Ole Kentuckian

As one who saw them play against the likes of Mater Academy (Miami FL, 67-63) and Carter (Knoxville TN, 115-103) on a neutral court, Shelby Valley (71-55) at WC, @East Jessamine (94-80) and Bryan Station on a neutral court (89-60) I think they've already played both "defensive-minded" and "offensive-minded" opponents and come out on the winning side. And I have seen them put "a running clock" on opponents at home, on neutral courts and on the opponent's courts. Using KHSAA/Riherd's Scoreboard for last season and this (and going by memory on individual totals from last night), Wayne County's top three offensive threats have seen their PPG average go up 39% from last season (Woods: 16.9 to 25.6; Stearns: 15.7 to 19.1; and Blevins 12.1 to 17.5). The team as a whole has raised its offensive average from 71.6 to 82.5 and their opponents' average has risen from 57.5 to 61.7. The fact is that this team that unexpectedly won the region last year with 1 SR, 1 JR, 1 SO and 2 FR (and the sophomore & 2 frosh were the highest scoring players) has improved substantially. When you mention "defensive-minded" opponents, I would suppose such teams would also be efficient offensively because there is a limit on how well anybody can guard a team that has three players who are averaging over 62 PPG between them (with the balance of the squad kicking in another 20 PPG). Are there teams remaining on WC's schedule that will beat them? Well, I'd be shocked if they didn't lose some games by the end of the regular season, but then they have played some excellent teams and will be playing some of the very best teams in the state, teams that were in the State Tournament last year and some or all of which will be in it this year. You consider that their three best players are a junior and two sophomores and that all are improving their game as the season progresses and I think it is no stretch to consider Wayne County a top ten contender - and that they'll hold their own against the balance of their schedule.

Between the shots he made for himself and he otherwise had available to him, Blevins lit it up the first half with 27. That he only scored 7 more in the second half was because he was doing his best (as the point guard) to see that his teammates shared in the scoring. FYI, the 34 surpassed his personal high of 33 just set this past Friday against East Jessamine. Aside from Blevins, Wayne got excellent support from Stearns, Woods (as Jesse James said above, Woods was given a lot of attention by PC), Perkins and others. Wayne County puts a formidable offense on the floor, one that is difficult to slow down. I would like to see them matched up against some of the State's other outstanding offensive teams - it would be a real fireworks show.

It is looking like tomorrow's Joe B. Hall Classic (at Montgomery County) is in jeopardy due a severe winter weather forecast and may be postponed until a Sunday in February. A shame, but if the weather is going to be anywhere near as bad as the National Weather Service is saying it would be difficult for both the teams and the fans to be there, so in this case, better safe than sorry. We'll all do our best to be there when it is rescheduled I'm sure.

No Ballard, Trinity or Scott County (among top 25 schools) so it is hard to judge the numbers when many of the best in the state aren't even submitting theirs numbers.

Per the KHSAA/Riherd's Scoreboard here's the schedule: 1:30 - *Henry Clay vs. #3 Hopkinsville 3:15 - #12 Perry County Central vs. *Southwestern 5:00 - Fleming County vs. #13 Knott County Central 6:45 - #2 Trinity vs. #8 Holmes 8:30 - #11 Wayne County vs. #9 Montgomery County State Rankings by BGP as of 1/15/2013. * Henry Clay & Southwestern are both listed in the Top Twenty of Dave Cantrall's Ratings. A definite five game bevy of good teams.

Wayne County @ Rockcastle County double-header cancelled. Will be made up at a date to be determined.

Agreed on all of that. Meant to include West Jessamine on list of teams that may contend and give them trouble. I have to be honest though - over the years I've noticed that all of the objectively statistically-based ratings lean hard towards teams that maintain high scoring averages. I initially disparaged that viewpoint, but then discovered over time that that outlook is much more sustainable than not. Wayne County has proven against good competition that they can score spearheaded as they are by three legitimate offensive threats. But that theory will be tested as the regular season winds through its last five weeks of play.

Didn't Ballard lose to PRP in the finals of the LIT last night?

Wow! I'm ashamed to admit it, but with 27 seconds to go and Montgomery down by six I gave it up and went to bed (my age showing after the trip up to play E-Jess and Bryan Station in a day and a half). When I quit I was disappointed because I wanted both Montgomery and Wayne to make it to next Saturday night undefeated, but obviously Montgomery proved "It ain't over until it's over". Now if in the coming week Wayne can go on the road to Rockcastle and (a much more impressive than I thought they would be) Pulaski, and Montgomery can get by Bath & Bourbon then we'll have the battle of the undefeated next Saturday night. At this point if they both make it to that point without losing I would have to favor Montgomery simply because the game is at their place, but we'll see.

* Ball Handling is strong, much stronger than last season. Last year WC had to use Shelton (now graduated) to bring the ball down under strong defensive duress. This season, Blevins has evolved into an excellent ball handler as have the remainder of the carry-over starters (freshman & sophomores growing up in a year's time). * If by "shooters" you mean from the 3-range, then yes, a couple, but they're more selective in their shooting (fewer shots/lower %). Stearns & Perkins are both excellent mid-range shooters and Stearns is extremely difficult to stop close to the basket as he gets excellent elevation, especially on his turn-around jumper. * The 6'6" kid now starts whereas I'm not sure he even lettered last year (do they still do that?). You can observe that he's learning offensively, but is a definite factor in rejecting shots around the basket. If he can improve as much over the coming off-season as much as this year's group did this past off-season then he could help take them to another level next season. * Blevins doesn't look it, but when you see him standing next to the coaches you see that he is taller than you would think. I'm sure the 6'0" includes wearing his basketball shoes. Back in my day you were measured with your socks on, but then that was several eras ago - Yes, he's the second of Coach Woods' three sons.

Here's their first seven players (starters + frontline sub and guard sub) - # Player Grade Ht Wt G 20 Trey Blevins 10 6'0" 155 G 10 Jason Perkins 12 5'9" 150 F 14 Peyton Woods 11 6'3" 165 F 23 Corey Stearns 10 6'2" 175 C 25 Nick Gillespie 10 6'6" 165 FS 33 Logan Gardner 11 6'1" 175 GS 22 Carson Staples 11 6'0" 175 Even though Wayne County has played and gone 18-0 thus far, two games have been played on opponent's courts, four have been played on neutral courts and the remaining 12 on WC's home court. Teams some might consider worthy of top 20-30 status (in Kentucky) that WC has thus far played and defeated are: 67-63 Mater Academy (Miami FL) 115-103 Carter (Knoxville TN) 71-55 Shelby Valley (Pikeville KY) 78-68 Lincoln County (Stanford KY) 70-62 Clay County (Manchester KY) 84-74 Southwestern (Somerset KY) Highly regarded teams remaining are Montgomery County (at MC next Saturday), Southwestern again (at SW), Knott County Central (at Lafayette) & Lexington Catholic (at home). WC's strengths lie in that they have three bona fide All Regional or better players anyone of which can put 20-30 on the board any given game, every other player currently knowing and playing their roles, experience from having played together for many years and many, many games (regular season & otherwise) and that they have an extremely high basketball IQ. Their weakness is most likely their lack of size and strength as compared to teams like Ballard, Scott County, etc. PurplePride92 hit the nail on the head saying that the draw can determine a great deal of how much success any State Tournament team can achieve. As an on-site observer, I will be the first to admit that I'm pleasantly surprised at how much improvement this team has demonstrated during the off-season. Time will tell us how well they handle success & ink (as evidenced by how they started off on four of eight cylinders in today's game against Bryan Station after the front page coverage in this morning's LHL Sports Section). I felt Southwestern would steamroll the 12th Region last season, but it didn't happen for whatever reason. We'll see how the balance of the season plays out.

Point taken (it wasn't me that made disparaging remarks about Carson). I find it scintillating that the 12th Region has two such fine players and further that we have several teams climbing into the top 20 or 25. It speaks well of our teams, coaches and players and the competition. For all of them to excel as they thus far have will only serve to make all better and hopefully whomever survives the Region come March, able to go far in the State Tournament bracket. Friday night's East Jessamine vs. Wayne County game should be extremely competitive and entertaining.

Amen on faxisfax's comment. Successful coaches who care about their players post their numbers. Only coaches who fear their coaching prowess isn't good enough run from doing so.

I'm curious as to why you would use just the last five games as your sample. Why not the whole season? Over the course of a season as opponents learn other teams' strengths & weaknesses, it typically becomes more difficult for a player averaging high numbers to maintain them because the opposition will overplay them. It appears that Carson and Woods both have scored big numbers early & late so I don't see why the selective sampling. Using the whole season to date (as thus far available) both are shooting over 50% from the field and over 78% from the free throw line. Carson is shooting 9 FT per game compared to Woods 7.5, both high numbers (and good for their teams since they shoot a high percentage from the line). Woods is shooting over 40% from deep whereas Carson is under 30% but he doesn't shoot that many so that's not a huge deal. Carson is bringing down 8+ boards a game compared to Woods 5+. Both excellent players, but I think most fans are more concerned about the final result of the game, not which player has the gaudiest stats.

Wayne County vs. Bryan Station is at 12:30 PM

Were this at Lincoln I'd guess it to be a blow-out, but since it is at PC, I'll say Lincoln by 12.

It appears that Wayne is solid as they have improved across the board with their top seven players. Lincoln started off rough, had some kids suspended and that seemed to right their ship. Southwestern unexpectedly lost two of the top players in the Region (Kapinga & Collier) over the summer, but thus far they've proven to be a better "team" than they were last year. And I note that last year I don't believe you could have found anyone (outside of their fans) that would have chosen Wayne County to win the Region, especially after Southwestern beat them in the District Finals. But look what happened. So you never know. Most teams have 10-15 games remaining on their schedules. Younger & less experienced players can do a lot of learning & improving during those games and coaches can sometimes change attitudes and chemistry. Right now I lean heavily towards Wayne, Lincoln & Southwestern, but that can change between now and the end of February.

Regarding double-dribbling, the mantra I learned several decades ago was that simplified whether a player had double-dribbled the ball due to having bobbled it, was: It is not double-dribble if you "bobble (the ball), dribble and bobble", but it is walking if you "dribble, bobble and dibble." This would be assuming that the bobble wasn't created by a defensive player touching the ball.

I concede that the points you make are valid. SOME schools simply don't have the kind of staff or outside support to get stats done like most of us would like. However, SOME schools also just have coaches who make no effort to input stats or even have decent scorekeepers at their table. Few things irritate so much as to be the visiting team and have the fate of how many fouls each player has, how many time outs have been taken or charged and who has the next possession, fall upon some young person who obviously doesn't even know what all they're supposed to do to keep score properly. Sorry for the rant. I just think that if you take your program seriously you should be able to do these kinds of things in the proper manner.

It is a shame that some coaches are willing to shortchange their players (especially those who might obtain a scholarship at the next level) simply because they fear that without withholding such information from their opponents they might not be able to out-coach the other coach. Also for some I think it exposes the coach's mistakes in judgment in how he handles his roster of players. With the stats out there for the whole world to see it is easier for Joe Fan to see who shoots 50% from the floor, 40% from behind the three line or 75% from the FT line or averages double-figures in rebounds. Perhaps they haven't taken note that if you climb the ladder to the next level or beyond, all of those numbers will be exposed. So what does that say about them that they don't have the confidence to coach with the whole world knowing exactly what their players' numbers actually are? What does it say to the parents of those players that their coach puts his insecurity in his own abilities above their child's possible opportunity to be noticed by "the next level" because their stats get them noticed.

Agreed. No mathematically-based rating system will be any more "perfect" than a subjective ratings system, just less likely to be prejudiced, however unintentionally. However one thing MaxPreps does that schools who play a lot of out of state basketball opponents appreciate is take those games into account. Wayne County has played 13 games, five of which have been against out-of-state teams. Of those, two would be considered top 20-30 in the state of Kentucky, one maybe and the other two, not so good. Bottom line is that schools located on state borders or who play out of state competition more don't have those games recognized by in-state ratings such as Cantrall or Litkenhouse.

The Herald-Leader ran the first Cantrall Ratings this past Monday, but I'm unable to find a link. I'm pretty sure the Courier-Journal has yet to run the Litkenhouse Ratings but should tomorrow or Tuesday.

The Cards are currently shooting 48%+ from the floor, 38%+ from three and 76%+ from the free throw line. They average 81+ PPG (third in the state) and have thus far defeated Southwestern, Lincoln, Mater Academy (Miami), Carter, TN (115-103) and Shelby Valley. They have three players capable of posting 25+ point games on any given night: Woods (26.1), Stearns (19.4) and Blevins (16.4). As more teams are shifting their defensive emphasis to Woods - Stearns, Blevins and the rest of the team are picking up the slack. And they have done a good job of proving they can play a slow-tempo game as well as a fast-tempo game but that's good. "IF" they can manage to get through the Region then they'll have had the kind of experience teams need going into the State Tournament. Aside from the 12th Region foes, they currently have Knott Co, Central, Montgomery County & Lexington Catholic remaining on their schedule. It will be interesting to see how they fare in these games. Regardless, they'll still have their hands full in the 12th against the likes of Lincoln, Southwestern, Boyle and others.

I have been extremely frustrated watching my team's opponent "hold the ball" to protect a lead, but I've not yet reached the point that I feel a shot clock is needed. If you have a skilled & well-coached team then your players should be able to force the team holding the ball into errors or firing up poor shots. I've watched my team attempt to run the clock down and when we have a good team it is usually successful provided we make our free throws, but when we're not quite so good we end up turning over the ball or making very poor decisions. I prefer that we leave our game as it is for now. And by the way, what Tonkatruck has to say above has a great deal of merit to it. We seem to have enough problems finding good clock keepers (meaning giving no edge to the home team or failing to start the clock or failing to stop it and so on). I hate to add another category in which more favoritism is factored into the result of each game.

It's been a while, but it appears that the 12th Region has re-emerged as a force to be reckoned with this season. As of this morning's Cantrell Ratings (Lexington Herald-Leader) four 12th Region teams are ranked in the top 24. 14th - Wayne County 16th - Southwestern 19th - Lincoln County 24th - West Jessamine It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out as each of these teams plays top 25 opponents. Hopefully they'll be able to continue to uphold & strengthen the 12th's rankings.