6th Region Week 8 Review

 

Jeffersontown's upset win over Western breaks a tie for 10th with Beth Haven, which falls to No. 11. Jeffersontown, the defending regional tournament champion, sits alone at No. 10. Western hangs on to the top spot but a nice run this week at the All "A" Classic state tournament by No. 2 Evangel Christian coupled with another loss by Western could flip the script. Pleasure Ridge Park, Butler and DeSales will eventually have a say when it comes to regional supremacy. Those teams form a clear top five and any one of them could win the regional tournament. Right now, they are the only teams with fewer than two regional losses. With the exception of Fern Creek, everybody else has at least three regional losses. In the back half of the rankings, Southern moves ahead of North Bullitt.

 

Regional Rankings:

 

1. Western (15-3): The Warriors went 1-1 last week. They were surprised by Jeffersontown, 69-62, at home for their first regional loss, and beat Waggener, 67-42, on the road. Western is 5-1 against regional competition and 2-0 versus the 22nd District but doesn't have a lot of high-quality wins. Outside the region, the Warriors have beaten 12-6 Elizabethtown and 14-6 Trinity. They are 5-4 since the 10-1 start. Before falling to Jeffersontown, their only losses to Kentucky teams were to Warren Central and Male.

 

2. Evangel Christian (16-3): The Eagles split two games last week, losing to an 11-7 Breathitt County squad by one, and beating North Bullitt by 17 with 25 points from Christian Doerr and 22 from Gianni Davis. They are 6-0 vs. the region and 4-0 against the 23rd District. Their best regional win came against Pleasure Ridge Park. Outside the region, they have defeated Lincoln County, St. Xavier and Elizabethtown, so it's not like they are smearing Western with better wins. The Sixth Region All "A" Classic champion takes on Murray in a first-round state All "A" contest Jan. 26 at Eastern Kentucky's McBrayer Arena.

 

3. Pleasure Ridge Park (15-3): The Panthers enjoyed a 3-0 week, pushing their winning streak to four. They defeated Southern 72-62, WEB DuBois 68-32 and Beth Haven 79-46. Keith Robinson scored 28 points against Southern and Jakob Dixon had 22. PRP is 8-1 against the region, including wins against Holy Cross and Jeffersontown, and 3-0 vs. the 21st District. Outside the region, the Panthers have beaten St. Xavier and DuPont Manual, so not a lot of high-quality wins here either. But they did beat Butler by 34 in last season's regional tournament and they haven't lost to DeSales since 2016, and that matters. 

 

4. Butler (15-6): The Bears went 2-1, losing to LaRue County by 11 but bouncing back to beat Fern Creek, 55-47, and Iroquois 64-59 in overtime. Dontre Russell scored a team-high 17 points against Fern Creek. Butler is 6-0 vs. the region and 2-0 against 22nd District opponents. They have also beaten Male, Ballard and Fleming County. Four losses have come against Mason County, Eastern, Male and LaRue County. Beat DeSales last season by 21 and 10 points. Butler hosts DeSales Thursday.

 

5. DeSales (13-6): Beat Elizabethtown, 67-58, and barely defeated Doss 76-74 in overtime for a 2-0 week. Crew Gibson had a double-double of 16 points and 11 rebounds vs. Elizabethtown (12-6). The Colts have beaten Male, Simon Kenton and Eastern. They have losses to Trinity twice, Ballard, Warren Central and Calloway County. DeSales is 2-0 in the region and 2-0 against 22nd District foes. They have also beaten Iroquois. DeSales and Butler have played the most challenging schedules of any of the teams in the top five but you can't ignore the fact that PRP has been a major pain to both squads.

 

6. Iroquois (13-8): The Raiders went 1-1, beating Christian Educational Consortium (home school) and losing to Butler in overtime despite 23 points from Jordan Williamson. Have yet to win a district game in three tries but defeated Holy Cross by 18.

 

7. Holy Cross (14-7): The Cougars finished the week 1-1 with a loss to Anderson County and a win over Valley. They have beaten Fairdale.

 

8. Fern Creek (8-10): The Tigers went 2-1, beating Seneca and Jeffersontown and losing to Butler. Fern Creek is 5-2 against the region. The Tigers have also beaten Trinity. Fern Creek annihilated Fairdale by 30 last season, so Fairdale pretty much has to beat Fern Creek to be ranked ahead of them despite the better overall record right now. They play. Feb. 7.

 

9. Fairdale (14-6): The Bulldogs finished the week 3-0 with victories against Moore, Bullitt East and Bullitt Central. They have won four straight. Have beaten Beth Haven twice and Jeffersontown and is 7-3 vs. the region.

 

10. Jeffersontown (8-8): The Chargers went 2-1 with victories against Western and Floyd Central (IN) and a loss to Fern Creek. Genesis Nimely led the Chargers with 16 points vs. Western while Camron McDaniels added 15. Jeffersontown shot  52.4 percent from the field, 45.5 percent from 3-point range and 80 percent from the free throw line against Western. Against Fairdale, the Chargers shot 13-for-23 (56.5 percent) on free throws while losing by nine.

 

11. Beth Haven (14-6): The Bearcats split two games, beating the Louisville home school LKY, 73-71, and losing to Pleasure Ridge Park by 33. They are just 2-5 in the region, but 12-1 against everybody else. The loss to PRP dropped them to 1-4 vs. 21st District teams.

 

12. Bullitt East (6-13): The Chargers went 0-2 with losses to South Oldham and Fairdale. Have beaten Iroquois, Lou. Holy Cross and Doss.

 

13. Doss (5-16): The Dragons beat Valley and lost to DeSales in overtime for a 1-1 week. Have beaten Moore.

 

14. Moore (8-12): The Mustangs went 1-2 for the week, beating Bullitt Central and losing to Fairdale and Great Crossing. They have beaten Beth Haven and North Bullitt.

 

15. Southern (7-13): The Trojans went 1-1 with a loss to Pleasure Ridge Park and a win against North Bullitt. Southern also has a win vs. Iroquois and Bullitt Central.

 

16. North Bullitt (9-11): The Eagles went 0-3, losing to Evangel Christian, Southern and John Hardin. North Bullitt is 1-6 vs. the region, the win coming in a split of two games vs. Bullitt Central.

 

17. Bullitt Central (2-17): The Cougars endured an 0-4 week, losing to Hart County, Spencer County, Moore and Fairdale.

 

18. Valley (0-14): The Vikings went 0-3 with losses to Doss, Francis Parker and Lou. Holy Cross.

 

19. Whitefield Academy (5-12): Went 2-0. Beat the Louisville home school LKY and Covington Latin. The Wildcats have won four of their last seven.

Nice recap!  Things are really heating up in a tight race for the 6th Region! 

Excellent recap. You seem to put a lot of weighting for this years rankings, based on past years results. Don’t t think that is a bad thing- just interesting. One addition- both western and desales have good wins and tough losses against out of state schools not mentioned above.  For example, Desales beat Huntington prep. Probably their best win….

I assume you're talking about this season-long cluster of PRP, Butler and DeSales, which has pretty much been a chore to analyze without any head-to-head results thus far. Actually, looking at last season's results, especially results from more than a year ago, is nearly a last resort and is only used in special cases (like PRP, Butler and DeSales) where parsing teams is difficult, especially teams that have yet to play each or who will not play each other this season. So I would say I put some weight on last year's results, not a lot. The things I consider when I take a look at teams, pretty much in this order but not exclusively in this order, are:

win-loss record

record against the better regional teams

quality of competition

success against quality competition

head-to-head results

"good" losses in relatively close games against quality competition

bad losses

the quality of the head coach

team depth

the caliber of their best players

injuries

defections

significant results from the previous season

team vs. team history

 

I think these recaps of Butler and DeSales during Week 6 sums up the dilemma I've been facing with the PRP, Butler, DeSales conundrum without them going head-to-head yet this season (key sentiments in bold):

BUTLER:

Butler's schedule looks a bit tougher than PRP's. But Butler lost to PRP twice last season, one of them by six in double overtime during the regular season. Butler lost to PRP, 79-45, in the first round of the Sixth Region Tournament, then lost the majority of its starters to graduation. PRP lost to Jeffersontown by eight in last year's regional semifinals and returned three starters. Is it really a slam dunk to say that Butler can make up 34 points on PRP with fewer returning starters than PRP? That's a pretty tall order. Can't wait to find out. Butler was in the regional for the first time since 2020. Butler is 0-2 in regional tournament play since winning the region in 2019. PRP is 2-3 in the tournament in the same span, so PRP during that time has had the strongest, most sustained presence when the chips are down in the regional tournament plus they have won three of their last four games against Butler since the beginning of the 2018-19 season. I'm pretty much of this mind: Until Butler shows me it can beat PRP, PRP will be ahead of Butler in the rankings. But they don't play each other until Feb. 10. That's another month of hair-splitting between these two squads.

DESALES:

DeSales lost to Butler twice last season and hasn't beaten Butler since January of 2020. That's a factor in the rankings. However, DeSales has played a tougher schedule than Butler and PRP this season suggesting that the Colts have been tested more. So, they've got that going for them. DeSales and Butler square off Jan. 26 at Butler. It should be noted too that DeSales hasn't beaten PRP since 2016. Though their games have generally been close, PRP has won three straight against DeSales. That's a factor, as well. But they are not scheduled to play this season. Right now, DeSales has stronger wins than PRP but that doesn't necessarily mean DeSales can beat PRP.

And finally, it's just too much of an ordeal to go to other state web sites to check records plus this season's reputations for out-of-state teams like Huntington Prep to make ranking decisions. That's why I keep that kind of analysis in state. When you do four regions each week, you have to draw a line somewhere in analysis. If I was doing one region each week, I would just crush it and stop at no limit to analyze teams for my readers.

I really appreciate the astute audience I write to here at BGP and I think this kind of transparency from a regional ranker can be educational for others, not just Hoopstars, so I thought I would go ahead and try to explain where I'm coming from. How'd I do? Any other questions?

 

3 hours ago, Basketball Jones said:

I assume you're talking about this season-long cluster of PRP, Butler and DeSales, which has pretty much been a chore to analyze without any head-to-head results thus far. Actually, looking at last season's results, especially results from more than a year ago, is nearly a last resort and is only used in special cases (like PRP, Butler and DeSales) where parsing teams is difficult, especially teams that have yet to play each or who will not play each other this season. So I would say I put some weight on last year's results, not a lot. The things I consider when I take a look at teams, pretty much in this order but not exclusively in this order, are:

win-loss record

record against the better regional teams

quality of competition

success against quality competition

head-to-head results

"good" losses in relatively close games against quality competition

bad losses

the quality of the head coach

team depth

the caliber of their best players

injuries

defections

significant results from the previous season

team vs. team history

 

I think these recaps of Butler and DeSales during Week 6 sums up the dilemma I've been facing with the PRP, Butler, DeSales conundrum without them going head-to-head yet this season (key sentiments in bold):

BUTLER:

Butler's schedule looks a bit tougher than PRP's. But Butler lost to PRP twice last season, one of them by six in double overtime during the regular season. Butler lost to PRP, 79-45, in the first round of the Sixth Region Tournament, then lost the majority of its starters to graduation. PRP lost to Jeffersontown by eight in last year's regional semifinals and returned three starters. Is it really a slam dunk to say that Butler can make up 34 points on PRP with fewer returning starters than PRP? That's a pretty tall order. Can't wait to find out. Butler was in the regional for the first time since 2020. Butler is 0-2 in regional tournament play since winning the region in 2019. PRP is 2-3 in the tournament in the same span, so PRP during that time has had the strongest, most sustained presence when the chips are down in the regional tournament plus they have won three of their last four games against Butler since the beginning of the 2018-19 season. I'm pretty much of this mind: Until Butler shows me it can beat PRP, PRP will be ahead of Butler in the rankings. But they don't play each other until Feb. 10. That's another month of hair-splitting between these two squads.

DESALES:

DeSales lost to Butler twice last season and hasn't beaten Butler since January of 2020. That's a factor in the rankings. However, DeSales has played a tougher schedule than Butler and PRP this season suggesting that the Colts have been tested more. So, they've got that going for them. DeSales and Butler square off Jan. 26 at Butler. It should be noted too that DeSales hasn't beaten PRP since 2016. Though their games have generally been close, PRP has won three straight against DeSales. That's a factor, as well. But they are not scheduled to play this season. Right now, DeSales has stronger wins than PRP but that doesn't necessarily mean DeSales can beat PRP.

And finally, it's just too much of an ordeal to go to other state web sites to check records plus this season's reputations for out-of-state teams like Huntington Prep to make ranking decisions. That's why I keep that kind of analysis in state. When you do four regions each week, you have to draw a line somewhere in analysis. If I was doing one region each week, I would just crush it and stop at no limit to analyze teams for my readers.

I really appreciate the astute audience I write to here at BGP and I think this kind of transparency from a regional ranker can be educational for others, not just Hoopstars, so I thought I would go ahead and try to explain where I'm coming from. How'd I do? Any other questions?

 

 

Wow! I always thought you did a very good job with your analyses.  I had no idea you had to do 4 regions!!  You ask "how did I do?" -  Personally, I think you do a heck of a good job and I really appreciate your insights. I'm partial to DeSales because I taught there for 37 years, but I think you have a good point about some schools "having a history" with certain other schools.  Even when you think your team has better personnel, those "certain teams" seem to have your number.  Sometimes it even happens when there are changes in the coaches.  This game tomorrow against Western should answer a few questions about the strength of the two squads!  Should be fun to watch! 

Keep up the good work! 

 

13 minutes ago, coachb110 said:

Wow! I always thought you did a very good job with your analyses.  I had no idea you had to do 4 regions!!  You ask "how did I do?" -  Personally, I think you do a heck of a good job and I really appreciate your insights. I'm partial to DeSales because I taught there for 37 years, but I think you have a good point about some schools "having a history" with certain other schools.  Even when you think your team has better personnel, those "certain teams" seem to have your number.  Sometimes it even happens when there are changes in the coaches.  This game tomorrow against Western should answer a few questions about the strength of the two squads!  Should be fun to watch! 

Keep up the good work! 

 

Thanks, dude. I'm liking you more and more. I always wanted to be a teacher. But alas, it didn't happen. Not sure why fate didn't smile on me there. I had a good career in my fifth chosen career so the news isn't all bad. I just respect the heck out of a 37-year teacher! That explains the solid insight you just expressed there. Some good points, sir. The way I look at it though is, I don't have to do four regions. I get to do four regions. 

 Well done!