Class 4 should come down to Vashon and Father Tolton. Vashon plays a national schedule and have some great wins, but did have a rather close game between McCluer North where they ultimately won 60-45. Tolton is starting to pile up wins. St. Charles is coming off a huge week by winning the Washington Tournament taking down Class 6 St. Dominic 53-41 then produced a shocking, yet impressive 73-60 win over previously undefeated St. Francis Borgia. I also really like John Burroughs who seem to have figured some things out recently. They lost to Ladue in overtime, but three days later took down arch rivals MICDS 59-49. The Bombers are tall and have two studs in Trevor Reed (6-6) and Ramzi Salem (6-3).
I think there's at least six teams who have the talent to hoist the Class 5 state title in March. Easily the #1 team right now is undefeated Cape Central who are one of the most skillful teams in the state, but can be beaten. Case in point they had to beat Hazelwood Central in overtime this past week. Cardinal Ritter has been on a roll the last four years and once again they look like a big threat to win state despite losing a lot of height and production from a season ago. Ladue has a ton of depth and experience with key victories against Burroughs, St. Charles, and Westminster. They even won back-to-back overtime games against Burroughs and Poplar Bluff last week. A team they'll probably face in districts is De Smet, who've taken down CBC and Kickapoo, but did lose to below .500 Lafayette. Like Ladue, they rely on outside shooting and pressure defense. Bolivar has Northern Iowa commit Kyle Pock and two other quality players who are problems for anybody. I'm also not counting out Borgia just yet. They have a big game at home against Ritter on Tuesday, which I think they can win. Adam Rickman is one of the better junior forwards in the state.
Class 6 is Staley's to lose if I'm honest. Got to see them play at the Highland Shootout in Illinois recently and they took apart a really good East St. Louis team. They arguably have the best point guard and forwards in the state with a very good sophomore coming off the bench. Still can't count out undefeated Nixa while Chaminade is coming on strong as of late with a 23-point win over De Smet and also beating Chicago-St. Rita at Highland. I really like Republic with head coach Tim Brown at the helm executing his offense. Askew is a great player for them and they have some good size as well. The Tigers are simply a very well rounded team. Kirkwood is a small, but very athletic team with two quality guards in Christian Hughes and Javaris Moye. They also have decent depth. Finally, you can never count out CBC despite their rocky run of form lately having lost six of their last 11 games. They don't have a particularly bad loss, but I did expect them to beat De Smet, but failed to do so and the Cadets haven't beaten some teams as throughly as they typically do like beating Soldan 62-60. They still play very fast and can shoot quite well though. If it's their night they can still beat just about anybody.
