But not so fast.

Marquette and Alger counties showed how deep their basketball talent was this past season, and not just because Jacob MacPhee of Marquette and Ethan Marta of Westwood made up 40% of the Dream Team.

Four of the five spots on the D 1-3 First Team include area players, with another four earning spots on the 10-member Second Team.

Voting took place last Monday at Northern Michigan University in Marquette during the U.P. Sportswriters and Sportscasters Association annual high school basketball meeting.

Under the watchful eye of Negaunee head coach Brad Nelson, right, the Miners’ Jordan Guenette, center, looks to pass the ball while closely guarded by Marquette’s Jaxon Jurmu during their high school boys basketball game played at the Barb Crill Gymnasium in Marquette on Feb. 14. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps)

MacPhee’s senior teammates Jaxon Jurmu and Kyler Sager were among those earning the Division 1-3 honors, Jurmu on the First Team and Sager on the Second Team.

And Marta’s senior teammate Tristan Miller made the Second Team.

Ishpeming senior Caden Luoma also made the First Team after he was the highest vote-getter of any player who missed the Dream Team.

And the First Team was rounded out by a pair of Munising seniors, Carson Kienitz and Trevor Nolan, as the Mustangs bumped up into Division 3 this season.

Joining Sager and Miller from the area on the Second Team are Negaunee senior Jordan Guenette and Munising senior Jack Dusseault.

Munising’s Carson Kienitz, left, dribbles around Wyoming Tri-unity Christian’s Roy Fogg during the MHSAA Division 4 boys basketball state championship game played at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center in East Lansing on March 25, 2023. (Photo courtesy MHSAA)

A 6-foot-1 guard, Luoma became the Hematites’ all-time leading scorer among both boys and girls players after he put up 596 points this past season to reach more than 1,300 all-told in his varsity career.

Earning a Second Team berth on the Michigan Sports Writers’ Division 3 All-State team, he finished at 26.7 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.4 steals, 3.1 assists and 4.3 deflections per game, while making 52.2% from the floor, including 33.3% on 3-pointers, and 87.8% on his free throws.

“Caden is a relentless leader,” Ishpeming first-year head coach Paige Yoho said of a player who made the West PAC Dream Team and Mid-Peninsula Conference First Team. “His commitment and work ethic toward his team and himself is truly a coach’s dream.

“He’s always finding ways to make not only himself, but his teammates, better, and that’s what makes him so special. (He’s) always finding ways to perfect his craft and it showed in the stat columns this year.”

Included in his game lines were a pair of 40-pointers, a 49-point career-high game that was also the highest in Ishpeming boys history. He scored that many points to go with seven steals, six rebounds and three blocked shots against Hancock.

Munising’s Trevor Nolan, left, puts up a 3-point shot past the oncoming defense of Marine City Cardinal Mooney’s Brian Everhart during their MHSAA Division 4 boys basketball semifinal played on March 23, 2023, at Michigan State University’s Breslin Center in East Lansing. (Photo courtesy MHSAA)

He also had 40 points, eight assists, five rebounds and five steals vs. Menominee, then scored 30 at least four other times, including 36 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists and seven steals vs. Division 2 Houghton, which had a 17-6 record.

Ishpeming itself was a modest 13-11, but had a late-season six-game winning steak that ended with a loss in the district championship game to eventual state semifinalist Westwood.

Jurmu, a 5-11 guard, has been a three-year starter and two-year captain for the Sentinels, who finished 22-4 after fashioning a midseason 18-game winning streak that included victories over two of the past four state champions in MHSAA Division 1 — a 66-65 win at 2021 titlist Grand Blanc and a dominating 76-59 neutral-site win over 2023 champ Detroit Cass Tech.

He became Marquette’s career, season and single-game record holder in assists, among several other records. A Great Northern Conference First Team honoree the past two seasons, he averaged 11.8 points, 8.2 assists and two steals this past year, making 47% on 3s and 83% on free throws.

“He came up three years ago along with Jacob (MacPhee) and several other sophomores,” third-year Sentinels head coach Rich Ledy said. “He’s been our point guard for three years.

“He had had a little bit of a struggle shooting (at first), but ended up setting our record in free throws, and I believe he’s in the top 10 in 3-pointers in the state (this season).”

Kienitz and Nolan were holdovers and had been definitive contributors to Munising’s run to a Division 4 state championship in 2023.

They have continued to lead the Mustangs, who had a 19-3 record this season and were weekly ranked in the U.P. top five much of the season in Divisions 1-3 despite barely making the enrollment cutoff out of Division 4.

Kienitz, a 6-5 guard, averaged 19.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.5 assists and four steals per game and had three triple-doubles this season along with a 4.0 grade-point average academically.

“Carson played mostly point guard, and without his height and vision, we would not have scored on a lot of our sets,” Munising head coach Terry Kienitz said of his Skyline Central Conference First Team and All-Defensive Team honoree. “He was our best defender and tasked with guarding the other team’s best player every night regardless of their position.”

Nolan, a 5-8 senior, was another Skyline Central First Team honoree who averaged 15.1 points, 4.1 assists, 3.2 rebounds and 3.0 steals per game.

“Trevor is an extremely good 3-point shooter,” Terry Kienitz said of the 3.9 GPA student, “and most teams we played focused on taking him out of our offense, which opened things up for his teammates.”

On the Second Team, Sager is a 6-1 guard who started the past two seasons and part of his sophomore year, too, and he was a captain this season.

He averaged 14.2 points, three steals and three steals per contest, making 64% on 2-point shots and 84% on free throws.

Sager earned a GNC Second Team berth for the second straight year.

“He is an unbelievable athlete,” Ledy said. “He had some incredible dunks, and he’s a hard-working kid who just loves basketball.”

Miller, a 6-1 forward, had some big games against Westwood’s top opponents as he averaged 10.6 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.1 steals and 4.5 deflections a game, making 46% from the field, including 31% on 3s.

Among those top performances were 23 points, five rebounds, five steals and four assists against Maple City Glen Lake in the regional finals, 18 points and five rebounds against Ishpeming, and 11 points and five steals vs. Iron Mountain.

Miller made the West PAC Dream Team and M-PC First Team.

“Tristan is a player who went under the radar as our second-best option all year due to the amount of attention Ethan (Marta) receives,” Patriots head coach Luke Gray said. “Tristan is a fantastic three-level scorer, who excels at the little details.

“Tristan was phenomenal during our playoff run and showed what he can do on a night-to-night basis, even at the highest level.”

Westwood won five MHSAA Division 3 tournament games and went all the way to the Division 3 semifinals before being stopped by the Arts & Technology Academy of Pontiac at Michigan State University on March 13.

Guenette, a 6-foot senior who made the West PAC Dream Team and M-PC First Team, averaged 18 points and five rebounds per game for the 15-9 Miners while making 36% on 3s and establishing a 1.2 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Dusseault, at 6-3, was Munising’s No. 3 scorer at 12.8 points, 9.4 rebounds, 2.5 blocked shots and 2.0 steals each outing. He earned Skyline Central Second Team and All-Defensive Team laurels.

“He was an extremely good rebounder,” Terry Kienitz said. “Jack was an extremely effective defender in the paint and was our rim protector.”

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.