Mojocat

I remember once, and not that long ago, the MVP of the State Tournament was an 8th grader. Edit: I guess not. Thought for sure Zion Harmon was MVP when Bowling Green won the state title, but apparently Terry Taylor was…..

Regarding North's status as region favorite and South Oldham's chances of beating them.....something surprising I heard to bear in mind. Last year's South Oldham senior class, while it may not have been the best class in school history, it was certainly the most accomplished. And a Dad of one of those Seniors told me after South beat North in the 8th region title game that class of kids had never beaten North Oldham before. Not in the 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade or the first two attempts as Seniors. At the varsity level, North has won 9 of the last 10 games against South Oldham - the only win coming, again, in that regional title game. The South Oldham players, no doubt, are aware of that record and you have to wonder if they believe they can beat North, especially after losing 61-28 earlier this year.

If my math is right, Steve has 568 wins at this point.

Chance Dillingham, as the leader of the best team in the state, has to have a pretty good case. Not sure who I'd take off. I don't think it's any longer a tryout situation. And as the post above says, I don't think it's limited to KABC players of the year. E.g., you have 2 kids from the 8th region, and while there were co-winners in the 8th region, one of those is the Boone kid from Woodford County and he's not on the list. I always sort of roll my eyes at the folks from Jefferson County who say the rest of the state conspires against them, but in this case something is fishy. (note, I'm not familiar enough with all the players listed to say "this one is not worthy", just making the case that it's hard to believe no one from the biggest city in the state isn't good enough)

Sort of an eye roll that no one from Louisville made the list. St. X had the best team in the state all year, and doesn’t have anyone worthy?

Somewhere Steve Simpson is smiling at the thought of this. Makes me think of Dean Smith. He had been to 7 final fours before winning a title, and he finally won one in ‘82. A reporter asked him how he felt after the game, and he said something like “I’m no better a coach now than I was yesterday.” Meaning……luck is a part of it. What kind of kids/team do you have? How strong is the competition? What about injuries? Last year, or maybe it was 2 years ago, Simpson took a lot of heat on this very forum. A lot of comments that he wasn’t a very good coach, the game had passed him by, etc. Suddenly he’s a genius again! He wasn’t any worse coach then than he is now. Fate happens to us all.

And it's not like they got hot at the right time - they came into the game at 29-3. The two big kids are a puzzle. I get the fact that they like to play slow, and once South got up they were done. But those two bigs.....I don't see how they would be effective in a region that prefers grind it out games. Grind it out sort of implies a tough physical style, and each of those two kids weighs around 140 I'm guessing (only slightly joking) and simply isn't built to withstand contact. They each (or maybe it was just one more than the other) had multiple turnovers....slightest bit of contact, the ball is dropped and they're going the other way.

South last played on Tuesday, the 18th - so 8 days ago. The 8th Region was one of several that took a week off between district and region.

I can’t believe DC is as bad as they’ve looked. South is being very aggressive and forcing DC to play faster (and on defense more spread out) than they’re used to.

You don’t see many airballs from inside 5 feet by a 6’10 or 6’11 kid, but DC has done it several times. Edit: or the bottom of the backboard….

Make that South is shooting very well!

Still early but DC is underwhelming so far. And South is shooting fairly well from 3.

I wonder if the DC bigs are always this sloppy/turnover prone or if it’s just nerves. Just going by their win/loss record I’m guessing it’s just nerves. And maybe South speeding them up a little.

I don't know anything about this team, so I'll defer to your judgment. But I'm looking at the stats, and Gilbert leads the team in 3 point shooting at 45.4%, and is third on the team in scoring (Loy shoots 34.2% from 3). That does't make it seem like he should have been "the last guy" taking the shot?

They said on the broadcast that the officials put 2 seconds back, but I didn’t notice if they did that on the clock. Either way, it was clearly out of Julian’s hand when the red light went off….

That was a looooonng 5 seconds! Heh

Yes, it does help - thx! I guess to make it more clear, I was wondering why the coaches in the 8th region for example last week voted Julian Miles POY and Simpson & Steiner COY, then turn around this week and vote Gutman & Boone players of the year and Levitch coach of the year. Talk about not being able to make up your mind. But I think what you’re telling me is different people are involved in the process, and maybe even different people do the voting….

Ok, then I really don’t understand the difference between this coach/player of the year award and this one:

What’s the difference between this and the other region teams and players/coaches of the year we’ve seen the last week or so? I think they are both voted on by coaches - maybe the other awards are voted on only by coaches in that region, and this one counts votes from coaches all over the state? Meaning, for example, a 9th Region coach might vote for the 8th Region player of the year, or whatever…..

I’m fairly sure he’ll be 18 in August.

Oh, my memory isn’t that good. I shouldn’t have made it sound like I was affirming the point - just acknowledging it. People always say that - that committing to Kentucky gives a kid an unfair advantage when it comes to Mr. Basketball/Football. That may be true, I’d have to go back thru the winners lists and see who else of note was in each class. The point I’m making is, however true that might be generally, I don’t think it is this year respecting Sheppard. He’s a McDonald’s AA, a top 25 player in the class - he’s the best player in the state and presumably would’ve won this award no matter where he committed…..

Yep, very much agreed. He's legit, me thinks, as opposed to the Kentucky high school star that may or may not be a high D1 player and the fans pressure the coach into taking him at UK. Also, there are years where a kid commits to UK and sows up the Mr. Basketball race, and you can legitimately claim he's not the best player, he only got it because he's going to Kentucky. That's not the case this year, at least in my opinion.

I hadn't seen this thread, and it's interesting to me how the tone changed. in the beginning, when folks were assuming he simply decommitted to better think through his options, that was met with favor. but when the story changed and people realized Kentucky pulled his offer, that was met (at least most of the time) with scorn.

As someone who's worked the game clock many, many times, I always say it's both the easiest and hardest thing to do, at the same time. It's super easy - you literally have one job, and that's to flip a toggle to start the clock or to stop it. A monkey could do it. It's also super hard - it's very easy to just become engrossed in what's happening on the court and forget to flip the button. Egg on face, I've done it plenty of times. Once, had an opposing AAU coach literally want to fight me, he was so convinced I was trying to cheat his team (by not starting the clock when my team inbounded the ball with only a handful of seconds left - reasonable assumption I guess, but it was kind of out in the open. If I was going to cheat, I'd try to be a little more slick!). Anyway, point is, I can't imagine trying to manually re-start a shot clock every possession. But then, maybe most folks don't daydream like I apparently do.......

https://www.stadiumtalk.com/s/top-high-school-basketball-scorers-all-time-a5af7d7396864c40 interesting list here. Who knows what’s accurate, when you’re trying to understand all time scoring leaders across the country, I’m sure it’s hard to get good precise info. If this list is accurate, Perry could conceivably finish as high as number 2 all time, if he scores an amount in his senior year similar to his junior year. The number 1 guy has 6,700+ points, which I suspect is out of reach. ? two interesting things I’m reading. One, the “national federation of high school” (whatever that is), doesn’t recognize points scored before 9th grade. And two, of the top 100 scorers, 30 are from one state - Louisiana. Apparently, the smallest schools in that state, class b and c, don’t play football. Which means basketball starts in October, so they’ll have 70 or 80 game seasons.