Detroit Lakes Boys Basketball Opens 8AAA Playoffs At Home against ROCORI

Photo: Tami Sweep

Detroit Lakes, MN (KDLM) – The Section 8AAA Boys Basketball tournament begins tonight with the four-seed Detroit Lakes Lakers hosting the five-seed ROCORI Spartans.

The Lakers enter the tournament with an 11-14 record. After a 1-7 start that included four losses to AA schools, they won ten of their next 17 games.

“We started the season with some really good competition,” said head coach Brett Maass. “But these kids stayed the course…they bought in…they kept working hard. They understood that the season’s a long season and you can’t get too high or too low. Playing that kind of competition to start was good for us. It helped us see where we needed to get to, we didn’t develop any bad habits, we didn’t think we were better than what we were. You learn a lot more from losses than you do wins,”

The Lakers enter the tournament 0-5 against other teams in the section: 0-2 vs top-seed Alexandria, a 101-65 loss to second-seed St. Cloud Tech on February 4, a loss to seven-seed St. Cloud Apollo in mid-December, and a road loss to eight-seed Little Falls two weeks ago.

“The QRF is close,” said Maass on Saturday before seeds were announced. “We could be the four and host a playoff game, which would be awesome. But if we draw the six and have to travel to Sauk Rapids-Rice, we’ll be ready to do that too.”

The Lakers open the 8AAA playoffs at the Lakeshirts Fieldhouse tonight at 8:01 against ROCORI. This is the first meeting between the Lakers and the 10-16 (4-7 section) Spartans.

You can catch the game on KDLM tonight with the Laker Pregame Show with Charlie Newland beginning at 7:40. All games tonight begin at 8:01.

SECTION 8AAA MATCHUPS:

#1 Alexandria vs #8 Little Falls

#2 St. Cloud Tech vs #7 St. Cloud Apollo

#3 Sauk Rapids-Rice vs #6 Willmar

#5 Detroit Lakes vs #5 ROCORI