Boys’ basketball notebook: Believe it or not, but North Linn isn’t even ranked

CEDAR RAPIDS — Where’s the love? Where’s the respect?

The Iowa High School Athletic Association came out this week with its first official rankings of the 2024-25 boys’ basketball season. Cedar Falls, Huxley Ballard, Western Christian and Bellevue Marquette are your No. 1 teams in their respective classes.

Nowhere to be found is North Linn. The Lynx aren’t second, third fourth, ninth, 10th, anything in Class 1A.

A 71-51 loss this past Saturday night at Dunkerton surely dissuaded the 1A rankings committee from ranking North Linn. But, you know, this is North Linn.

“You lose by 20, that probably should knock you quite a ways down,” said North Linn Coach Travis Griffith. “I know Madrid, I know Marquette, I know Woodbine, ACGC, have seen some of the other teams. I don’t know. If we play like that, we’re a top-10 team. But when you get beat by 20, it’s kind of ‘Are we a top-10 team or not?’”

“Like that” was a 79-50 win Tuesday night at Springville that looked like Lynx basketball over the past decade. Mason Bechen had 24 points on an off night for the all-stater, with Hayden Schmidt adding 16, Cole Griffith 13 and Drew Ries 12.

North Linn (9-1) took apart what is a pretty good Springville team that’s 5-4. The Lynx certainly looked rank worthy.

“I would think that with what we have accomplished and what we have back, it would be hard not to put us in the top 10,” Griffith said. “I think our kids saw it. But I won’t even talk about it with them. All you can do is take care of business this week, put it on like we did there and make them regret not putting us up there.”

You know the amazing things this program has achieved. It is 244-10 over the last 10 seasons, been to the state tournament eight straight years and played in a championship game seven consecutive years, including winning it all last season.

Bechen is one of the best players in the state, averaging 33.3 points per game. The rest of the starting lineup (Griffith, Ries, Schmidt and Cael Benesh) either started last season or played key bench roles.

Throw Cade Garman in there (he plays every game), and that’s six seniors, something not a lot of 1A teams can say they have. Yet North Linn is small, with only three players (Bechen, Garman and sophomore Waylon Raue) taller than 5-foot-11 on the roster, and they are only 6-2, 6-2 and 6-1, respectively.

“Saturday we weren’t mentally ready,” Coach Griffith said. “I think it was a lot of lack of competition for spots. We had seniors who just assumed ‘I’m going to play,’ and that’s not like us.”

So the first-year head coach (a longtime assistant who took over this season for Mike Hilmer when he left to take the superintendent’s job at Bellevue) got after his team. Monday was an hour and a half of watching film of the Dunkerton debacle and an hour and a half of practice, every second of it concentrated on defense.

“I’ve been too soft,” Griffith said. “I think it was Mike is a little more scary individual. You know the aura of Mike Hilmer. I was trying to infuse a little bit more fun with the seniors. But even over break, it felt like a little more entitlement from them. The thought of ‘Well, I get to show up and play.’ We changed that ... Our seniors stepped up. All six of them. That’s how it should be every night.”

North Linn played Thursday night at home against WACO (8-1), then has games next week against Clinton Prince of Peace and Lisbon. This troika of contests should give you a pretty good idea of exactly where the Lynx stand ... and if they are a top-10 team.

Around the hoop

— Montezuma’s Brady Boulton is having a phenomenal season. The junior guard scored a school-record 54 points Tuesday night in his team’s 78-67 win at Centerville.

Boulton made 18 of 28 field-goal attempts, including 6 for 10 from 3-point range, and was 12 of 16 from the free-throw line. The 54 points is a state high so far this season.

The grandson of former legendary Montezuma head coach Al Rabenold, Boulton is average 32.0 points per game this season for the Braves, who are 8-1.

— There are 23 undefeated teams remaining in the state: three in Class 4A, four in 3A, nine in 2A and seven in 1A. In The Gazette area, the unbeatens are Decorah in 3A (6-0), North Fayette Valley (9-0), Mid-Prairie (8-0) and Monticello (8-0) in 2A.

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com