make a strong run at state. The Big Eight will be strong once again but, will be down a bit from this year as Madison East, Verona, and Madison Lafollette will fall off a bit next year.

Division Two

Seymour- Have a very strong junior class and were only a game away from state this year. Have a very good coach as well obviously which can be seen by there great success in the past 10 years.

Rice Lake- Play in a tough conference and have a strong junior class led by Wally Elleson.

Onalaska- Were every ones favorite to make state this year and return their top player in 6'8 sophomore Nick Arenz along with a strong junior class and some very promising freshmen.

Monroe- Have one of the best back courts in the state with the return of juniors Bryan Tordoff and Michael Barrett. Also have a great coach and some nice sophomores and freshmen coming up.

River Valley- Bring back their top two players in juniors Noah Baryenbruch and Alex Richard.

In D2 in looks like it's back to the old standbys. D2 had been the most consistent in the same years making it back year after year but, the last couple years that has changed with some surprises. I'm betting that the old standbys will be back next year.

Division Three

Racine St. Catherines- Lose only one player from this years team in Steve McWhorter who was a huge asset to the team obviously being a D1 recruit but, they bring everyone back and I think Chris Souter should be able to step into the point guard position next year.

Whitefish Bay Dominican- Always strong tradition at Dominican and always seem to have great talent. Freshmen Duane Wilson and sophomore Jamall Taylor will form one of the top back courts in D3.

Manitowoc Roncalli- Bring back nearly everyone from this years team and shoot the ball extremely well. Ben Stelzer there star is back for his fourth year of varsity.

Lacrosse Aquinas- They are a year older and Bronson Koenig will be a sophomore and Evan Pederson a senior.

Brillion- Lose only two seniors that actually played this year and bring back three of their top five scorers.

As you can see like always D3 is going to be the private school championship, which will upset all the small public school backers as always.

Division Four

Green Bay NEW Lutheran- State runner ups lose only one senior that played from this years team and bring back their top two scorers. Should be front runners to win state.

Benton- Sophomore David Neis and junior Matt Savatski who were both starters when Benton won state two years ago.

Randolph- Can you ever count Randolph out? They are a contender every year no matter what they've lost from the year before. Juniors Brian Kampstra and TJ Huizenga should have big years next year and rumors are there is some nice height in the eighth grade class.

Next year should be a year where the top teams will be fairly obvious all year long and will more then likely meet at state. At least next year GBNL will be coming out of a different sectional unlike this year when all the top teams were in the same sectional.

With the season coming to an end my posts will be few and far between. I will have a few more conclusion posts in the next month or so.