Who will be the top team in district 4 bantam A

[eagle11]

Who will be the top team in district 4 bantam A

[Frozen Water]

I think Faribault will win District 4 with New Prague coming in 2nd.

[Rocket78]

For the regular season districts 4 and 8 will compete in four divisions. When the regular season is over everyone will go back to their own district to vote on seedings and then have their own playoffs.

Maybe the real question will be "Who will win the D4/8 Central Division?"

I think both New Prague and Faribault are in central with Lakeville. Austin, Albert Lea and Owatonna playing in the East with Rochester, Dodge County, Winona, LaCrescent

[jackstraw]

I would bet on Lakeville So. in the Central division, with Faribault being a possibility. Faribault would have been a pretty easy favorite in the old D4 schedule and is my bet for the no. 1 seed come seeding time. Roch. will be the hand's down favorite in the East and the real race will be for 2nd. Very interesting format this year. Hopefully the team's from D4 that aren't in the same division will schedule non- league games so as to have a better idea of thing's come seeding time. East and Central will have MUCH tougher league games than West. I haven't seen anything on the actual end of the year district tourney, but it would almost have to involve everyone. I don't think that a team should actually be seeded "out" of the year end tourney if there were to be only 8 teams taken, seed's 5 through 10 would be very subjective.

[Rocket78]

When the D8 and D4 boards came up with this system it was primarily to try to cut out the long drives. Teams, especially at bantam A, will continue to schedule many additonal games outside of their league schedule and I don't think they are very concerned about drive time if it will give them good competition. D8 has always played 16 league games but I believe that D4 normally played 14. The two Districts just need to agree on the proper number and it should be consistent in all four of the new divisions. Bantam A teams tend to play in 3-6 tourneys so they should get a good look at a lot of teams.

One of the programs that was sort of left out of the discussions at D4 & D8 is Mason City that played in the D4 bantam A league. I assume they will be in the same district as Albert Lea.

I keep hearing that New Prague and Waseca are fast rising programs. I have not seen either team play for a few years so I don't know how good they are now.

[jackstraw]

New Prague has consistently been toward the top the last few year's and have been fairly competitive with some of the high end Metro teams lately. This year's A bantam team might be a little down from the last couple year's, they have had some move up's. Wouldn't consider Waseca an up and coming team. They have played at the B level for the most part, but keep in mind that is a pretty small town.

[Rocket78]

jackstraw,

soo... what is New Prague doing to elevate their program? Things don't "just happen". Somebody is doing something right or they just stumbled onto good athletes. I would guess that maybe it is a combination of getting good athletes before basketball steals them and then teaching them well. Do they have a program model that can be emulated by the other programs. Some folks don't want to share but hopefully we can learn from your success. It will make all of Southern Minney stronger if NP is stronger.

[Miracle1980]

East
Winona
Dodge County
Rochester
Austin
Owatonna
Albert Lea
Red Wing
Faribault
*Rochester will clearly be the the #1 team in this division, Faribault will probably be the next best team.

Central
Luverne
Marshall
New Ulm
Mankato
St Peter
New Prague
Northfield
Sleepy Eye
*Weakest division by far. New Prague will be the top team here.

North
Rosemount
South St Paul/IGH
Eagan
Hastings
Cottage Grove
Woodbury
West St Paul
Lakeville
Farmington
*Best division by far. Lakeville and Eagan are the two best here with Woodbury probably finishing third.