The beauty of the state tournament is that since most teams on either end of the wide state of Kansas never play each other during the season, you can make an argument for just about anyone being able to win.
Even eighth-seeded Manhattan, who is only 12-10, had to beat a Wichita East team that had only lost five times this year to make it to state. Of course, Manhattan would have to knock off top-seeded Wichita Heights just to make it out of the first round, which begs the question:
Can anyone knock off the big bad Falcons, who have won 16 in a row and are 20-2 in their quest for a second straight 6A title?
Without even having to appeal to hometown journalism, it looks like Leavenworth has as good of a chance as anybody if it’s going to happen.
The Pioneers, remember, were ranked No. 1 before losing all three of their games with future K-State Wildcat Nino Williams out due to injury. With Williams healthy again — as well as Alec Zeck and Sam Banach, who also battled injury — Leavenworth is a completely different team. Their only loss since then was to Shawnee Mission Northwest, who they turned around and beat in the substate championship.
In order to win, the fifth-seeded Pioneers (16-6) will first have to beat fourth-seeded Maize (17-5) in the first round tonight. It’ll be a tough matchup for them. Maize has five players 6-foot-5 or taller — Leavenworth has only two. They’ve had moments this year where they struggled defending size, as evidenced when they lost to SM Northwest and gave up 23 points to 6-foot-8 Steve Carver, but they’ve also shown they can make the adjustment. They held Carver to 13 in their substate win.
That’s one of the reasons why I think the blue and white have a good chance starting with tonight’s game. Of Maize’s five players at 6-foot-5 or taller, only two average more than five points per game, and only two average more than five rebounds per game. The size they have on the surface isn’t incredibly dominant, and if Leavenworth can contain Ryan Schultz (13.5 PPG, 9.4 RPG through 18 games), they should be OK.
Maize’s solid record is also a little deceiving. Three of their losses are against 5A teams (none of Leavenworth’s are), and Maize is only averaging five PPG more than their opponents in games against 6A teams, including Lee’s Summit North (Mo.), who would be 6A if in Kansas. Maize only beat Manhattan by two and Lawrence Free State by six, while the Pioneers beat Free State by 20.
I’ll come back and talk about Wichita Heights in a second, but first let me say that if the Pioneers do beat the Falcons, they should win the title. I actually think sixth-seeded Blue Valley North (15-7) and seventh-seeded Blue Valley Northwest (15-7) have a better chance of making it out of the first round than second-seeded Dodge City (19-3) and third-seeded Shawnee Mission South (17-5).
Dodge City only played six games this year against 6A teams. They lost twice to 5A teams (Hays and Gardner-Edgerton) and even got beat by a 3A school (Wichita Collegiate). Granted, all those teams are good at their own levels, but you can’t lose to them and expect to win the 6A title. They did beat SM South, who beat Leavenworth, but the Pioneers lost to SM South while Williams and Zeck were hurt. Dodge City also didn’t have to beat anyone too tough to get to state — the combined record of their substate opponents was 13-30.
SM South was almost as fortunate — their substate opponents were a combined 14-29 — and although the Raiders have won nine in a row, only two of those games were against winning teams, and one of those was against Leavenworth when they were shorthanded. I think Williams and Zeck could make up the seven-point deficit from that loss now.
BVN and BVNW, meanwhile, are both dangerous after shocking highly-ranked Olathe South and Olathe East in substate, but I think the Pioneers would still beat them. BVNW did beat Maize by 14 this year, but they barely hung on against East after jumping out to a 13-2 lead and were fortunate to get a 23-point performance from Morgan Smith.
BVN came back from a 23-11 halftime deficit against South for two reasons: They switched out of a zone, and Weston Ehlers went crazy and scored 21 in the second half. However, Ehlers probably won’t duplicate that performance (he scored only four when they played South earlier this year), and I don’t think BVN can guard Leavenworth man-to-man.
But can the Pioneers beat Wichita Heights first? The first person they’ll undoubtedly look at stopping is Perry Ellis, a 6-foot-7 sophomore whose name you should know if you don’t already. Ellis became the first freshman in Kansas history to win the Gatorade Player of the Year after grabbing 20 rebounds in the state title game, and he’s already received offers from KU, K-State, OU, and Memphis. He has 14 double-doubles this year, is averaging 22.5 PPG and 10.6 RPG, and is shooting 63 percent from the field. He’s versatile too, often bringing the ball up the court and shooting 35 percent from the 3-point line.
The question, though, isn’t whether Leavenworth can stop him, it’s whether they need to in order to win. Ellis has been held to single-digit scoring only twice this year, and although it helps (Bishop Carroll held him to eight points and five rebounds and only lost 44-42), I don’t think it’s the biggest variable because Ellis actually averaged 27 PPG in Heights’ two losses this year.
The bigger factor may be another D-I prospect, 6-foot-4 point guard Evan Wessel. Heights hasn’t lost since he returned to their lineup after Christmas, and he’s averaging 5.2 assists per game, 7.3 RPG, and has an assist-to-turnover ratio nearly three to one. He only shoots 28 percent from the 3-point line and 51 percent from the free-throw line, though, and so Leavenworth needs to keep him from being the catalyst and pack in the defense to force him to shoot from the outside or foul him.
Heights’ only losses are to Columbia Rock Bridge (Mo.) and Wichita Southeast, and although Rock Bridge is an amazing team — 10 of their 20 wins were by at least 30 points — they beat Heights by holding them to 5-for-18 shooting from beyond the arc. Even worse, the Falcons went 0-for-11 from the arc and 8-for-22 from the free-throw line against Southeast, and when they only beat fourth-seeded Topeka by five in their substate championship, they went 11-for-22 from the free-throw line and turned it over 16 times.
Leavenworth can keep Heights from finishing if they can pack in the defense, be physical, and use their fouls because they’re a deep team, and that way they can exploit Heights’ two major weaknesses, which is that they shoot only 29 percent from the 3-point line and 58 percent from the charity stripe as a team. The Pioneers can also force turnovers with their strength, which is their guard play, and if they keep the game close until the end, they have multiple big-shot threats with Williams and Kyle Wiggins, who has hit a pair of last-second game-winning shots.
If a few things like that go right, the state championship trophy could return to Leavenworth for the first time since 2000.
