Preseason High School Top 50: 50-41
#50 Minnetonka (MN) – The loss of Alex Friedman is going to significantly hurt this team. I’m assuming that Joe from the B team is active with the team this coming year, but he only played four games at HSNCT (averaging 20.45 ppg). Mike from the A team and Mitchell from the B team both return as well. Their ppb should be around 10, which is good enough for 50 on this list.
#49 Culver (IN) – They lose a 30 ppg at HSNCT from both their A and B teams, but return three players who each got around 15 ppg at the same time. They should be around 10 ppb this coming year at HSNCT.
#48 North Kansas City (MO) – Lead scorer Brandon (43.18 ppg) leaves, but Grant (34.09) is back. It’s hard to tell how they will perform with this loss, but they’ll be a force in Missouri.
#47 Ottawa Hills (OH) – They return their high HSNCT scorer Nirbhay (36.40 ppg), from a team that also had two scorers with just over 26 ppg each. Their ppb will likely drop with the graduation of John and Spencer, holding them back.
#46 Berkeley (CA) – Both Matt (36.65 ppg at HSNCT) and Kyle (21.7 ppg) return, which is a fairly high scoring one-two punch. The lack of an established third and fourth are troubling, though, plus a low ppb of 9.59 is holding them back.
#45 DeLaSalle (MN) – They return their top two scorers from HSNCT, Charlie (43.66 ppg) and Kelsey McCoy. They were a very two-person team last year and a 11.09 ppb is not the best.
#44 Bellaire (TX) – They return Jacob, who scored 47 ppg at NSC last year, and Jimmy (17.38). They did graduate a lot of talent, though.
#43 Providence Day (NC) – They get their top two scorers back in Michael (40.19 at HSNCT) and Cindy (16.82). They missed the playoffs by a win last year and averaged just 12.05 ppb, but hopefully they’ll be able to improve this.
#42 St. Mark’s (TX) – They return both Stewart (36.24 ppg) and Max from a HSNCT team that finished one win out of the playoffs last year and had a 15 ppb average. They do lose about 37 ppg, but should still be relevant.
#41 Brookwood (GA) – I’m unsure of what to do with Brookwood here. On the one hand, they lost a huge portion of their scoring at nationals last year. On the other, they do return a couple of players who put up ok numbers on good teams and have shown some promise at ACE camp. With Brookwood’s history of putting together top 20 teams, I’m going to guess and put them here despite a fair amount of uncertainity.