24Rocks

Good basketball seems to be in the Gover family's DNA. Al's older brother Greg was a little behind me at Somerset and was a very good player. Neither of them are very big but they worked around it by being great ball handlers and shooters.

I’d like to see a breakdown of what happened in that game. It was a pretty low scoring affair. When discussing the coaching we shouldn’t focus on Wayne County and dismiss Al Gover’s performance as SCS’s coach (not that you are…..). He’s been in it a long time as both a player and coach. He knows what he’s doing.

This looks like the link to the Danville game: https://www.nfhsnetwork.com/events/danville-high-school-danville-ky/gam543c53f812

Are the 45th district games being streamed?

Given PC’s lack of size they depend heavily on their three point shooting. If they get hot like they did against Lincoln (over 60% on threes) they can beat a lot of teams.

You’re right about that. The key is to see how many of them the coach talks to and more importantly, how many he actually listens to.

I think that for basketball you need to break it down into roles. I'd suggest a head coach, a shooting coach, a defensive specialist, a strength and conditioning coach, and a JV coach. Now, a single individual can do multiple roles. For example, the JV coach might know how to teach shooting fundamentals and he'd work with them extensively while they're young. It also would help to have someone to break down film and prepare scouting reports. I'd say you could fill all of those roles with relatively few people if you can find ones who have the expertise. The biggest factor, as far as I'm concerned, is that the head coach find good assistants and then let them do their job and trust their judgement.

In the 12th it could have been Ateny, Phillips, or Absher. You could make a good case for any of them.

What was the deal with the fan being thrown out?

I would agree that Grundy deserved a spot. He's the second leading scorer and top rebounder on one of the top 3 teams.

Stuart lit it up in the 2nd quarter. He's a good player and just a sophomore. Between his shooting and DCA getting in a hurry and turning the ball over Lexington Catholic had a 12 point lead at half time.

I still think the top 3 teams are Wayne, Somerset, and DCA (in no particular order). Since the first of the year Wayne has been the most consistent followed pretty closely by Somerset. DCA has been more inconsistent, partly due to injuries and illness operating on an already short bench. That's not a good excuse though because everyone deals with injuries and illness. When they are good they are really good and have a tremendous upside. When they aren't good they struggle. It could prove to be an interesting tournament this year and it's possible a dark horse could sneak in and win it.

I thought Farmer was the difference in the game. He scored 11 in the first quarter and DCA played from behind the rest of the game. It was similar to the Somerset game earlier in the season. DCA gave up open threes and their opponents hit them. You simply can't do that against an average shooting team, let alone a team that can hit them.

Is the DCA/Wayne County game being streamed?

Good summary. And, I would add, who blocks or alters a lot of shots and averages double figures in rebounds. It’s no coincidence that these three are the best players on the three top teams in the region. Can you imagine a team with all three of them? Three players all shooting over 40% from three and 80% from the line.

Chuck Eckler told me he thought Massey could have played D1 basketball if he’d focused on it. He was a great athlete. I played some dirt bowl games against Lewis’s older brothers. We didn’t have any football players my junior or senior year who could have helped the basketball team but the football coaches tried to get me and a teammate to play football. Neither of us had any interest.

I have to disagree. It's player of the year, not career, even though career achievements are not insignificant. I still think it's between Absher, Phillips and Ateny. If you're looking at career contributions, Ateny was the best player on a team last year that won the All A and the Regional and went unbeaten in regional play while going 29-4. Absher's had a great career as well and his contributions as a sophomore made a big difference in getting them to the regional finals. I'm partial to Ateny because I'm a DCA supporter but I'm going to wait until the regionals play out to see if any of those three distinguish themselves in the next few weeks.

I picked that up from a girl who attended Cumberland for college. She she said that was a common expression they used there and I just adopted it......

We played the district there my junior year. They had folding chairs set up all along the sideline on the floor across from the benches and they put risers on the end where the big wall is located. I think they also had risers in front of the stage with some folding chairs. Every seat in the house was taken. We were way down to Laurel County at halftime (I'll have to check with some teammates to get the exact number) and made a huge comeback, eventually losing by 1. The noise in that place was absolutely deafening.

It was like that when I played at Somerset a long time ago. Football and baseball. The football players had egos the size of Corbin and didn't want to work hard enough to be good basketball players. We had good teams my junior and senior years and only had one dual sport player who saw action. I know it's possible to be successful at multiple sports but the coaches in all of the sports have to recognize that the physical training to be "bigger, stronger, faster" in football and the skill training to hit jump shots in basketball have to be balanced out. Somerset's success this year is mainly due to the fact that they have multiple players who can shoot. It's really that simple, if you have 3 or 4 players in the 12th region who can consistently hit shots you can compete. Add in a good penetrator, as they have in Absher, and some solid defense and you're in good shape.

Every good Boyle team since 2015 has had at least one so called "gym rat" who could shoot. Hagen Tyler followed by Bryce Slone followed by Luke Imfeld. Luke played football as a senior but by then his basketball game was solid. They surrounded those guys with another good basketball player or two in most cases and then added some football players to the mix for tough defense and rebounding.

DCA over Danville 69-52.

He didn't even make an attempt on the ball. He should have been ejected from the game.

Seth Farmer was on the receiving end of a flagrant foul in the Somerset/Wayne County game and took a pretty hard fall. There are reports that he broke his hand. Is there any truth to those reports?