GoHardITP

Great player, congrats to Andrew. Saw this young man in 4th grade and knew he would be special.

Same Cole, he is so prepared mentally and physically. He averaged over 20 ppg and whenever a big basket was required, he delivered. He was named the 16U MVP of the tournament. The more you watch him, the bigger the fan you become. True story...in one game a fan started to hype his team up and whomever Cole was guarding he shouted "he can't guard you" and when Cole had the ball he was shouting something to the effect of "he ain't seen defense like this". It was borderline a bit obnoxious, but he was poking the bear and you could see it really starting to get on CVH's nerve because he was so loud and over the top. 5 minutes later CVH had dropped about 15 points and the guy was quiet the rest of the game. Don't poke the bear.

Okay, I missed that and knew you would be a good source as you are on top of most of the roster changes better than anyone. Good luck to the young man, he could be really special in the near future.

Coach Q can you clear up if Trace Young has joined Under Armor's Team Thad for the rest of the season? Not seeing a Tweet specifically suggesting such, but reading between the lines it suggests possibly so. Thanks, he is such an interesting prospect and did not know if he had changed rosters or not for the rest of the season and figured you would know. Correct on Matt Miller, he played last weekend and again this weekend with 17U Travelers.

I would have to believe if enough high school basketball coaches actually fought to get a slight change of the rule to apply a date of September 1 or even Sept 15 so it is applied evenly across all schools it would pass. Maybe nobody has even tried, and it will take membership to effect change. September 15 would still give a dead period of 30 days before the start of high school basketball season and September 1 would even be more days.

I have never bought into that rumor because I never heard anything about it except on this board. I did hear Ballard was a possible stop if they came to Louisville, but I always thought they would stay put. My comment above was making the point that it would take (2) McDonald AA in any 6th region school to surpass BE as the pre-season favorite, not a reference to Fern Creek or the Southwestern brothers. If you thought I was banking on it you missed badly. With what Fern Creek returns they will be good, but still a season away. This is BE's year and would be surprised if anyone can stop that experience from winning the region.

If this is the case and I would tend to agree, has there ever been a time that somebody was called on this and after investigation was found to be breaking the rule by simply using a false address? Curious if there is a recourse should someone use a falsified address.

Clear cut favorites based on returning players. As in every region the musical chairs game of transfers will be more clear when school starts. Unless some school in the 6th has a pair of Burger Boys stop by, then BE is the team to beat. I love Tyler Sharpe and he is a senior with a chance to finish his career at Rupp. He has a three other returning starters coming back and depth. They will be tough to beat and should be in the final regional championship at a minimum.

Cole is really a solid kid in so many ways. He is probably about 6'2 and 180. He is in such great shape and works so hard to always get better. He is a coaches dream because he is so consistent with his effort and his self discipline if off the charts. He has fun playing the game and the more you watch CVH, the more you will appreciate his abilities. I can see why many schools will want to have him join their program, he can be described as simply a winner on and off the court. I would just describe him as a combo guard that can play with the ball or off the ball.

They may be talking about a transfer from Nashville. He played this week in Louisville with them.

Spin or not, the fact is that Nike has programs like GA Stars, Boo Williams, & Team Takeover (for example) that through their Nike sponsorship contract can produce tournaments or camps utilizing the Nike branding. I am not disagreeing with what you are saying about the LeBron Camp because I do not know whose property that is, but in the case of the EYI it was not on "Nike" to certify the event. That responsibility lies with the program who is producing the tournament. Obviously Nike needs to better monitor the execution of their programs to the extent they can or they will suffer the brand damage resulting from a Nike program's lack of proper execution as you point out.

I agree that the MDC field is determined by Norman Parker and his GA Star's organization as is another event that is actually named after him. He obviously promotes his events and collects registration fees, but my association of the MDC and SSA is on the basis that he works very closely with SSA (Justin/HoopsSeen) on each of these events as they are hosted there, co-promoted, and the operational staff of SSA performs on his behalf at his events. Not sure what you mean by making things easier by not posting stuff, but to the teams/players experiencing the tournament held at SSA there is not a tangible difference between Norman's events held there and the events that HoopSeen owns.

Yes, a Nike program whose name will go unmentioned that was the event organizer failed to get the paperwork in to the NCAA in a proper or timely fashion as I understand it. It was a heavyweight Nike program, but obviously their mistake made it a less than desirable situation for Nike. Nike has been working to place their impacted programs in a suitable NCAA certified event based on region and other factors. For instance the Travelers (16U & 17U) are attending the Best of the South live event held in the Atlanta area at the Suwanee Sports Academy. This is the facility and event organizer where the Nike Memorial Day Classic is held each year. It is also 4 miles from North Gwinnett High School where the Adidas Uprising Gauntlet Finals are being held with the Top 16 Adidas teams from the 16U & 17U Adidas Gauntlet. Since the events are being held nearby and over the same period it worked out pretty well as to compared to what could have been a disaster as pointed out. It will not be a Nike exclusive event as the EYI was intended, but this event had over 120 teams from solid grassroots programs last year and is said to be growing. It is a case of taking the lemon and making lemonade. Not sure if any other KY based team is going there or not.

How about 5th/6th vs 7th/8th Regions All Star Game if we want to be exact.

I think we are in agreement and I really would not know if this would be a problem for Mercer as I am not too aware of their roster beyond the Hager, Faulkner, and Dow trio. But, I doubt any of those three should play less than 75-85% of any game absent foul trouble or injury. In a HS game there is only 160 minutes and if you have a solid trio that plays 83% of a game that accounts for 80 of those 160 minutes leaving 50% of the minutes for the rest of a team. If you play an 8 man rotation with those other 5 getting equal time they would only play 50% of the game. Many really good transfers are not going to want to play 50% of a game so either you add guys who will also play 75-85% of the game and then the other players who do not figure in the top 5 players must settle for 15-25% playing time. As a coach with a deep team you will likely have team chemistry problems or kids/parents unhappy with limited minutes.

I think you hit on something that is wrong with some teams. They are like UCLA of old stockpiling talent and it comes back to haunt them. You can be too loaded. It is a rare situation that happened at UK this year where kids put aside their egos and share half games with a loaded depth chart. I really believe that your best players need 75% plus minutes in high school games where only 1 game is played per night. Team chemistry suffers and it really is a problem of being too loaded with some teams. Where do you find the minutes? At best I think an 8 man rotation with the 7th and 8th players getting less than 1/3 of the game produces the best allocation of minutes.

Ballard and FC never played each other, but played some common opponents. I can't recall them all, but to name a few teams that either Ballard or FC played....Hughes, Winton Woods, Aiken, Lakota East, King, & Woodward

Correct Heat Check and Nike moved the EYI to the 1st weekend as well as those two events are aligned and schedule coordinated since both are under Nike flag. The Peach State traditionally was held at the same time by the event coordinators as they could piggyback on the dates the Peach Jam was held to count on college coaches to make the trip over to their facilities. It will be interesting to see if they move their dates to mirror the Peach Jam again or just hold their event as scheduled for the 2nd week. Nike made a late schedule change to move to the 1st week of live period for who knows what reason.

Either 6:30 or 7:30 CST. FC has two games and I am not sure which one they play Casey.

If true, these transfers will once again start the talk of how being AAU teammates is impacting high school transfers. Since Ballard lost Dow to that potential influence they were due to have it work in their favor this time. In regard to the younger brother of Anas (UofL player from Egypt), he has been rumored for some time to be coming to the US, but until he physically arrives it remains speculation. I feel Trinity will have a dog in that hunt as well should he really make it to the US for this upcoming season.

No on Keita that I am aware, yes on FC @ Casey tomorrow.

I was up at Hughes HS in Cincy and watch Ballard & Fern Creek go 7-1 between them going against OH high schools. I have no idea how good those teams were relative to this upcoming season, but they were bigger public high schools in the Cincy area. Ballard went 3-1 losing only to Lakota East while Fern Creek had 4 wins coming by large margins. Do not sleep on Ballard this season. They are smaller, but Renner will have another fine season and if they get the transfer(s) that is being mentioned in small circles then watch out.

Sorry, I did not mean this event was a new event as it has been around for a few years. My understanding is there have been some tweaks to it this season as Nike has done for the 16U EYBL circuit. They are making their events more exclusive and putting some of the same structure to 16U that has existed for 17U. I had heard that the EYI is now a requirement for Nike EYBL teams, regardless if you make Peach Jam or not teams must be in Augusta during this first live period if they want to stay in good favor with Nike who funds their programs.

Great question and at least the EYBL in the Spring made coaches aware of the facility and brought a general awareness to the people who run KBA. I think the answer will lie in the teams who attend. Players who are high on Coache's lists will draw a crowd that is good for everyone else too. I have always said as a Coach you want your team to be playing other teams filled with top prospects during the live periods.

I would agree Coach Q, just my opinion but I think they saw both UA & Adidas putting more investment into closing the gap and tried to step up their game a bit. That is why competition in everything is good. Necessity is the mother of innovation.