Final from Fairdale and the King of the Bluegrass Showcase.

The 11th Region may be the best region in the state this year. This is a very impressive win. Congrats to the Bulldogs!!!

Huge win.

Taveion Hollingsworth finished with 40 for Dunbar and Darius Williams added 30 points and 11 rebounds. Manual was led by Dwayne Sutton with 18 points and 10 rebounds, Steve Gordon added 13 for the Crimsons.

 

Huge win for the Bulldogs and great way to respond after a tough loss last night.

Who checked Sutton for Dunbar? Holding him to 18 is quite an accomplishment.

Who checked Sutton for Dunbar? Holding him to 18 is quite an accomplishment.

 

A couple different guys and some zone. He got in foul trouble trying to guard Darius Williams on the perimeter early. Williams had 2 fouls early in the second quarter and had to sit out the rest of the half. Manual had no answer for Williams or Hollingsworth in the half court.

Dunbar pretty much dominated this game. Led by 13 points most of the game and answered every Manual run. PLD was impressive today.

The 11th Region may be the best region in the state this year. This is a very impressive win. Congrats to the Bulldogs!!!

 

To me, the 11th is definitely the most blanaced in the State top to bottom. Hands down, I'd put the 8-10 best up against the 8-10 best from any other region and feel confident about the 11th coming out on top if you played them out enough.

 

Why the 11th is standing out so much this year: there's no dominant Scott County or Lexington Catholic that's just mowing through the field, nor is there one dominant city school (I'd include Madison Central in the "city school" categories based on their overall student populations with the Lexington-Fayette Publics).

 

This is one of the first times in maybe the last decade where you can say that. Honestly, I think the field in the 11th is really as good as it has been in many of the past 10 years, it's just getting recognized because there's more parity. Here are the results from the past 10 years and the teams I'd consider under what I defined in the paragraph above, as well as where they ended the year.

 

2014 - Scott County (state runner-up)

2013 - Madison Central/Henry Clay (state title/regional runner-up)

2012 - Scott County (state runner-up)

2011 - Lexington Catholic/Tates Creek (state quarters/regional semis)

2010 - Scott County (state semis)

2009 - Lexington Catholic/Scott County (state quarters/regional finals)

2008 - Lexington Catholic/Bryan Station (s semis/ripped in r final)

2007 - Scott County (state champ)

2006 - Madison Central/Scott County (state quarters/regional final)

2005 - Henry Clay/Bryan Station (state quarters/regional final)

In the above: the 11th hasn't failed to make it out of the first round of the state tournament a single time in the past 10 years. I'm not going to go through and do the research, but I'm honestly not sure if you can say that for any other region (I'm thinking the 7th has J'town's loss to Johnson Central as at least 1 time where it didn't make it out of the 1st round). I know that 10 years isn't a huge span when we're talking about something like that, but you see two State Titles (2013 Madison Central & 2007 Scott County), two Runner-Up finishes (2014 & 2012 Scott County), and two Semis (2010 Scott County and 2008 Lexington Catholic).

 

Not too shabby when your "worst" years in a decade are four quarterfinal appearances, with none of those losses being ones that teams should hang their heads about. The results: 2005 Henry Clay by 4 to eventual Runner Up Warren Central; 2006 Madison Central by 13 to eventual Semi-Finalist PRP; 2008 Lexington Catholic, who wasn't as good as Shelvin Mack and Bryan Station, by 7 to eventual Runner-Up Holmes, and 2009 Lexington Catholic by 16 to eventual State Champion Holmes). Of those, the only team that wasn't either the Runner-Up or State Champion was Madison Central's loss to PRP, who only lost in the semis to Apollo by 4.

 

Not bad at all, and over the past decade at least, that's something I'd put up against any other region.

 

Turn it back another decade and you are looking at Championship teams from Lafayette and Lexington Catholic, as well as Scott County (who was then in the 8th, but is now in the 11th).

 

Recent history says it's pretty hard to top (at least what now makes up) the 11th on the whole.