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ORDER GAME PHOTOS
Welcome to new and (hopefully improved) Top 25 Daily Boys Basketball Rankings!
The goal remains the same: to bring you the Top 25 teams every weekday morning, based upon our IdahoSports.com Power Rankings formula.
Instead of listing everyone 1 through 25, though, instead we'll separate everyone by their respective classifications.
The idea is to highlight one noteworthy game or team performance each night, and explain how the result of that game shook up the Power Rankings landscape.
Think of it as a daily view of the boys basketball stock market. Whose stock rose after a big win? And who plummeted following a shocking loss?
When we debuted these rankings last week, the first team I highlighted was Melba, who carries a 25-game winning streak into their league game with Compass Charter on Thursday.
Lapwai fans rightly pointed out that what the Wildcats have done is more impressive, and they're absolutely right. Lapwai is currently sitting at 47 consecutive wins and counting. That's not only the longest active streak in Idaho, but according to MaxPreps, it's the longest active streak in the entire nation.
Of course, the Idaho record belongs to Lapwai as well, as the Wildcats snapped off 82 consecutive wins from 1987 to 1989. If Lapwai were to continue their winning ways, they wouldn't be able to match 82 wins until the very end of the 2023-24 season. That's quite a ways off, and Lapwai coach Zach Eastman and his team are taking things one game at a time.
Trivia Time! Who was the last team to defeat Lapwai? The answer: Genesee, back on February 5th, 2021, a 60-55 win for the Bulldogs.
And it's not as if Lapwai is beating up on a soft schedule. During this winning streak, the Wildcats have played 5A schools Post Falls, Lewiston and Coeur d'Alene, 4A Moscow, 2A schools Kellogg and Moscow, and much larger out of state opponents like Spokane, Washington's North Central High and Baker High from Oregon.
Their latest victim? The Troy Trojans.
Billed as a battle of undefeated teams, Lapwai's 10-0 mark entering Saturday's contest was markedly different than Troy's 5-0 start. Lapwai emphasized that point with a 94-19 victory.
Kase Wynott scored 34 points and pulled down 12 rebounds for the Wildcats in the win. Terrell Ellenwood-Jones added 23 points, while Ahlius Yearout finished with 12.
There's no doubt on most nights, that trio does a majority of the heavy lifting for Lapwai offensively, but this isn't three-on-three basketball.
There's a core group of eight players, and they all have different jobs. For example, senior Jaishaun Sherman is second on the team with 6.2 rebounds per game. Senior Jalisco Miles is shooting 86% from the free throw line. And junior Chris Bohnee does all of the little things that don't show up on the stat sheet.
Back to Coach Eastman's team taking things one game at a time. The Wildcats will travel to Kamiah on Tuesday night for their most difficult 1AD1 game to date. Lapwai defeated Kamiah four times last year (twice in the regular season, at the District 2 tournament, and in the 1AD1 state championship game), so there's familiarity between the schools. But Kamiah has the athletes and the grind-it-out style of play to offset Lapwai's high octane offense.
Either way, Tuesday's showdown in Kamiah will have everyone's attention.
Here's the rest of the Top 25 Daily Boys Basketball Rankings:
CLASS 5A
None
CLASS 4A
1. Pocatello (12-0)
2. Hillcrest (10-0)
3. Skyview (9-3)
4. Wood River (8-2)
5. Preston (11-3)
6. Minico (6-2)
CLASS 3A
1. Marsh Valley (9-2)
2. Teton (10-1)
3. Snake River (8-4)
4. McCall-Donnelly (6-2)
CLASS 2A
1. Melba (10-0)
2. Wendell (8-1)
3. Orofino (6-0)
4. Cole Valley Christian (9-2)
5. Nampa Christian (9-2)
6. Ririe (9-1)
7. Aberdeen (6-3)
8. St. Maries (4-2)
CLASS 1AD1
1. Lapwai (11-0)
2. Lighthouse Christian (8-1)
3. Valley (8-1)
CLASS 1AD2
1. Rockland (11-1)
2. Watersprings (11-2)
3. Richfield (9-0)
4. Camas County (6-1)
5. Garden Valley (8-5)
Agree? Disagree? Join the conversation on The Boards, SportsBoards.com!
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