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VK Open discussion (3-15)

March 15, 2009 @ 12:39 a.m. by Joanna

by joanna

What better discussion to have today than the best basketball team and best basketball player you saw this year.

Some of the best teams I saw play were Washburn Rural girls, Carroll and Heights girls, Heights and Southeast boys, Highland Park boys.

Some of the best basketball players I saw include Lindsey Keller, Tiffany Bias, Joanna McFarland, Ashia Woods, Natalie Knight, Perry Ellis, Joe Mitchell, Rico Richardson. I liked Ryan Arel, Blake Bell, Dorrian Roberts, Evan Wessel, Cecil Shaw.

This is not everybody, just a few off the top of my head. Agree, disagree, add to the list. I’d love to hear it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 12:39 a.m. and is filed under Open discussion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

  • AnyGivenSunday

    joanna! its ur buddy from goddard! did u ever post the second video from the girls game lol?

  • FalconDad

    Heights Boys, not just because of the State Championship, but because of how they achieved it. Teamwork, defensive pressure, and unselfishness, the last possibly the greatest in importance. Best Overall player Evan Wessel, didn’t lead the team in scoring, but was the General on the Court. The leadership, calmness under pressure, assists, rebounding, court awareness, and scoring ability that Evan exhibited throughout the whole season, from game 1 to the last nets my Vote for best Overall Player. Having said this, I must confess, Evan is my Son, and a Dad couldn’t be Prouder! Congradulations, Enjoy, and Thanks for bringing the 4th one into the family. Although my opion is biased, Evan and the Heights Basketball team get my Vote.

  • SDP0908

    Heights girls may not have won this year but I think they will get one before the sophmores leave. Not the best overall player on the team but Tahlia Pope is an excellent defender. If she works on shooting and ball control this summer hard she could be good. What do u think joanna

  • falcon22

    On the boys side, I agree with FalconDad for best team. Definitely the Heights Falcons! The way they disposed of SE at state was an unexpected outcome in terms of margin of victory. I expected this, as well as many other sports pundits, to be a “barn burning nail biter”, but these young men leave know doubt…Best Team this year bar none. My best player nod goes to the freshman, Perry Ellis. In addition to his to gifted skill set, the fact that he requires double and triple teams frees up the other players to eploit opponent weaknesses. And when teams don’t double team him, he simply dominates, making his opponents look like “paper” post players.

  • FBallfn

    Washburn Rural(girls) was the most impressive team i watched all year That team has it all dominate inside play ,great outside shooting,point with a great handle,and there D is as intense as any team boys or girl i have seen so they get my vote for best team! I would like to know how they lost that 1 game because they have no weakness and dont make the silly mistakes that most teams make. It was a pleasure to watch those girls play.

  • RikRok

    Salina Central postman Alex Williams put together some nice games down the stretch after an up and down regular season.

    He has another year, so it will be interesting to see how he develops with an entirely new cast around him next season.

  • FBallfn

    Im not discounting Heights effort at all but i think they made to many mistakes to be called the best “team” yes still only 1 loss.I will however call it right now that i believe next years squad will be even better and will dominate teams on there way to an undefeated season. I believe the Wessel/Ellis combo will go down as one of the best in city league history before they are done !

  • SCHOOL-SPIRIT

    All of the fans in the Wichita area can learn from the fans and students in the K.C. area. Their spirirt was second to none and they enjoyed the game and participation and entertainment of the game. They were loud and fun to watch! We can organize and support our schools in spirit.

  • SDP0908

    I think the wicita schools are held back by the way rule 52 is enforced in our area. The kids are not allowed to do or say aywhere near what the kc area kids can do.

  • falcon22

    On the girls side, best team Heights Falcons. As a BB official, I’ve seen my share of CL, CPL, AV-CTL, Heart of America league teams as well as those at State including Washburn Rural. But in my opinion, no team can match Heights position for position at all five spots. In addition, Heights can go three players deep off the bench- Ivy, Andrews, Webb- with no drop off in skill set. Make no doubt about it, these girls underachieved this year…despite their youthful (fresh/soph) inexperience. It would’ve been interesting to Heights play in State the way they played the 2nd half of the rematch with Bishop Carroll. Would’ve made for an interesting matchup with Washburn Rural, who by the way gets my honorable mention. Player of the Year Honorable Mention to Joanna McFarland and Ashia Woods. My Player of the Year is Kamisha Richard. Ok, Ok…similar to FalconDad, I’m a Heights dad on the girls team. My kid is #22. So with some bias, Mimi gets my nod because she plays unselfish, always with a smile basketball on a team stacked with talent. Night in and night out, she gets it done on the offensive and defensive end of the court. And despite the team’s FT% being below 50%, she’s the one Falcon you DON’T send to the FT line!

  • NWBB

    Congrats to Heights team. City league wins again.
    Heights fans should not discount how great of a group of seniors they had this year and they will be very hard to replace.

    I saw alot of basketball this year and night in and night out the best player I saw was Joe Mitchell of Southeast.

  • jayhawk

    I saw Joanna McFarland play Lawrence High in Topeka in January, I was not impressed. She was held to 12 points, and 6 of those were in the final 4 minutes of the last quarter. Lawrence played an interesting defense on her and it worked, as Lawrence won the game. It will be interesting to see how she can do in the big 12 next year.

  • WC

    I think the collegiate boys play some of the most unselfish basketball as a whole team but i’m obviously a little biased. I think they are one if not the best team simply because their offense was off track the whole tourney yet they persevered and got the job done and i would just like to point out the foul count after the third quarter in the 3a boys championship was Collegiate 7 Sabetha 1 that is ridiculous

  • buff1

    What happens if we do best player by class?
    Freshman: Perry Ellis (Heights)
    Sophomore: Evan Wessel (Heights)
    Junior: Blake Bell?? (Carrol) I guess i dont know many juniors
    Senior: Joe Mitchell (Southeast)

    I know this list is city league dominated but those were the best players I saw this season.

    Best team would be tough since i didn’t get to see much smaller school basketball.

  • spartan

    Junior- Blake Jablonski

    Anyway, I would not say the Collegoate boys can beat anybody in the state or would win 6a… But I would say that they are the best TEAM in all of Kansas in every sense of the word team. They play great defense, are unselfish to an almost ridiculous point and play hard for all 32 minutes. They never give up and I honestly think tehy could play heights closely, maybe even win.

    Congrats on a great season and another state championship!

  • http://! no1

    WC collegiate was one of the most unselfish teams i saw loved there team ball. But i have a problem they recruit i dont care what there people say it is quite obivious you can have have a balance team when you recruit! You cant tell me when it cost as much as collegiate cost they are not recruiting some its a great school was education but when theres a lot of money and the old saying goes money can buy a championship!

  • http://! no1

    Congrats to collegiate on a fine balance team by the way as far as coaching he did a great job!

  • numbers?

    What were Joe’s numbers night in and night out overall? Looks like East and SE will have to replace a lot of good Seniors, too!

  • jay hawk

    no 1 -tell me who they recruited? Someone who can pay almost $13000 a year and pass a tough entrance exam. If they could recruit we would never ever lose a game in any sport!

    Hourani there since preschool
    Jablonski there since preschool
    Mcguire there since preschool
    massey- home schooled came as freshman
    bailey- came as 5th grader
    burton- -since grade school
    lemaster- came in 5th grade
    richardson- since grade school
    atnip- since grade school
    fiegel-since preschool
    cornejo- since grade school
    tisdale- freshman

    This school recruits less than any other school in the city! If we sucked and had a bad team and bad coach like TIS nobody would give a poopy

  • CLFan

    From what I saw this season…
    Best Boys Team: Heights
    Best Boys Player: Joe Mitchell, Southeast

    Best Girls Team: Bishop Carroll
    Best Girls Player: Johanna McFarland, Derby

  • coors

    Jayhawk…to easy, whos a first year colegian on the girls side…

  • allen

    coors- no one

  • LaneTech81

    I’m going with Joe Mitchell for best player.

    Heights turned out to be the best team but they were not unbeatable, always dominating.

  • inthedark

    Best Team – tie between Heights and Collegiate but Heights and any team at the 6A tournament would beat Collegiate in a head to head.

    Best Freshmen – Perry Ellis – but Rico from Dodge is not bad either.
    Best Sophomore – Spencer -from SM NW.
    Best Junior – Travis Releford – overall junior class is pretty good around the state.
    Best Senior – Joe Mitchell – his numbers at a 6A state tournament were pretty darn good and hard to ignore.

    Best Girls team – Washburn Rural
    Freshmen – ?
    Sophomore – Woods – Collegiate
    Junior – Bias – Andover Central
    Senior – Hard to say McFarland because she is only interested in getting her own points. I would say Julia Marshall is my top player.

  • ictaero

    Jay Hawk — Yep. It’s pretty hard for a school to say, “Hmmm, that four year-old looks like he’s going to be a pretty good shooter about twelve or thirteen years from now, and we can tell that he’ll have a good work ethic because he always remembers to put the Play-Doh back in the container.”

  • PDiddy

    Having seen both Heights,SE and Collegiate eac play a couple of times each, it was obvious to me that Heights and SE are a notch above Collegiate, but not a huge notch.And there’s no shame in that.Wichita has a right to be proud of its’ basketball!

  • 3afan

    “Best Team – tie between Heights and Collegiate but Heights and any team at the 6A tournament would beat Collegiate in a head to head.”

    That is obviously false… On January 3rd Collegiate beat Dodge City at Dodge City by 30.

  • coors

    My bad allen I ment 2nd year player.

  • Hoops fan

    I’m not Evan Wessel dad, and I will still vote for him for best sophomore in the state. I’ll cast another vote for Joe Mitchell for player of the year in Kansas. He may be the best player in Kansas for the last several years going back to Taj Gray and Maurice Evans.

  • unbeatable?

    You are right! Heights was beatable one time!