Gramp's Braggin' Rights Class six Missouri Boys basketball ratings - 3/19/2022

 Updated 3/24/2022

It has been a season of upsets and blowouts and the state tournament has not been any different.  In the semi-finals of the Boys class six tournament, CBC, who had split with Chaminade, put a big hurt on the Red Devils, pulling away to an eighteen-point victory.  Robert Martin, who has carried the Cadets all year, put on a show and got both seven-footer, John Bol with 12 points, and streaky Larry Hughes, jr. with 13 points, into the mix early and often.  Justus Johnson, a Cadet star cornerback, played ferocious defense and had eight points.

In the second semi-final, the Nixa-Staley contest should have been a nail-biter, but Nixa turned on the afterburners and shot down Staley by ten.  There seemed to be as much competitiveness amongst the fans as the players, with Twitter taunts flying back and forth.  Nixa's Missouri player of the year candidate, Colin Ruffin kept attacking the Staley crew and wore them down in the final minutes to take a close game to double digits.

In the third-place game, Staley came with a vengeance and stuffed Chaminade by 21.  Given that outcome, you might expect that Nixa would be slightly favored over CBC but sometimes these blow-out games are not indicative of a team's season performance and Chaminade was obviously flat after their loss to CBC.

The championship game was a nail-biter for a half, with CBC holding a 31-27 lead that looked tenuous.  Robert Martin, who had 29 points in the semi-final, continued to dominate the floor with his ball-handling, intermediate jumpers, and drives to the basket, but the second half belonged to Larry Hughes, jr who popped shots from the arc and 15-foot range with complete confidence.  Once Hughes got cooking, Nixa could not put out the fire.  When Nixa lunged to protect the three-point line, Hughes drove to the basket for several lay-ins.  Bol wasn't a big factor on the scoreboard but had numerous blocks and protected the paint to frustrate Nixa's offense.  Except for the sharpshooting of guard Jordan Turner, who was 6-7 from three, this game might have become a rout.  CBC outscored Nixa 37-24 in the second half.  CBC's defense, led again by Justus Johnson's three steals, caused Nixa to cough up 21 turnovers.  It did not seem to matter who CBC's head coach Justin Tatum threw out there as the deep bench provided solid minutes and wore the Eagles down.

After the district championship game, I had told Coach Tatum that Gramp's had CBC going all the way.  His reply, as he walked towards the exit was "Hope so".  It was more than just hope.  Hope is not a strategy and CBC obviously had a good game plan for both games and executed.  The Cadets won their seventh state title and they were the best team in the state.  While they lose eight seniors, including Martin, Abdul-Hamid, Holmes, Goddard, Johnson, Huston, and Hughes, jr, look for the Cadets to be knocking on the state championship game door again next year.

I talked about a different state play-off format in an earlier blog.  The best four teams were probably in the final for the best 10-12 teams were not all even present in the quarterfinals.  Time to look at changing the regional districts and seeding teams at both district and state levels.

Here are the links to all of the final Missouri boys and girls basketball ratings:

Boys   All Boys Teams (by rank)  All Boys Teams (alphabetical)

Class One    Class Two    Class Three    Class Four    Class Five    Class Six

Girls   All Girls Teams (by rank)  All Girls Teams (alphabetical)

Class One    Class Two    Class Three    Class Four    Class Five    Class Six

Here are my Missouri boys class six final ratings: