Hopkins, Wayzata boys basketball rematch is for Class 4A, Section 6 championship and trip to state

Across Minnesota, section championship games are known to be intense, since only the winner advances to the state tournament.

A Hopkins-Wayzata section title showdown will be amplified. These two teams flat out don’t like each other. Ending the other’s season brings exultation.

One of the best basketball games in the state takes place Tuesday night, and you can watch it on startribune.com/live.

Hopkins (26-1) will play host to Wayzata (24-4) in the Section 6 final at the Royals Athletic Center at 7 p.m. The Trojans attempted to have the venue changed to a neutral site to no avail. Tickets to the game sold out in minutes.

Wayzata coach Bryan Schnettler had to serve a one-game suspension following a hotly contested 77-76 loss at Hopkins on Feb. 13 that determined home-court advantage for the championship.

Schnettler was upset when a foul wasn’t called as senior forward Wyatt McBeth tried to score on an alley-oop pass with 4 seconds remaining.

Wayzata committed a foul less than a second later. Before Hopkins went to the free-throw line with 3.3 seconds left, the teams’ coaching staffs exchanged words and were assessed offsetting technical fouls. Nobody was ejected from the game.

After the game, Wayzata players and coaches didn’t shake hands with Hopkins in an attempt to avoid further incident. Social media posts from the game showed fans spilling onto the court as the Trojans tried to get to their locker room.

“I was really disappointed in the whole thing,” Hopkins coach Ken Novak said following the game.

The Royals are ranked second and the Trojans eighth in the latest Minnesota Top 25, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s statewide boys basketball ranking. Wayzata, which won the first meeting of the season 93-80, has won the section championship the past four years.

Hopkins arguably has the state’s best backcourt with senior Anthony Smith III and junior Jayden Moore. The two guards combine for more than 40 points per game on a team that averages 78 points per game.

Wayzata, like Hopkins, has four players averaging double figures and is led by junior guards Nolen Anderson and Christian Wiggins.

The two opposing backcourts would possibly offset each other, meaning the game could be decided by which team has the better performance in the paint on both ends of the floor. No matter the outcome, the gymnasium will be packed with emotion.

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Watch this game: The Star Tribune is the exclusive livestreaming partner for this game. Watch it at startribune.com/live.

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Related: Is Hopkins-Wayzata one of Minnesota’s best rivalries? Check out what readers told our Cassidy Hettesheimer in this recent story.