Right, the overall talent level is going to be better I feel. They will still be missing the game changers that Q named, unless something dramatic changes as kids mature. At the middle school age, you knew that Smith, Neltner, and Lorenzon were special. The upcoming teams will, IMO, rely on being talented and deep teams where there are no true "stars" but there is no significant drop off in talent 1-10.

 

I agree...however...that 6th grade and the 5th grader behind them may have a couple "special" players. But may not be the "ONE" you guys are talking about. But a couple of those classes merged together and I think it's on the way. Just a year or two ago, HHS didn't have anyone that even played AAU at the time on the Varsity team. That won't be the case within a few years. HHS will have bball only AAU top players coming up.

Are you kidding me with this nonsense? Ben Weyer played AAU basketball with everyone of the kids in the current junior class except for Hergott from the time he was 9 years old. He also played with other teams along the way, but always played with this group also. In their last AAU game together as a group they handled many of the current Colonels pretty easily. Ben Weyer left because of the coaching situation at the time and he also understood that all of these kids played football as well. Did he make a bad decision, no, but it certainly had nothing to do with the talent level of the kids that he was playing with. You put him with this group of juniors and they are pretty solid.

 

Sick and tired of hearing about middle school talent that does not pan out when they get to high school. The success of Highlands over the years had to do more with kids moving into the district to play for the Birds than it did with what came through the middle school. How about these names, Sullivan, Maile, Lankheit, Draud, Smith, Lorenzen, Terry. Enough said.

 

Highlands hoops is what it is and now that they have a coach in place that appears to be there for the long haul and has the kids buying into the program 100%, I would expect things to improve over the next several years. Will they be regional contenders, only time will tell, but a lack of size is hard to overcome.

 

Calm down big guy...yes, they had talent in MS and when they all played AAU, however, he wasn't sure if that talent would even play basketball down the road. The trend for classes before him was those football guys didn't play. And if that class would have continued to focus on bball, then they most likely would have been a good bball class. But they didn't. It was obvious they weren't going to focus on bball and the other school/AAU kids were going to pass by them. And that has obviously happened.

 

If you are a bball only guy, you see that the majority of your AAU team is going to choose football and the recent history was that when they chose football, they tend to give up bball...what would anyone do? They would go to the school that had several bball guys. That's wasn't hard to see just a couple years ago when he made the decision. Yes, the current JR bball class was very good at one time. But not playing competitive bball (AAU) for just a couple years can put you way behind. If that's not the case, then why won't this game be close...if they were able to hang with those CC guys back in the day. It's what happens.

 

I want the boy's team to be good as much as anyone, but you lived through the most successful era of HHS basketball and it was for the reason I described...heck...you were part of it!

 

And regardless of whether those names moved in or not, they were still bball guys. And that's was the template for success. Bball guys with football athletes. And what about that Ft Thomas guys that were also the bball guys. Schlarman, Neltner, Cowie, Simon and many others. I could care less where the bball guys came from, I'm saying the formula has had to be have bball guys merged with football athletes. You know it as well as I do. If it weren't true, this JR class would be winning games with no issues. Nothing against them at all, but they chose football and fell behind in bball. It's okay...just stating that there are some bball only kids on the way.

You cannot be an elite or even a very good basketball player without doing skill training in the off season. The problem at HHS is most of the athletes practice football or play summer baseball during the summer and don't skill train in basketball. I don't mean picking up a basketball once or twice a week at a shoot around. Until these athletes concentrate more on hoops the result will be the same in my opinion.

See what u did enman lol