Is he the best to ever play in the Second Region?

No. Top five maybe.

 

Bird Averitt, Lamont Ware, Travis Ford, Joe Fulks, Harry Todd come to mind

Gregg Buckner and Scotty Hopson should also be mentioned. I think as of right now KyKy has the potential to be as good as any of them though

Greg Buckner was the first player who came to my mind.

You folks ever heard of Chris Whitney?

For four days in 2011 Anthony Hickey was...

It depends on how you define “best”. If you define it as the best “high school” career I think he is working his way into the conversation. He will end up with close to 3,500 points and possibly two sweet 16 appearances and possibly more hardware.

 

If you include post high school performance you have to wait. But through his junior year I think he has to be be in the conversation if you are just judging by what everybody had done to this point.

 

One has to realize that he/uha had to beat the leading scorer in christian county history (at his best) to make the sweet 16. That’s no small feat.

You folks ever heard of Chris Whitney?

 

There's another good one.

I think if you were to rank them "all time" I'd list the following. (using the whole career standard)

 

1. Greg Buckner (Acc Player of the year 13 year nba career and a state title at UHA)

2. Bird Averit - Hoptown High, all american at peperdine and long successful NBA career.

3. Chris Whitney - Great career at Christian County, solid career at Clemson then a long successful career in the nba as a role player.

4. Scotty Hopson - Only McDonald's all american ever (i think ) from region 2. All SEC player at Tennessee. Currently with the Dallas Mavericks

5. Travis Ford - While he didn't do anything professionally it's hard to deny his impact. Terrific High school player and a decorated college career at Mizzou and UK.

6. Anthony Hickey - He's low because he didn't play his entire career in region 2. But when he did he was great. State title, mr. basketball, nice career at lsu and OSU and currently playing overseas.

 

Again, my standard is "entire career". Kyky could end up at the top of this list. But if you look at "entire career" i think this is a good start.

Have to stop there. Add to this list.

There are two 2nd region players in the Basketball Hall of Fame: Joe Fulks (Kuttawa, 1940) and Frank Ramsey (Madisonville, 1949). Fulks was a prolific scorer in the early days of the NBA and was so good he was called the Babe Ruth of Basketball. Ramsey, of course, played at UK and for the Boston Celtics, where he defined the role of a valuable sixth man.

Scotty Hopson was a 5-star prospect and was a consensus top 10 player in the nation his senior year. Not many can be able to lay claim to that fact alone.

 

The list is not complete without the legendary Curtis Parker from Christian County High School. Anyone who has seen his stats knows how amazing of a player he was for his time. I think he led CCHS to the state title game.

 

One of the more underrated R2 players from a High School career standpoint was Ty Rogers from Lyon County. Famous for "the shot" in the NCAA tournament, but he was a monster averaging 30+ ppg and 10 rbs per game his last year. Had he been at a better school, he would have gotten in the Mr. Basketball discussion.

 

Curtis Pulley had an underrated high school career as well. He left Hoptown High as their all-time leading scorer(and rebounder I think). He finished runner-up for Mr. Basketball the same year he won Mr. Football. I want to say he led the state in rebounding in one of his seasons.

How good was Dwayne Casey?

I thought about putting Ty Rogers name in this thread. I only got to see him play a couple times and I was pretty young when I did. He graduated in 2004 so I was in third grade when he graduated

While they might not be the best, it seems like Lamont Barnes and Isiah Victor at least deserve to be mentioned in this thread.

Curtis Parker (& Michael Reese) did indeed lead Christian County to the state championship game...their Junior year...1976.