I love when leagues combine for playoff tournaments. Arizona has the pinnacle of that with their draft tournament of 30-plus teams, but Minnesota invented the combined playoffs years ago when teams from Fridley and Bloomington South fought for the Gold Cup, with many of those tournaments featuring over 30 teams.

That combined format was abandoned for a few seasons when Fridley moved to a rec-plus format, but it’s back this season with Bloomington South converting to a rec-plus league for the first time since 2008. The one flaw with combined playoffs is when two teams from opposing leagues play against each other when one player plays for both teams. It becomes especially polarizing when the player in the predicament is the best player, or one of the best players, on each team.

That situation came up twice in Minnesota last night, with Marquise Walker, an MVP candidate in both Bloomington South and Fridley , and Ryan Jansen, a first-ballot Hall of Famer and serial winner. Sometimes when players are faced with this decision, they choose to not play, as they know they’ll move on no matter what , and they can play the rest of the playoffs with the winning team. Neither Walker nor Jansen took that route last night and they both played. Let’s breakdown each game and each decision:

We’ll start with Walker. His Bloomington South team, the 7-seeded Muskies, and his Fridley team, the 10-seeded Omar Tires, faced off in the Sweet 16 last night. This one is an interesting decision for Walker, as he’s no doubt the best player on the Muskies, and he’s the best or co-best player on Omar Tires along with Kevin Thompson, it just depends on the game. While Thompson is an elite player, one of the best in all of Minnesota, when he partners up with Walker it creates a Kawhi Leonard/Paul George dynamic that’s unguardable.

The teams without Walker are just about even, but it feels like Walker is slightly more needed on the Muskies due to the existence of Thompson for Omar Tires. It felt like if Walker played in this game, whoever he played for would end up winning.

That’s exactly what happened, as Walker played for the Muskies and was the main reason they came away with an 86-80 win. Walker had 30 points, eight rebounds and five assists on 13-20 shooting from the field and 3-5 from deep. That was in addition to a season-best performance from Darian Pittman, who had 24 points, five rebounds and five assists on 9-12 shooting from the field and 5-7 from deep for a season-high PPR of 25.8.

The Walker effect led to the Muskies advancing to the Elite Eight, and it was needed, as Thompson and Omar Omar were fully ready to battle in an attempt to advance. Thompson was his usual dominant self, going off for 34 points and 12 rebounds, while Omar had a similar performance to Pittman. Omar had a season-high PPR of 25.7 PPR, scoring a season-high 24 points on 9-15 shooting from the field, and adding seven assists.

I’ve asked a few people for an explanation for why Walker decided to play for the Muskies, but no one has an answer, including his teammates. I’m sure they were all happy with his decision, as the Muskies will now play the defending Bloomington South champs, the Guerrillas, tonight in the Elite Eight.

On to Jansen, who’s Fridley team, the 8-seeded Wolves, played his Bloomington South team, the 9-seeded Rebels. Jansen is a much different player than Walker, as he’s not quite the dominant force that Walker is, but he makes just as big of an impact on a game, and whatever team he played for would have an advantage.

Just look at his track record during the seven seasons where Fridley and Bloomington South were different leagues. He played in all seven of those seasons in Bloomington South, and six of those seasons in Fridley. In games that Jansen played in during those 13 seasons, he had an overall record of 92-23, playing in nine championship games and winning five titles.

Jansen, just like Walker, ended up having a massive impact last night, as he chose to play with the Rebels and led them to a 64-60 victory. This was not a surprising decision, as Jansen has played with the Rebels since 2011, while he’s only played with the Wolves for four seasons. Also, despite Bloomington South moving to a rec-plus format, they’ve stayed with their identity and still only have high school-experience players, while the Wolves have multiple college-experience players.

Jansen was the best player on the floor in the win, scoring a season-high 25 points on 9-18 shooting from the field and 5-10 from deep, adding eight rebounds and three assists.

The Wolves now won’t be able to defend their back-to-back titles in Fridley, but Jansen and the Rebels move on to face the 1-seed, Minnesota Elite, tonight in the Elite Eight.

Ryan Jansen and Marquise Walker significantly swing the course of the Minnesota Rec-Plus playoffs