Only four of the state’s boys basketball teams get to start their season by hanging up a new state title banner in their gym and admiring last season’s first-place hardware in their trophy cabinet.

For Totino-Grace players like senior forward Dothan Ijadimbola, the feeling of not starting the season last fall among the exclusive club of defending champions was a strange one.

After winning the program’s first three Class 3A state titles back-to-back-to-back from 2022-24, the Eagles lost in last year’s semifinals to eventual champion Alexandria.

On Saturday, No. 1-seeded Totino-Grace (27-2) faces No. 2 DeLaSalle (28-3) with the chance to get back on top of Class 3A.

“Obviously, there’s a lot of motivation here,” said Ijadimbola, a Drake commit and a Strib Varsity All-Minnesota selection, after the Eagles’ 89-61 semifinal win over Northfield on Thursday. “(Winning) is a standard for us.”

They will face an Islanders program where winning is the standard, too.

DeLaSalle, in its 15th consecutive trip to the state tournament, has won 12 Minnesota State High School League titles since parochial schools began competing in the MSHSL tournament in 1975.

That track record includes six straight titles from 2012-2017 under the helm of current Gophers assistant coach Dave Thorson. The Islanders’ most recent title came in 2019.

“There’s a lot of guys that have worn that jersey and have had a lot of success,” DeLaSalle head coach Todd Anderson said, “and (current players) know that their job is to carry the torch, and there’s a responsibility associated with it.”

This will be the Islanders’ first championship game appearance since 2023. Orono beat DeLaSalle in the quarterfinal round last season.

“[We’re] definitely playing harder and with a chip on our shoulder,” DeLaSalle junior guard Jaeden Udean said. “It will take all of us and not just one to get where we need to go.”

Udean, also a member of this year’s All-Minnesota team, scored 19 points in the Islanders’ 73-70 comeback win over conference rival Richfield in a semifinal Thursday.

Totino-Grace and DeLaSalle are deep teams where four or five players — including reserves — can hit double figures in a single game. Both teams have beaten top 4A schools this year — including Totino-Grace’s season-opening stretch where it went 5-2 against 4A teams that all finished the season ranked in the Minnesota Top 25.

Not only have the Eagles not lost since, they haven’t won by less than double digits.

The programs have yet to face one another this season, but they have recent history. Totino-Grace, led by Ohio State guard Taison Chatman, beat DeLaSalle to claim its 2022 and 2023 state titles and then knocked the Islanders out in the 2024 semifinals en route to a championship win over Mankato East.

Chatman’s younger brother, Tian, is one of four seniors on the Eagles roster and played with Ijadimbola in that 2024 title game. Even senior DeAngelo Dungey, a transfer from Breck, has championship experience as a part of the Mustangs’ 2024 Class 2A title winners.

“We’ve been there before, we’ve got experience,” Tian Chatman said. “I think that’s what we have over the other teams.”

That experience helps teams stay cool under pressure.

“It’s as much about just staying focused and emotionally regulated as it is a scheme or a strategy,” Totino-Grace coach Nick Carroll said. “Rarely, you get down the stretch in these tournaments and see a team running 30 plays that all work; that stuff gets taken away pretty quickly.”

Saturday’s game, set for a 1 p.m. tipoff at Williams Arena, will prove whether the Eagles have met their match in the high standards set in the Islanders program, also looking to reassert its claim at the top of Class 3A.

“We’ve been around a lot of great players leading in the past years,” DeLaSalle senior forward Evan Miller said. “Seeing and learning from them kind of prepares us for this moment.”