Fists Fly at Eden Prairie HS: Multiple Fights Break Out at Over-Crowded MN Prep Hoops Event

By    |  
Updated:
Follow Us
Eden Prairie high school gym in Minnesota for Battle of the Lakes Prep Hoops AAU tournament
Credit: Photo Courtesy of Marcus Fuller (Star Tribune) on X (@Marcus_R_Fuller)

The Prep Hoops AAU Basketball Circuit is one of the most prestigious and popular high school AAU leagues in the world, right up there with the well-known Nike Elite Youth League (EYBL). It claims host of over 3500 teams across the United States and often crosses lines with other popular leagues, including the EYBL.

Teams you may have heard of include “D1 Minnesota“, which has included local high school top prospects, turned college superstars like Jamison Battle (Minnesota, Ohio State), Patrick McCaffery (Iowa), Matthew Hurt (Duke), Race Thompson (Indiana), Jericho Sims (Texas).

Their 2025 team includes Cedric Tomes, who committed to the Minnesota Gophers and new head coach Niko Medved on Saturday, for the class of 2026. Later that same day, the Prep Hoops Circuit was holding a widely anticipated AAU tournament called the “Battle of the Lakes” at Eden Prairie High School, just west of Minneapolis.

Eden Prairie high school gym PACKED for Battle of the Lakes Prep Hoops Tournament…

When I say widely anticipated, I mean this was the most packed Minnesota gym I have seen… possibly ever. The gym was way over capacity, to the point where fans were literally shoulder to shoulder all the way up to the court. Here is a clip from the Fresh Coast Hoops YouTube account, which was filming the event.

At the end of the short video, the aforementioned Gopher commit Cedric Tomes hits a first half buzzer beater to give D1 Minnesota a halftime lead over the Rod Wave Elite. Look at the crowd, though. It’s so packed that there isn’t a foot to be had anywhere in the gym. Fans are being pushed all the way up to the court.

It doesn’t take a “get off my lawn” 36-year-old old man like me to see that the situation last night at Eden Prairie High School was beyond the line teetering between “spectacular event” and “pending disaster”.

Then… fights and chaos break out

According to multiple reports, Prep Hoops did not abide by their rental agreement with EP High School, which mandates they keep crowds under gym capacity. Multiple media outlets have reached out to Prep Hoops for comment, but have not heard back.

Related: Ben Johnson was the NIL Problem for Gophers Men’s Basketball

But news isn’t made with over-capacity crowds. It’s made when a melee breaks out in that huge crowd, especially when there are phones around to record much of it. The fight that started everything and is making its way around the internet is this one. From here, it appears all hell broke loose inside the Eden Prairie high school.

Before you knew it, there were over 100 police officers summoned to Eden Prairie High School, including the “Trooper 9” helicopter. People were seemingly running around causing all sorts of havoc, not just in the gym, but throughout the entire school. After the area was finally cleared around 8 PM CDT, official reports from all the local media outlets say that the “multiple fights” that broke out were all “minor”.

I’m not sure if they are trying to downplay the chaos that took place last night. But what was caught on video and the back-and-forth relayed from the police scanner between officers and dispatch (via the “MN Crime Watchers” group on Facebook group)… seemed like anything but minor.

  • There is a group of 30-40 kids running around inside the high school and they are refusing to listen to officers.
  • There is a large group on the 3rd floor of the high school
  • Trooper 9 (helicopter) just arrived overhead if needed
  • Most followed instructions but there are still kids running around all over the place. Some ar hiding.
  • 7:15 PM: UPDATE for All Units. The school is pretty much cleared of mayhem. we have a couple of teams of officers who will escort the teams that are hiding to their buses. Once we got those buses on the move, we will continue to clear the remaining kids running amuck inside the school and clear the lot.
  • Asking for assistance from Trooper 9 to assist from overhead on traffic control and routing out of the area.
  • We believe the violent offenders have made their way out of here
Mentioned in this article:

More About:
0What do you think?Post a comment.