cancelled

All I know is I saw a couple of sick highlights on the news of Rico Johnson flushing the toilet strong and then they replayed in succession his swat like 5 times in a row. He may have had more swats but this is the one that seemed to get pinned on the glass briefly. Rico Johnson is the X factor in Holmes going to Rupp. If he continues to play like a SR and not a sophomore they will roll.

 

If Holmes draws Conner in the 1st round they could be in for a tough game but I see them getting either Villa or Bellevue.

 

CCH seems to be playing solid basketball and just couldnt keep the Dogs off the offensive glass from what I am gathering. What is up with the shaved heads?

Does home court advantage, access for the fan base, site background for the shooter, tightness of the rims, etc. etc. account for even a 1 point advantage? Both games this year were played at Holmes and ended in a dead heat at the end of regulation. Holmes vs. Cov. Cath. would be a pick em if the game were played at Cov. Cath. A pick em game if the game were played at Holmes. A pick em game if the game were played on a neutral site.

Pictures and video at this link:

 

http://nokysportsreport.blogspot.com/2008/02/game-spotlight-35th-district-tournament.html

 

 

In probably one of the most anticipated matchups of the district tournament, Covington Catholic takes on Holmes for the 35th district title. Covington Catholic has won the district every year since 2003, will 2008 be 5 in a row??

 

1st quarter – Arrez Henderson started out floating everywhere. He really has a nice shot. The referees are definitely letting them play a very physical game tonight. Holmes took an early 14-8 lead with 2:06 to go in the first quarter. Holmes is all over the glass and I mean high on the glass. Josh Nelson has a huge vertical leap. Holmes won the first quarter battle, 16-13.

 

2nd quarter – Luke Maile tied the game on the first shot of the quarter as he buried a three, and Mitch Shover gave Cov. Cath the lead on another 3. Both in the first minute of play. Another three pointer by Shover gave the Colonels their biggest lead at 6 points with 4:11 to go in the half. The lead was pushed to 7 before Holmes came back with 3 buckets of their own to cut the lead to 1 with 1:17 to go. Jamal Riley gave the Bulldogs the lead, 30-29 with time running out in the half. As both teams went into the locker room, that was the score, 30-29.

 

3rd Quarter – J.D. Schmerge gave the Colonels the lead right off the bat by draining a three. Luke Maile added another bucket to push the lead to 4. Ricardo Johnson had the first 2 field goals in the quarter for the Bulldogs as he put Holmes back in the lead, 36-34 with 5:30 to go. Holmes pushed the lead to 6 with about 2:30 to go. Cov Cath was able to cut it to three by the end of the quarter, 42-39.

 

4th quarter - 4 points by Arrez Henderson pushed the Bulldogs lead to 5 with 6 minutes to go in the game. Holmes went on an 8-4 run in the first 3 minutes, extending the lead to 7. A Mitch Shover three pointer cut the lead to 4 with 4:30 to go. A Chris Bondick bucket cut it to 2 with 3:30 to go and a three pointer to 1 with 2:45 to go. 4 straight points by Holmes’ Terrance Clark brought the lead back to 5 points with 1:49 to go in the game. J.D. Schmerge drained a three to bring the colonels back to within three points with 1:03 to go. A Mitch Shover three pointer tied the game with 20.3 on the clock. The game would go to overtime after the Bulldogs were not able to score as the clock went to zero. 57-57.

 

Overtime - Holmes came out with a quick 5 points to take the lead in the first overtime period. Cov. Cath would cut it to 4 with 2:40 to go. Two made free throws by Mitch Shover brought Cov. Cath within 2, but the same on the other end of the floor by Arrez Henderson put it back to 4. An old fashioned three point play by Chris Bondick cut it to 1 with 1:30 to go, 66-65. Arrez Henderson showed the meaning of free throws by hitting 8 in a row, pushing the Bulldog lead to 4, 70-65 with 14.5 to go. Ricardo Johnson added two more for a 72-65 final.

 

Scoring by quarter:

 

Covington Catholic – 13 16 10 18 8 - 65

Holmes – 16 14 12 15 15 - 72

 

Individual Scoring – Covington Catholic

 

Mitch Shover – 20

Chris Bondick – 16

J. D. Schmerge – 13

Luke Maile – 12

Michael Grimes - 4

 

Individual Scoring – Holmes

 

Arrez Henderson - 30

Terrance Clark - 12

Ricardo Johnson - 11

Elijah Pittman - 5

Braeon Avery - 4

Dominique Johnson – 2

Jerimiah Johnson - 2

Josh Nelson – 2

Todd Humphries – 2

Jamal Riley - 2

 

All Tournament Team –

 

Beechwood – Brian Romes

Holy Cross – Corey Sorrell

Covington Catholic – Chris Bondick, Mitch Shover

Holmes – Ricardo Johnson, Braeon Avery, Terrance Clark

 

Tournament MVP – Arrez Henderson

All I know is I saw a couple of sick highlights on the news of Rico Johnson flushing the toilet strong and then they replayed in succession his swat like 5 times in a row. He may have had more swats but this is the one that seemed to get pinned on the glass briefly. Rico Johnson is the X factor in Holmes going to Rupp. If he continues to play like a SR and not a sophomore they will roll.

 

If Holmes draws Conner in the 1st round they could be in for a tough game but I see them getting either Villa or Bellevue.

 

CCH seems to be playing solid basketball and just couldnt keep the Dogs off the offensive glass from what I am gathering. What is up with the shaved heads?

 

Ricardo Johnson's dunk brought everyone in the stands to their feet early on. I agree with him being the X factor in Holmes going to Rupp.

 

The only thing with Johnson is he needs to drive a little more. Like Henderson, once he gets in the lane, nobody is going to be able to stop him. There were several times last night that Clark came out to set a screen only for Johnson to dribble back out..Clark screamed at the top of his lungs "Take him!" and seemed to get frustrated.

 

I don't see anyone in nky being able to shut both Henderson and Johnson down. I don't think Johnson has realized how good he really is yet.

I keep hearing of Holmes's dominance on the boards; would a more stringent weight program help CCH??? (or do they hit the weights hard already?)

I keep hearing of Holmes's dominance on the boards; would a more stringent weight program help CCH??? (or do they hit the weights hard already?)

 

Are you kidding me? You can lift all you want, you cant counter the vertical leaping ability that Holmes has. Cut em some slack.

Arrez Henderson is the real deal. He was the only consistent offensive presence for Holmes tonight, and even defensively I did not think the Bulldog pressure bothered CovCath much EXCEPT when Henderson took over from Avery and manned up on Bondick. Up until that point, CovCath ran their offense, got some good looks, and shot the ball okay, but did miss some open shots. After Arrez moved onto Bondick (did Henley wait to do that so Arrez didn't get into foul trouble? It was probably the right thing to do, since Arrez did pick up two fouls while he was guarding Bondick, and could have picked up his fourth when he ran hard into a pick) I definitely saw Bondick's comfort level drop, and there were several turnovers.

 

Bottom line for Holmes is Arrez is a great defender, but when he plays aggressively he runs the risk of foul trouble and I don't think Holmes beats CovCath or Highlands next week if he's watching from the bench. They need his offense, and they also need their other athletes to pick up their defensive intensity - outside of Henderson I didn't see a lot of the ballyhooed frenetic defense tonight.

 

I have to give CovCath credit, though. When it came to crunch time tonight, down 7 late in the game, they caught fire. Shover was huge late in the game. On the downside for CovCath, though, they played Holmes well and took them into overtime, BUT that was with them executing their gameplan (keeping the score in the 50's in regulation) and shooting 60 % from behind the arc. Can CovCath possibly play any better than that?

 

 

Holmes certainly hopes not.

All I know is I saw a couple of sick highlights on the news of Rico Johnson flushing the toilet strong and then they replayed in succession his swat like 5 times in a row. He may have had more swats but this is the one that seemed to get pinned on the glass briefly. Rico Johnson is the X factor in Holmes going to Rupp. If he continues to play like a SR and not a sophomore they will roll.

 

If Holmes draws Conner in the 1st round they could be in for a tough game but I see them getting either Villa or Bellevue.

 

CCH seems to be playing solid basketball and just couldnt keep the Dogs off the offensive glass from what I am gathering. What is up with the shaved heads?

 

The team did it as a show of unity. If they are fortunate enough to win the Region, apparently Listerman will go with the shaved head look as well.

I keep hearing of Holmes's dominance on the boards; would a more stringent weight program help CCH??? (or do they hit the weights hard already?)

 

Are you kidding me? You can lift all you want, you cant counter the vertical leaping ability that Holmes has. Cut em some slack.

 

Weight room work has nothing to do with keeping Holmes off the boards. Unfortunately, CCH can get into bad habits against almost every other team and simply turn and go get the ball. You can't do that against Holmes. If I were Coach L, the main thing I'd be practicing would be teaching the players to first find their man and then GO TO their man, put the rear end on their man, and then go get the ball. I saw hardly any true blockouts last night and CCH paid for it. If you don't block out properly against Holmes, you lose because they score the majority of their points on offensive rebounds.

I love Coach Listerman's quote in today's paper:

 

"A year ago tonight we were celebrating a district championship, and 12 days later Holmes was celebrating the regional championship," said CovCath coach Mike Listerman. "We need to keep that in mind."

 

Can CovCath possibly play any better than that?

 

And to answer the question, I think they can!

 

The bigger question to me at least is; Can Holmes beat CovCath away from there own home floor? The Stats show me (KHSAA.org) that it has been since the 02/03 season since Holmes has beaten CovCath away from the Holmes floor.

I love Coach Listerman's quote in today's paper:

 

"A year ago tonight we were celebrating a district championship, and 12 days later Holmes was celebrating the regional championship," said CovCath coach Mike Listerman. "We need to keep that in mind."

 

 

 

And to answer the question, I think they can!

 

The bigger question to me at least is; Can Holmes beat CovCath away from there own home floor? The Stats show me (KHSAA.org) that it has been since the 02/03 season since Holmes has beaten CovCath away from the Holmes floor.

 

OG - Don't know if I have an evil twin named Jemry or if you just need to check the alignment of your right hand on the homerow, but assuming it was me, Henry Steele, that was being quoted, I think it has been a great run of games in this rivalry. Probably the only thing that will keep there from being another chapter is Highlands - we'll see tomorrow which of the Covington schools has to deal with the Birds. Just out of curiosity, how did you check the historical home wins data at khsaa.org?

OG - Don't know if I have an evil twin named Jemry or if you just need to check the alignment of your right hand on the homerow, but assuming it was me, Henry Steele, that was being quoted, I think it has been a great run of games in this rivalry. Probably the only thing that will keep there from being another chapter is Highlands - we'll see tomorrow which of the Covington schools has to deal with the Birds. Just out of curiosity, how did you check the historical home wins data at khsaa.org?

 

Sorry about the miss spell! These old finger of mine don't always work as I would like sometimes.

 

As far as the KSHAA site and the scores, click on this link and the Kentucky High School site will come up. Then went it does, look on the left side of the page and you will see this Riherds / KHSAA

Scoreboard, Click on that link. It will then take you to the scoreboard site and click on the Boy's Basketball Socreboard. Then that will take you to a page showing you the different years that they have in their data base. They have the years from 97/98 to Present. Click on any one of those, then look around for the teams, or tournaments be they district/region that you wish. Great sight for information. BTW you could also look at the top right of the BGP's pages and look at this years information, but to look at the past years stuff, do what I do.... Any question PM me.. Glad to help you out, even if you are a Holmes fas! :thumb:

I think too much is being put in to the fact that the last 3 games have been on Holmes floor and Holmes has won all 3.

 

It took a last second 3 by Jacobs or Bovard (not sure which one) to beat Holmes last year on CCH home floor, so the same could be said about CCH only being able to beat Holmes on their home floor.

 

Yes I know CCH beat Holmes on a neutral floor but it was by 1 and in double OT.

 

This is such a great rivalry it doen't really matter where they play. The better team is going to win. Also this year's squads for both teams are completely different than the games being referred to. I really don't think it matters where they play this year. Holmes is just better than CCH unlike in years past where they were pretty even.

 

The argument after the first game was that Bondick was out and thats why Holmes won. Now CCH loses with BOndick in the lineup, (who fouled out), and the CCH faithful are buying in to the fact that it was home court advantage that allowed Holmes to win.

 

A little bit too much homerism on some of your alls part. I think Holmes needs to be credited a little more than what they're getting. This year Holmes undoubtedly has the more talent, deeper bench, and is the better team.

 

If CCH wins a rematch, I'll be more than happy to root for them.

Holmes is just better than CCH unlike in years past where they were pretty even.

 

.

 

Throw the word "barely" in front of "better" and I'll buy it.