A word of advice for anyone trying to handicap the Lake Conference scene this year: Know that it is akin to the octopus that predicted outcomes of World Cup soccer matches – any type of scientific approach will leave you scratching your head.

"You can't get ahead of yourself in this conference at all," Minnetonka coach Bart Inniger said. "If you look past somebody, if you don't show up on any given night, you're going to get beat, plain and simple, because these teams are just too good."

At 16-3 heading into this week and ranked No. 7 in the Star Tribune metro rankings, Inniger's Skippers lag behind Lake foes Eden Prairie and Hopkins – the top-ranked teams in the metro. But to understand the parity in the five-team conference, it is perhaps more helpful to first examine the teams at the "bottom" of the conference.

Edina and Wayzata are winless in the conference, but are far from pushovers.

Last week, Edina lost to the Skippers by three points, and the Skippers had Hopkins tied at halftime before losing by 13 on Jan. 25. Against Richfield, the Hornets held standout point guard Jessica January, who averages 26.3 points per game, to only 10 in a 49-38 victory.

Wayzata, meanwhile, is 12-4 in nonconference play. The Trojans made the state tournament last year and feature junior forward Kayla Timmerman, who averages 13.7 points per game and made a verbal commitment to Iowa last month. So how does one stay focused in a conference where every team is competitive?

"One of the easy things," Inniger said, "is that you're playing the best every single night so you tell your kids, 'Hey, if we're not ready to play, we're going to get jumped on real quick' ... I think that motivates the kids because [if] they want to be the best, you've got to be ready to play and compete with the best."

Coached by former Timberwolves guard Chris Carr and led in scoring by senior guard Morgan VanRiper-Rose, Eden Prairie knocked off then-No. 1 Hopkins last week in a 71-65 home victory that shuffled the standings and ended a 17-game winning streak for the Royals.

"It was real tough," Hopkins coach Brian Cosgriff said. "We hate losing, but hopefully we can take something from it and learn and try to get better. In this league it was a stretch to go undefeated with the teams that are in it, and hopefully we can take something out of it and learn and make our team better for the long haul."

Cosgriff stressed the importance of not overlooking nonconference games, explaining that his team knows what it's up against in the Lake Conference. Nonconference opponents, Cosgriff said, all want a shot at the big schools and winning consistently can be difficult.

Inniger said that although the conference is always tough, he never has seen it this evenly matched.

"There's been years where we've had anywhere from three to five teams in the top 10," Inniger said, "but not where on any given night anybody can beat anybody. ... If I wasn't coaching and in the pressure of it, I would say that there's no better conference to watch girls' basketball in than ours."

Andrew Baker is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.