JIM PAULSEN, Star Tribune
The case for 6-10 Minnesota Transitions forward Kevin Noreen as the 2010 Star Tribune Metro Player of the Year in boys’ basketball goes as follows:
- He broke the state record for career points this season, currently at 4,023 points and counting.
- He has scored more than 40 points 14 times this season, topping 50 seven times.
- He averages 38.1 points per game, the runaway leader in the metro.
- He will break the single-season scoring record if — when? — he scores his 16th point in Transitions’ Class 1A tournament quarterfinal game against Cass Lake-Bena on Thursday.
- He averages 16.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game.
- He has signed an NCAA Division I letter of intent to play at Boston College next year.
Surely such a résumé is unimpeachable — a slam-dunk lock, right?
Except for the inescapable grumbling from some basketball snobs who claim Noreen’s accomplishments have come against inferior competition.
Through much of the early part of Noreen’s six-year varsity career, Minnesota Transitions — a charter school in south Minneapolis — has played a significant portion of its schedule against less basketball-savvy schools.
While the Wolves are legit, the argument goes, many of their opponents are not. In fact, the Minnesota State High School League already has said some of Noreen’s point totals from earlier games might not be counted in his career totals. Not enough to keep him from the state record — “Something like five or six games,” Noreen says — but enough to fuel the skeptics’ fire.
“There’s nothing I can really do about that,” Noreen said. “It’s not so much the teams we play but our style of play. We like to press and look for opportunities to score. And we’ve deliberately beefed up our schedule this year to help us prepare for the state tournament.”
The tougher schedule — the Wolves played six games against Class 3A or 4A teams, compiling a 4-2 record — has helped polish Noreen’s profile. He averaged 28.3 points in those six contests, an average that would still lead the metro. He outscored fellow All-Metro first-teamer Jacob Thomas of Columbia Heights 31-19 in a close loss to the Hylanders. He scored 32 points in an early-season victory over Minnehaha Academy, a Class 2A tournament entrant. He has been the high scorer in all but one Wolves game this season.
But prolific point totals aside, coach John Sherman remains most impressed by Noreen’s intelligence on the court.
“He has a higher basketball IQ than any player I’ve ever coached,” Sherman said. “He’s always one step ahead of everyone else on the court.”
Sherman cites Noreen’s play in Friday’s 66-52 victory over Maranatha Academy in the Class 1A, Section 4 championship game.
“In the second half, they were banging him pretty good inside,” Sherman said “His three biggest plays were assists to wide-open cutters for baskets that gave us the lead and put us in charge. We moved him out to the point, and he stayed there for the rest of the game.”
The points, the state tournament appearances, the state records, the D-I scholarship. Add it all up and there’s only one logical sum: Metro Player of the Year.
