Boyd_Blue

Wayne lost their "new" starting point guard in their opener on Monday night to a wrist fracture. To those scoring at home, they have now lost their long time starting pg to a blown ACL, back-up pg to a tragic accident and now a junior backup-backup. A freshman handled the duties most of the day. There was an interesting series of events in the first half as well. Montgomery was in-bounding the ball under their basket. As the cutter cut across the lane, the Wayne defender tried to fight through a double screen and was called for a foul. The cutter shot a 3 a second or so after the whistle blew and it went in. The basket was called good and was indicated on the score board. The teams started heading to the other end (Montgomery was not pressing on this possession) preparing for Wayne to inbound the ball and the same ref blew his whistle a couple of times and indicated it was Montgomery ball. There was no foul, technical or other call indicated at that time. Obviously, Wayne's bench went nuts and was T'd up. Montgomery went 1-2 from the line and then scored on their possession. 6 point trip. This is from Wayne fans and also a Hudl clip with sound.

Heard from scrimmages in Russell County yesterday. Clinton beat Southwestern by 2. Clinton was up double digits and looked to be on the verge of running away with it in the second half and SW came back and either tied it or even pulled ahead by 1 or 2. Very physical and scrappy game. Wayne beat Allen County Scottsville by 18. Phillips was Phillips and Farmer played for Wayne. Ryder Bell seemed to bounce back well from injury posting a double double. With Wayne losing Rice and Edwards at point, Morgan (jr) played the majority at point with Phillips sharing duties a few plays and (fr) Gehring getting in a few plays as well. This was a big question going into the season. My guy felt like they played pretty good but the pieces don't exactly fit right now with 2 key players out and bringing a player back in to what was a rocky situation.

Injury news out of Wayne. Edwards will be having surgery on his ACL in the coming days. He apparently injured it during the first football game of the season on Somerset's field while playing Dunbar. Edwards plays point guard and has started for the Cards since his 8th grade year. Cayleb Rice, who tragically lost his life recently in a single vehicle accident, also played some point last year. Tough break for a team already reeling from the worst type of loss.

Cayleb was a phenomenal young man. The whole community is shaken to the core by his passing. He was a fierce competitor on the court/field, hard worker in the classroom and just an all around great kid.

Wayne over Adair by 6 or so and Wayne over Warren East by comfortable double digits at Lindsey Wilson today (6-12).

Facebook. Wayne County Varsity Basketball Live.

Wayne live-streamed their games Tuesday at Whitley. Wayne over Knox Central by 6(?). Was good to see Bell for Wayne back on the floor. Wayne over Whitley by double digits in the 2nd game but I think Whitley had split their varsity up into two different squads maybe.

The 12th region may be the most wide open it's been in many many years this upcoming season. I have just a few random thoughts some of my buddies and I have talked about since the season ended. Like others have said, Somerset returns a great core group. Along with Absher, I especially like Josh Lewis and hope he can make it through football season and give them a basketball season at full strength. Rock with Walker Craig will be a tough out. I'm excited for that kid to be back on the floor and wish him nothing but the best. Craig is a hard worker and deserves a monster senior season. Pulaski is Pulaski. They'll have someone to step up and help Fraley and Farmer and they'll contend. I'm anxious to see a junior Cash Baird for Lincoln. McCreary Central has one of the better coaches in any region, in my opinion, with Wade Davis. Really like the guy. Higginbotham is sneaky strong at the rim with his shot and rebounding the ball. If he developed a three point shot, he only took 16 threes last year, he would be The Joker of the 12th. ? I was impressed with Summers towards the end of the season as well. I follow Wayne so I obviously know more about them. Ryder Bell only played 13 games last season and was the 2nd leading scorer and rebounder when he went down with a knee injury. Word is that his rehab is going well and on schedule. Kendall Phillips is who he is and is on pace to become the all time leading scorer at Wayne. No small accomplishment. Korbyn Edwards looked out of sorts some in the beginning of the season in a new system but I felt he played better and more within himself as the season progressed. Maybe he and Parmley got on more of the same page...or at least in the same book. A junior PG Edwards could be special. A lot of these players had been running Woods' stuff since the 5th grade so the first year of a new system was definitely a learning curve for much of the season. As mentioned in the initial post, can Wayne keep the outside drama down going into next season? The new school board recently forced the superintendent that fired coach Woods to resign. Obviously, rumors are swirling and boy's basketball are included in some of those rumors. Hopefully, stability for the kids prevails.

53-49 Mercer. Final.

Mercer 37-28 end of 3rd.

Mercer is up 29-16 at the half.

I agree. Also really like the Lewis kid. If he gets going from 3 it could be a very interesting game. I'll say this about Wayne, those kids and coaching staff have dealt with more "noise" than probably all of the other 12th region teams combined. All of that on top of learning a new system with a new staff, it's probably a small miracle they made it to region. Wayne should play loose since Mercer is the clear favorite to win. If Wayne could hang around for awhile and Mercer tightens up, you never know. Mercer could also win by 20+ and Wayne could jump off the roller coaster that this season has been for them.

The Barstool accounts played a part, but this actually goes back as far as elementary travel baseball. Also, the players are related so there is some family stuff. Sadly, it looks like everyone was keeping an eye on the moms and the stepdad slipped past everyone. Sickening and I would guess that some of the men there are kicking themselves for letting him slip by. The other thing is that Wayne decided to replace the clock keeper for the district tournament and he decided to air it all out on social media yesterday, the day before the championship game. He claimed the main reason is that he went to a couple Southwestern games with Woods so the current administration is retaliating against him. The other reason is that a player's mom and the coaching staff got upset that he wore the opposing team's colors while keeping clock at the McCreary game this year. Obviously there were several comments and shares and typical FB drama. How can the adults expect the players to play competitively with all of this going on? It's not fair to the kids (the number one reason high school sports exist) or the fans that just want to watch some good basketball on a Friday night.

There appears to be a lot of social media drama around the Wayne program right now with two different events. Imagine that. Hopefully the boys can push all of the extra stuff out of their heads and we can have a great championship game in the 48th tonight.

Wayne ended up winning 61-42. Southwestern vs Wayne Friday night.

Agreed. They have all the pieces coming together at the right time. Also, very impressed with Somerset Athletics game broadcast on YouTube. Well done!

Wayne did it in '13/'14 going 31-2 that season.

I was just playing around with some numbers last night while watching the Superbowl and wondering if the 48th has ever been this even across the board. The obvious stat is everyone went 3-3 in district play. 1. McCreary went LLLWWW so they are trending in the right direction. I'm not surprised with Wade Davis as their coach. Higginbotham is averaging 23.3 points per game on 64.6% shooting. An efficient scorer like that is a nice luxury to have come tournament time. McCreary scored 392 and gave up 407 in district play. 2. Wayne went LWLLWW. Wayne almost came back at Somerset Christian after being down almost 20 in the 4th and the game at McCreary went into overtime. Will a third guy step up to consistently help Phillips and Edwards? Wayne scored 409 and gave up 386 in district play. 3. Somerset Christian went LWWLWL. The days of getting an easy W against SCS are over I think. They have some athletes and Baker is shooting 50% from 3 so they are very capable. They've also seen the ball go in the basket more than any team in the region scoring 1764 points so far. Somerset Christian scored 399 and gave up 397 in district play. 4. Southwestern went WWWLLL. I'm not sure what's going on with Southwestern. To me, they pass the eye test better than anyone. When Dumphord transferred I thought this put them head and shoulders above anyone in the 48th. I think Dunbar is a good coach and I could see them making a crazy run through the district and deep into the region. I think the pieces are there. Southwestern scored 378 and gave up 364 in district play.

If Wayne were to beat Southwestern, that would put everyone in the 48th at 3-3. Ryder Bell for Wayne is confirmed out for the season.

I have to admit, that's the first thing I thought (that McCreary must have someone out) when I saw the score too. I'm not surprised Somerset won, but I was surprised McCreary lost by 32 with the way they've been playing as of late. I don't know if I've just paid more attention this year, but it seems like the 12th region has had a lot more key players out for extended games than normal.

I went down to the Wayne - Clinton double header Tuesday night at Wayne. Great atmosphere for a Tuesday night high school game. Top 25 team in town coming off their first loss of the season, stands were full, both cheer squads present, pep band and lively student section. The same refs did both games. I have reffed lower level games over the years and understand that generally, most refs want to do a good job at the end of the day but it's a tough job if done right. I think by the time the boys game rolled around, the refs were not ready for the speed and physicality of the game. It was up and down to start and quickly got physical. I feel like the game got away from them and by the end of the night, there was blatant pushing with both hands, football box-outs, elbows being thrown above the shoulders and non stop chatter between some opposing players. I have been to games where certain refs reigned a game like this in pretty quick, but it didn't happen in this one for whatever reason. I'm thankful nobody from either team was seriously injured.

Wow, judging by missing players from this week's games, we could have a stand alone thread on just injuries.

This is definitely not the Somerset Christian of past years. I agree that they are going to look more like Danville Christian in the near future. I really like the sophomore Harvey kid. The young Cards were really missing their second leading scorer and rebounder last night. Bell is a high energy guy on both ends of the floor.

Wayne had the lead twice. ? Then it was ALL down hill. Ha. Wayne has been really hard to watch at times this year. Last night they were hard to watch the whole game. Credit Southwestern's defense. Wayne looked confused on offense on most possessions and only had a couple easy baskets the entire game. With the region down this year, one has to wonder where Wayne would be if the team had remained intact from last year.

Agree with all of this. Boyle has the pieces but something is missing to me. I really like the Driver kid and thought he should have been utilized more in this game. Wayne has a lot of room to grow and improve. Phillips has been passive some in the 2nd half of games this year but he drew some fouls and hit his free throws in this one. Looking at the stats, I thought he shot better than 3-9 from the field but he finished with 18 points. Bell, a sophomore, played well with 18 pts 11 rebounds. All of these kids for Wayne have been in the Woods' system since the 5th grade so I still think there is some confusion sometimes as to what Coach Parmley is wanting in certain situations which may make them all look passive and confused at times. That will just take time. Wayne had some boneheaded plays on offense but I think their defense was solid for the most part.