Park Center snags 4A's top seed for the boys basketball state tournament

Park Center, two three-point losses from a perfect season, received the top seed for the Class 4A boys basketball state tournament that starts Tuesday.

The other top seeds revealed Saturday by the Minnesota State High School League were Totino-Grace in Class 3A, Holy Family in Class 2A and Russell-Tyler-Ruthton in Class 1A.

Park Center won its first 22 games this season and its final 19 of 2021-22, including the Class 4A final against Wayzata. A 73-70 loss to visiting Elk River on Feb. 24 ended the winning streak at 41 games, and a week later the Pirates lost 67-64 at Maple Grove. They bounced back in the Section 5 tournament, winning by an average of 21 points per game.

Park Center opens the tournament against Andover (22-7) for the second year in a row. The Huskies and Pirates, both members of the Northwest Suburban, played Feb. 21 at Andover, Park Center winning 97-91.

Totino-Grace went 21-8 in the regular season, playing a schedule hardened by Class 4A schools, many of them its opponents in the Northwest Suburban. There's not a bad loss among the eight on its resume.

Three of the Eagles' losses were to prominent programs from Arizona, Iowa and Wisconsin, two were to Park Center, and two others were to teams also in the Class 4A state tournament this season, Lakeville North and Minnetonka. Park Center's other loss was to Osseo, which reached the Class 4A, Section 5 tournament final. The Eagles won their Section 4 tournament games by an average of 35 points.

Holy Family is 27-2, with losses to Park Center and to state tournament qualifier Alexandria, seeded fifth in Class 3A. Holy Family also dominated its section tournament, winning Section 5 games by an average of 25.3 points.

Russell-Tyler-Ruthton (28-1) suffered its only loss in the Camden Conference tournament final, 72-70 to Dawson-Boyd. Revenge was taken in the Section 3 championship game, won 63-55 by Russell-Tyler-Ruthton.