Cedar Rapids Kennedy, Decorah and North Linn atop respective classes in first IHSAA basketball rankings of season

CEDAR RAPIDS - Boys’ basketball around these parts is pretty good this season.

Just look at the first state rankings from the Iowa High School Athletic Association.

Area schools Cedar Rapids Kennedy, Decorah and North Linn are atop their respective classes in the initial official poll of the 2023-24 season, which was released Friday.

Kennedy is your top-ranked team in Class 4A. The Cougars were 5-0 going into their final pre-holiday game of the season Friday night against Cedar Rapids Washington: a four-point win over Cedar Falls and four wins by 29 points or more.

Defending champion West Des Moines Valley comes in second (6-1), followed by Dubuque Senior (6-0), Linn-Mar (5-1) and North Scott (6-1). Senior gave Linn-Mar its only loss Tuesday night at Senior in overtime.

The bottom five in 4A are Cedar Falls (5-1), Waukee (7-2), Ankeny Centennial (6-2), Ankeny (6-2) and Iowa City West (5-1).

Decorah improved to 8-0 Thursday night by overcoming a big early deficit at Hudson. The Vikings also have nice road wins over Western Dubuque and Dubuque Wahlert on their early season resume.

Clear Lake (7-0) is second in 3A, followed by Adel-DeSoto-Minburn (7-1), Solon (6-0) and Waverly-Shell Rock (6-2). Solon’s best win is probably a nine-pointer over a good Grinnell team that is 7-2.

The next five in 3A are Sioux City Heelan (6-2), Cedar Rapids Xavier (4-3), MOC/Floyd Valley (7-2), Davenport Assumption (5-3) and Williamsburg (5-1). Xavier actually is 3-0 against 3A competition, its losses all coming to 4A opponents from the Mississippi Valley Conference.

Northwest Iowa long has had tremendous Class 2A basketball, and that’s no different this season, as West Lyon (10-0) is your top-ranked team in the first rankings, with Western Christian (7-1) second.

Monticello (9-0) checks in at a solid third, followed by Hudson (8-1) and Carroll Kuemper (7-1).

Roland-Story (8-0) and Underwood (10-0) are ranked sixth and seventh, respectively, followed by Pella Christian (5-2), Grand View Christian (4-3) and Central Lyon (5-3). Grand View Christian was last season’s Class 1A state champion but requested to bump up a class this season and has a win over 4A Cedar Rapids Washington.

North Linn is No. 1 in Class 1A. The Lynx were runners-up to GVC last season and won Thursday night at WACO to head to the holiday break with a 9-0 record.

Tri-Rivers Conference mate Bellevue Marquette (9-0) is second. The teams are in opposite league divisions but play each other very late in the regular season at North Linn.

Earlham (8-0) is third in 1A, Madrid (8-1) fourth and South O’Brien (8-0) fifth. The next five are Winfield-Mount Union (8-1), Keota (10-0), Lansing Kee (10-0), Remsen St. Mary’s (5-2) and Lynnville-Sully (8-1), in that order.

The next rankings will come out January 8. Rankings committees consists of three members of the IHSAA staff (Jared Chizek, Chris Cuellar and Todd Tharp) and two former coaches and a media member for each class.

In 4A, the media member is Jeff Johnson of The Gazette. Scott Unash of CR-M Live Sports in Cedar Rapids is the media member on the 3A ranking committee.

Below are the entire first rankings of the season.

CLASS 4A

CLASS 3A

CLASS 2A

CLASS 1A

Comments: (319)-398-8258, jeff.johnson@thegazette.com