Final in Union.

Wow! Didn't see this one coming! Any details?

There is always next year. Have to like Coopers defense.

I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong here. Hard to win on the road, and even tougher to win at Cooper, I knew that, but didn’t see this coming. Cooper completely shut down Draud and the rest of the group followed.

 

Excellent work by Sullivan and his staff for orchestrating this lopsided victory over a really nice team.

Game too physical for most of the Beechwood boys. Beechwood really struggled to get anything offensively in half court sets. Cooper challenges every pass/shot, bumps off every screen. You must be able to play through contact to have success against them. That philosophy isn’t going to change in Union, so if Beechwood wants to challenge they better hit the weight room hard starting tomorrow.

All I can say is Sully’s D is really good!!

Excellent team defense again by Coach Sully’s Jags. Tremendous job by Michael Spencer holding Draud to 10 points. Spencer’s length and physical play seemed to bother him some.

Much improved Tiger team though and they have more than a shot of getting to the regionals.

Jags will have a tough one tomorrow vs Fern Creek.

Ty Houston absolutely works his but off and cleans up everything around the basket!!

Wow! Didn't see this one coming! Any details?

 

Saw this one coming.

Saw this one coming.

 

I assumed Cooper would win, but not like this.

Saw this one coming.

 

You called it, and I quote, a "toss up game".

Statement to separate the men from the boys, and to quiet anyone who didn't already believe that Cooper is on another level.

 

I didn't attend this game, but have already seen both teams. Cooper is just stronger all around than Beechwood, so I'm not surprised at all by this result.

 

Let me be clear, the Tigers have a nice team, and I'm happy for their successes. They'll certainly be in the running with Newport, NewCath, and St. Henry for the All "A" and have a nice chance of repeating, and very likely will be in the 9 Region tourney, but still just not on that state contender level that Cooper is.

All I can say is Sully’s D is really good!!

 

The Cooper “Process” is real simple, either you play Defense or you don’t make this team.

 

Consider this; for the last 8 years Cooper has had 1-2 dynamic scorers from Bradley, Manniacci, Collins, Zach/Sean McNeil, Kunkle etc. but the one constant has been defense. For this year’s edition of Jags basketball they have no dynamic scorers, no one that’s gonna take anyone off the bounce, no significant power game inside, no flash so they just hustle, grind it out and work together as one unit on defense and last night they win by 24 when several were predicting otherwise.

 

I don’t know how far they’ll go but one thing is constant, whoever they play the will get a team ready to guard with some intensity. May not be fun to watch for many but for those of us who like defense it is enjoyable to see.

You called it, and I quote, a "toss up game".

 

In my “mind”, I saw it as a toss-up pre-tip because of the unknown of Beechwood, and with the young talent they have . That being said, it is not shocking at all to see Cooper route them. The coaching at Cooper will always give teams headaches, especially a team who hasn’t been on the “big stage” before.

Another lesson learned for Beechwood on the road to being a true contender. They are moving up the ladder but more steps ahead.