Gramps Braggin Rights Missouri Boys Class 2 Basketball ratings - 01/07/2022

 Oh, how things change!  I remember a few years ago when Dora and South Iron were the top teams in class one and were actually top teams in the state!  Dora, coached by Rick Luna, with Luna's triplet sons, and Isaac Haney, a D-1 Missouri State recruit, edged out an outstanding South Iron squad, coached by Dusty Dinkins.  I wrote about the legacy of Dora in a blog back in 2020 HERE and recalled the outstanding teams that my Mother's hometown of Mountain Lake, Minnesota had back in the 1930s.  There is a lot of pride in your basketball team in a small, rural town.  In fact, it might be the only good thing in town all winter, so the pride and swagger of a town might revolve around some 15-17-year-old boys or girls and how they do on a hardwood court.

Fast forward two years and Dinkins and the South Iron Panthers are still one of the best class one teams in the state.  Dora, on the other hand, moved to class two and has not won a single game this year.  The team is 0-12 and may have a hard time finding a win all season.  Rick Luna has been gone for two years, taking the triplets to Viola, Arkansas for a state championship there while Haney moved on to Kickapoo, helping the Indians to a class six state championship last year.  I don't know the specifics, but the school board summarily dismissed Luna over some issue and I wonder if they regret that action, given the school's meteoric drop from a 130 rating to about 70 over the past two years.  I wonder what the mood is down at the Roy's Restaurant on Highway 181?  The breakfast bunch, that used to talk about that 40 point win over Bradleyville back in 2020, is now shaking their heads about the 40 point loss to Seymour last week.  It's a tough enough job keeping a high school basketball program going with the same coach but when you throw the baby out with the bathwater, it can be a monumental task.  

I applaud a coach like Dusty Dinkins who seems to have maintained a quality program with over 22 wins per season since 2008 and some 350 plus wins.  I'll bet the breakfast patrons down at Lenny's or Heifer Mels Diner in Annapolis would get a kick out of Dora's dilemma as they bask in the after-glow of a 24 point blow-out of formerly undefeated Bunker earlier this week.  I betcha the South Iron school board doesn't have any plans to boot Dusty out of Annapolis any time soon.  If there was ever a list of legacy programs in the state, it would have to include South Iron.

So the class two ratings show a bunch of good teams.  I don't know if they are as good as Dora or South Iron were two years ago but they play some quality basketball.  Here are my class two ratings, followed by the ratings by district.  This rating has many of the same teams as the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association rankings poll but in quite a different order.  My top team, Bernie, is listed as a 9 or 10 on the MBCA.  Go figure.

Check out the class six boys HERE and girls HERE.  

Class two girls are HERE.

Districts 3, 7, and 10 look to be the most competitive at this point in the season...