For the St. Croix Lutheran girls basketball banquet last year, Callie Oakland’s face was superimposed on a picture of Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman as a fun way to celebrate her season.

The idea came from Oakland’s mom. It made sense.

Oakland, a 6-foot-1 senior forward, loves watching highlights of Rodman, a former NBA star, dominating the boards. One of her prized possessions is a T-shirt of Rodman wearing his trademark nose ring and pink hair from the Chicago Bulls dynasty teams in the 1990s.

The Northern Iowa recruit has a love for rebounding that has helped her not only become the top rebounder in Minnesota girls hoops this season but also one of the best in state history.

Through 10 games this season, Oakland was averaging 26.3 points and a state-leading 20.2 rebounds, which included at least 20 boards in six games for the West St. Paul Class 2A program.

Entering the new year, Oakland and Le Sueur-Henderson’s 6-10 junior, Hunter Vinkemeier, were the only players averaging both 25 points or more and 20 rebounds per game.

“When ‘The Last Dance’ came out, the Michael Jordan documentary, I watched that all of the time, and Dennis Rodman was always rebounding,” Oakland said. “I was like, ‘I want to rebound like him’. So I always made it my mission to be a relentless rebounder like he was.”

Oakland’s high is 28 rebounds in a game. Laura Wendorff of Fulda (1996) and Missy Kassube of Eagle Valley (2008) share the Minnesota girls single-game record with 34 rebounds. Chase Coley of Minneapolis Washburn set the single-season record of 604 in 2014.

On the boys side, Vinkemeier leads the state in rebounds per game (21.0) and ranks third in points per game (32.7) through seven games for the Class 2A team in Le Sueur, located about 35 miles south of the Twin Cities metro area.

“It’s pretty crazy,” said Vinkemeier about Oakland and him averaging 20 rebounds per game. “It helps us bring the ball up the court and get easy layups. It’s just being able to read it off the rim and just go.”

Vinkemeier changed his mentality toward rebounding the summer after his sophomore year. Le Seuer-Henderson graduated four players standing 6-4 or taller, including 6-6 and 6-7 post players.

“A big thing was AAU and just getting more aggressive on the rebounds,” he said. “And it kind of just comes natural to me. I’m doing it without even thinking about it.”

The thought of breaking his school’s single-season record for rebounds has crossed Vinkemeier’s mind, but he’s also on pace to challenge the state mark. Braham’s Noah Dahlman had 574 rebounds (19.1 average) in the 2006-07 season.

Oakland is on pace to grab nearly 1,800 rebounds in five years, which would rank among the top three in Minnesota history for girls. Among current players, only Gophers recruit Tori Oehrlein from Crosby-Ironton has more career rebounds with over 2,000, an all-time record.

Without a significant height advantage, Oakland relies on her strength and physicality. She also mastered the art of boxing out and having a nose for the ball.

She could probably operate her own rebounding clinic.

“I usually just put my arm into them and get my hip into their hip,” Oakland said. “I wait for the ball to hit the rim, so I know where the ball’s going to go. Then I release. Because I’m a lot bigger than most of the people I play, I can use my vertical to then jump and get it.”

If the missed shot is coming off the rim right in front of her instead of the opposite side, Oakland has another technique that sounds a lot like a pass rusher in football.

“If I’m on the same side of the ball, I’ll use a swim move,” she said. “Then I’ll box out and wait for the ball to touch the rim. I just pretty much use my lower-body strength to [move] people out of the way.”

Rodman became her basketball idol, but Oakland looked up to her older sister Emily Wimmer, a 2014 St. Croix Lutheran graduate who played at Division II Augustana in South Dakota. She recently broke her sister’s school career blocks record.

“When I was a little kid and she was playing, I would always just be watching her,” Oakland said. “It was really good to just be in the gym getting better that way.”

When it comes to chasing state records, Oakland got a glimpse of that playing alongside current University of St. Thomas sophomore Laura Hauge, who starred at St. Croix Lutheran and broke the Minnesota girls career record in three-pointers, finishing with 559.

A varsity basketball and volleyball player since eighth grade, Oakland initially earned her playing time rebounding. Since then, she has improved as a scorer, passer and defender.

Last season, Oakland teamed with fellow Class of 2026 standout Amaya Penn to lead St. Croix Lutheran to a 17-11 record. Oakland averaged 19.2 points and ranked tied for third in the state with Oehrlein at 16.2 rebounds per game.

The Crusaders have relied on Oakland’s inside presence even more this season. She opened with a 31-point, 21-rebound game vs. Totino-Grace. She had 29 points, 24 rebounds and five blocks vs. St. Paul Como Park on Nov. 25. She hasn’t slowed down, either, with 30 points and 24 rebounds on Jan. 6 vs. Legacy Christian.

“She has that toughness and grit in her, which is great,” St. Croix Lutheran assistant coach Eric Oakland, her father, said. “Just had to get to a point where you’re not just throwing people out of the way and ending up in foul trouble.”

Oakland hasn’t fouled out in a game this season. Neither has Vinkemeier, who racked up 27 points and broke his own school record with 26 rebounds in a Dec. 23 game vs. Albert Lea. He thinks a 30-30 game in points and rebounds is definitely within reach this season.

“I’ve looked at [NBA] guys like Dennis Rodman and Andre Drummond, just how they break [rebounding] down and technique on how they get it,” Vinkemeier said. “I’ll go through their games if I can find them.”

Unlike Rodman, Vinkemeier and Oakland, who recently made four three-pointers in a game, can score at will while dominating the glass.

“It has become a really big part of me,” Oakland said. “I love rebounding.”

Basketball Across Minnesota

Fuller’s five

Five Minnesota ballers who stood out:

Marta Forsline, Mesabi East: The 6-3 senior and University of California-Davis recruit led the state in scoring (35.0 per game) entering 2026. She scored 39 points Dec. 29 vs. Cromwell-Wright and had 36 points and 15 rebounds vs. Cloquet on Dec. 30. She also has a 45-point game this season.

Daniel Freitag, University at Buffalo: The former Breck standout leads Buffalo in scoring this season and had a career-high 33 points, going 11-for-17 from the field, in a New Year’s Eve win at Northern Illinois.

Nick Janowski, University of St. Thomas: The 6-4 Nebraska transfer helped the Tommies earn their first Summit League victory in their new arena Jan. 4 with a career-high 31 points on 12-for-22 shooting in a 92-88 win over Denver.

Amisha Ramlall, Rosemount: The oldest of the talented Ramlall sisters, Amisha had 30 points in a win vs. Chaska on Dec. 31 and a team-high 19 points while outplaying senior standout Vienna Murray in a Jan. 3 victory at East Ridge.

Cedric Tomes, East Ridge: The future Gophers guard broke his own school record with 50 points on Jan. 2 in an 86-79 win at Totino-Grace, the previous No. 1 team in Class 3A. Tomes had 25 points in each half.

Minnesotans in the NBA: St. Paul native soaring with Spurs

Sean Sweeney, a St. Paul native and University of St. Thomas graduate, made a name for himself as a top assistant for Jason Kidd in Milwaukee and Dallas. While there, he was able to coach NBA superstars like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Luka Doncic.

Before this season, Sweeney made the move to the San Antonio Spurs to be an associate head coach under first-year head coach Mitch Johnson. Now he’s coaching 7-4 sensation Victor Wembanyama.

The result? The Spurs were 25-10 entering their Jan. 6 game at Memphis, leading the Southwest Division with the second-best record in the Western Conference behind defending NBA champ Oklahoma City.

College team of the week

First-year Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved picked up his first Big Ten road win in what was also his first game in 2026. And it only got better.

The Gophers pulled out the 84-78 victory at Northwestern on Jan. 3 after trailing by seven points with under five minutes to play.

Cade Tyson finished with 24 points. Grayson Grove (career-high 12 points) had a dunk with 4:23 left that started a 24-11 run to end the game.

Langston Reynolds, who had 13 points and 13 assists at Northwestern, then led the Gophers with a season-high 22 points in a 70-67 win Jan. 6 vs. No. 19 Iowa at home. That was Medved’s second win vs. a ranked opponent this season, including vs. No. 22 Indiana on Dec. 3 at home. The Gophers have won five straight.

Minnesota Top 25 update

Totino-Grace has played the toughest boys schedule by far in the state. The Eagles were 3-2 in a five-game stretch against top 10 Class 4A opponents Maple Grove, Hopkins, Cretin-Derham Hall, Wayzata and East Ridge. They lost the No. 1 ranking in Class 3A this week to Richfield, which should also move up in the next statewide poll.

On the girls side, Minnetonka took over the No. 1 ranking in Class 4A over Hopkins, but the Royals still remained the top team in the coaches top 25 statewide poll released Jan. 4. Interesting. Good thing they will play twice in the regular season: Jan. 20 and Feb. 12.

Final thoughts ...

Having coached basketball at the youth level, it’s easy to notice when players are lacking fundamentals. Rebounding as a team can be emphasized. You can teach kids how to box out. In the end, though, it comes down to effort. Do you want the ball more than your opponent? Then go get it. Callie Oakland and Hunter Vinkemeier rebounding at such a high level this season is awesome and should make more highlight reels on social media for kids to see.

. . .

Basketball Across Minnesota will be published weekly on stribvarsity.com. Don’t be a stranger on X after reading, as chatting about these stories makes them even more fun to share. Thanks, Marcus (@Marcus_R_Fuller on X).