EARLE

Congrats to Coach Fraley and KCC on their first trip to the Sweet 16 since 1993. They pulled out a hard fought 6 point win over Letcher Central (on LCC's home court) just to get to the region. Then they get the toughest draw possible, beating the home team Breathitt County by 3 points...survive the semi-finals by 1 point as Hazard misses a last second shot...then overcome a 10 point deficit with 2:30 remaining in the game to beat Perry Central in the championship on two free throws with 1.5 seconds. Tough 4 games just to get to Lexington. I don't understand how this can be considered underacheiving on Coach Fraley's part.

Clay County DeSales

Arguably in the hot bed of high school baseball in Ky. (Fayette County) there are two coaches that have can legally instruct baseball year 'round in Kevin Clary and Eddie Brooks. In their first years at the helm of each school, Catholic beat Station 9-8 in the regional finals, and Catholic goes on to win the state championship. Legally they can instruct an 8th grader from ANYWHERE, then under KHSAA rules that student/athlete can enroll at their school and be eligible as a freshman. I'm not saying they have done anything wrong, I'm just saying. It will be interesting to see in the coming years. It's bad enough that high school baseball players have the facilities and tools necessary to work out year 'round in Lexington, Louisville, and more affluent areas of the state...but now if the best of the best end up going to one of these two schools year in and year out it will become what girls volleyball and 6A football in Ky. have become, a two horse race.

I agree with you. But what if we had the QB and the other specialty players to throw the ball? The man and his staff had the #24 recruiting class in the country coming to Lubbock, TX! 6 4-star recruits (including a QB from Texas, WR from Florida, and a RB from Oklahoma) and 19 3-star recruits had committed to TTU. I would love to see him in Lexington again. Could you imagine if Couch and company's teams had actually worked more on special teams and defense too?

Here's a link to the "shed" and the "electrical room". What a joke! These two areas would be nice high school football dressing room facilities. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/sports/2009/12/30/tx.leach.lawyer.shed.cnn When everything comes out I think Mike Leach will be an even richer man. He was wrongfully fired. His offense is so much fun to watch. I wish we would boot Joker and get him while he's still available.

You didn't say his coach was sleeping with students, partying with students, having outside sources (boosters) give gifts or money to recruits, doing drugs or offering drugs to the players.... Personally I think there are worse things than a little discipline. You can color it any way you want, I know times have changed. But do you honestly think the old-timers didn't take their belts off sometimes and whip players at halftime for a poor performance? No way you could do this stuff today, it would be on YouTube before the team took the court for the second half. The game has passed Bobby Knight by, I agree, but he ran a good, clean program at IU and TTU. His track record speaks for itself. He managed to win Nat'l Titles in '81 and '87 when he didn't have the most talented team in the field. Sure, they were upset several times, but I think all in all his teams overacheived because he got the most out of what he had. At times he was probably his own worst enemy because players had to be mentally tougher to play for him.

It's got to be comforting to know that if something "substantial" does come out about this outstanding recruiting class, that it's good, upstanding, mature kids like DeMarcus Cousins, that don't like attention, we are talking about.

As a parent, I could appreciate that. Life isn't easy.

Bob Knight started coaching at IU when Rupp was still the coach at UK. The fact is UK was basically given the death penalty in 1953 as they were not even allowed to play in the NCAA regular or post season. Rupp was not even suspended by UK for this. 1989-90, 1990-91 UK wasn't allowed to play in the NCAA tournament. Cliff Hagen and Eddie Sutton were forced out. Emery Package with $1,000 for Chris Mills and Eric Manuel caught cheating on the college entrance exam. John Calapari is the only coach in the history of NCAA basketball to have 2 different teams stripped of final four appearances.

I'm assuming your son goes to Knott Central? If so, you guys finally get a young energetic coach that works his tail off, and an asst. coach that proved he could win at June Buchanan School and you want to come on here and question him on a message board? Why not just go to Jamie or Randy and talk to them? First winning season since 2000 at KCC (which was John Meehan's team), first district championship since 2005 (when you were still in the 55th district). Maybe you should just be thankful that there is interest in baseball in the fall at your school.

All five teams in the 43rd have won at least one state championship. Lafayette (3) '88, '89, and '92 (state runner-up in '04). Tates Creek (3) '78, 80, and '86. Paul Dunbar (2) '03 and '07. Lex. Catholic (2) '99 and '06. Lex. Christian (1) 2005.

Cumberland High School did dominate the 13th region in the late '80s and early '90s (but they were loaded with fundamentally talented players), seems like they ran off like 5 straight championships from '86-'90. Freddy Maggard and David Shoop were two of many very solid baseball players to play for the Redskins. Maggard was drafted by the Pirates but chose to QB at UK and Shoop went on to play for Morehead. Coach Lewis played on some of these teams, I think?

For the decade (2000-2009) Big Al (5) 2000, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009 Hazard (4) 2001, 2006, 2008, 2009 PCC (3) 2000, 2004, 2005 JBS, Powell, Whitesburg (1) each, 2007, 2003, 2002 PCC was also regional runner-up (3) times 2003, 2008, 2009 Hazard was runner-up (1) in 2007

The difference in the ball game, Warren went to war on the offensive boards in the first quarter, I think he scored the first 6 points for Hazard, all coming off of second opportunities. Cougars were up 11-6, could have been 11-0. Hazard's full court pressure bothered LCC all night causing several turnovers.

I think LCC matches up much pretty good with Hazard. Back had an incredible first quarter in the regular season (I'm talking about several 21'-24' shots) that gave the Bulldogs a double-digit lead early on. LCC can't afford to dig a hole early. But without Campbell, Hazard has no one to slow down Banks. If they can slow down Whitaker and don't let Back kill them again, they will win. Johnson shut down Cox (KCC) in the district and regualr season when he was in the game, he could do the same to Back, if he his given the opportunity.