North Oldham / Shelby County predictions

North Oldham hosts Shelby County tonight... tipoff is 7:30 pm.

Two teams currently going in different directions...

The Mustangs are 8-8 and have won 3 of their last 5, including impressive victories over Elizabethtown and Valley (by 16). Their two losses during that stretch were by 8 to Waggener and by 18 to Butler.

Bad time to meet Butler; the Mustangs were fresh off the huge win over a really good Valley team the night before, and Butler had just taken their first loss of the season (to DeSales). Bad mojo for sure!

North's fortunes have risen since the Mustangs have found additional scorers to supplement star guard Justin Rose. Four of Rose's top 5 scoring games came in the first six games of the season, when he had little scoring support; the Mustangs went 2-4 during that stretch.

Since then, Rose continues to be the top Mustang scorer, but his high-water games have come down a bit, as others have stepped up - and North has gone 6-4 since, with some nice victories and some oh-so-narrow losses to some better teams.

Dylan Yates has scored in double figures in the last 6 games, including a 20 point outburst in a 2 point loss to George Rogers Clark in late December.

Shelby County comes in at 2-12. Coach Ken Cates is still looking for scoring from his squad, which features good size, good rebounding, and solid defense. But the Rockets simply can't score; Shelby hasn't played since losing to Anderson County at home on 1/5/18. In that game, the Rockets only scored six points in the first half, trailing 22-6 at the intermission. But they pulled to within 3 or 4 points with about 4 minutes to play, only to fall, 47-38.

Shelby has scored fewer than 50 points in 7 of its 14 games, and have only cracked the 60 point mark once this season.

TJ Robinson and Kyion Stone lead the way for Shelby at 7.6 ppg and 7.4 ppg, respectively. Robinson is a stud on the glass, averaging 7.1 boards a game.

The Rockets will need to shoot better tonight if they are to win; Shelby is hitting only 39.7% of their shots this year.

A player to watch tonight for Shelby is 6'5" freshman Noah Gordon, who may be one of the up-and-coming future stars in the 8th region.

The Rockets' 8 game losing streak is the second-longest in the 8th region right now.

Video broadcast begins at 7 pm. The Pegasus Sports Network - PSN I have one of my college kids doing the play-by-play tonight....cut him some slack....Kevin Montgomery will be joined by North Oldham girls coach Dan Pfaff on the call.

CM