Keota High School’s enrollment is 65, making it 328th out of 353 schools in Iowa playing boys’ basketball this season. But this is a historically winning program, with this season’s Eagles being 18-0 and ranked No. 6 in Class 1A.
Girls’ basketball: Examining the regional brackets in 3A, 2A and 1A.
No. 1-ranked teams in Iowa high school basketball picked up some big wins last week: Class 1A’s top-ranked North Linn girls beat 3A No. 1 Mount Vernon, while the 4A top-ranked Cedar Rapids Kennedy boys handled West Des Moines Valley. And there’s another big boys’ game on Friday, when 1A No. 1 Bellevue Marquette hosts No. 3 North Linn. The Call It Both Ways podcast discusses those games on this week’s episode, plus more notable performances.
Despite an overtime loss at West Des Moines Valley, Cedar Rapids Prairie continues to climb in The Gazette’s area high school girls’ basketball Super Ten rankings.
Linn-Mar beat Cedar Rapids Washington 77-38 in a boys’ basketball game Monday night.
Linn-Mr 6-foot-8 junior forward Davis Kern picked up his 1,000th-career point in a game last week. If he picks up his pace a little bit, he could approach the school career record for points, which Marcus Paige and Jason Bohannon have. Kern scored 32 points Monday in his team’s 77-38 win over Cedar Rapids Washington.
Cedar Rapids Kennedy notched an impressive 60-43 win Saturday afternoon over fourth-ranked West Des Moines Valley to put a stranglehold on the top spot in Class 4A in this week’s Iowa High School Athletic Association boys’ basketball rankings. The other No. 1s remain the same: Bellevue Marquette in 1A, West Lyon in 2A and Clear Lake in 3A.
Iowa City West’s second-ranked boys’ basketball team built a 17-point halftime lead on No. 8 Cedar Falls, but needed a three-point play by Kareem Earl on the final minute to pull out a 45-43 win.
Holden Arnaman scored 27 points, and Reese Trepanier hit a huge go-ahead 3-pointer in the final two minutes as West Branch knocked off Class 2A No. 10 Iowa City Regina, 55-49, Friday night at Regina. The win tied the teams atop the River Valley Conference South Division and ended Regina’s 13-game win streak.
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Libby Fandel scored a school-record 34 points and played a brilliant all-around floor game, and Cedar Rapids Xavier defeated Iowa City Liberty, 53-45, in a Mississippi Valley Conference girls’ basketball game Friday night at Ron Thillen Gymnasium.
The Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union will release girls’ basketball postseason pairings next week, most likely Wednesday. In the meantime, here is the final draft of The Gazette’s mock pairings.
Girls’ basketball: Class 1A top-ranked North Linn hit 13 3-point shots, committed only three turnovers and upended 3A No. 1 Mount Vernon, 60-48.
The Class 4A boys’ rankings saw a big shake-up this week (though Cedar Rapids Kennedy is still the clear No. 1) and that leads this episode of Call It Both Ways, a podcast about Iowa high school basketball.
Cascade’s Jackson Lieurance scored 47 points in a game last week, breaking a school record set by Creighton head coach Greg McDermott. He also set the school record for 3-pointers in a game. A few days later, West Branch’s Holden Arnaman scored a school-record 48 points.
The top-ranked team in Class 1A since the start of the season, North Linn is in the midst of a typically outstanding winter. The Lynx (15-1 overall, 12-0 Tri-Rivers Conference West Division) wrapped up their third straight divisional title — and their 10th in the last 12 years — with a 60-25 win over Central City on Tuesday.
And then, fittingly, there were two still standing in 2A: Alburnett’s top-seeded Eaghan Fleshman and Solon’s second-seeded Lucas Feuerbach — until Fleshman stuck a takedown in overtime to mine gold, 4-1, Saturday night at the Iowa High School Athletic Association state wrestling meet at the Casey’s Center.
Photos from the Class 1A, 2A and 3A championship matches during the 2026 IHSAA boys’ state wrestling tournament at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday, February 21, 2026.
Seventh-ranked Linn-Mar fell to No. 1 Waukee Northwest , 3-2, in the Class 3A girls’ state soccer championship at the Cyclone Sports Complex in Ames, Iowa Saturday, June 7, 2025.
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