Congrats to Cooper last night. I'll be rooting for you for the rest of the tournament. Both teams struggled offensively for a while, but Cooper showed how well rounded the team is. Meade County has some length on the front line with 6'7" Baker to two 6'4" forwards. Those guys are long and can make it difficult to shoot over (blocked quite a few shots). At the end of the day, Meade County committed 19 turnovers and Cooper took full advantage of them.

 

For Meade County to stay in this game when Baker had as many turnovers as points (seven) speaks to the toughness of the team. Chesney Weick (a Sophomore) had a really good game and started to come alive late in the season.

 

I think one of the keys was Kunkel shutting down Aiden Matthews (the other 6'4" forward). He is a solid player who has been averaging around 15 points and 8 rebounds for the later part of the season. He will be back next year as well.

 

I have a question for those of you who were at the game

 

I thought the Meade player made a heck of an effort to go get that loose ball and to my knowledge he did nothing wrong except hustle. Thankfully for Cooper Runion got to the ball first and since he touched it that killed the play to my understanding. Great hustle play IMO and not sure what the ref was getting at even saying one word to the player.

If you look at the shooting percentages of all the teams in round one, Cooper is not alone in shooting for a low percentage. I think only three teams shot better than 44% from the floor in round one.

 

Excellent point and on the flip side I would be curious to know how many teams held their opponent to 30% or less on the defensive end. When you hold teams to 40 points or less that is an accomplishment. First time Rupp jitters and shooting in such a big arena I'm sure poses many problems for Rupp first timers.

Congrats to Collins on a fantastic win. I cannot help but wondering if folks in Anderson Co., Oldham Co., and South Oldham have been pondering the "what-ifs" a bit.

Mr. Sixer - Thanks for offering to help on what the ref was referring to on the over and back loose ball. I wasn't able to help him at all when he described what the ref told him and I just assumed that maybe I missed something. Thanks for trying to help.