thegeneral

:confused: This one hasn't gone away. Annual meetings since 1965.

They're all good, but you don't get 5 MVPs. Hence the term "MOST valuable." ( Sorry, but I couldn't pass that one up. )

Basketball coaches will adjust. In fact, many of them already do. They've learned that just because the season starts Nov. 27 doesn't mean you have to play Nov. 27. Here are the dates of the first boys basketball games this season for a few schools that usually go a long way in the football playoffs: Beechwood, 12/8 Boone County, 12/5 Bowling Green, 12/5 Danville, 12/9 Hazard, 12/5 Highlands, 12/8 Newport Catholic, 12/12 Pikeville, 12/9 Those coaches know they're going to have to share some players, and they know those players wouldn't be ready for an early opener, even if their football team didn't make the finals. Whether they like it or don't, they make the best of it.

And do it now!!!

Each game requires a separate ticket. However the KHSAA sells an all-session general admission ticket for $25 (through Thursday) and the KHSAA and UofL ticket office both sell all-session club seats for $40 (only in advance).

When the finals move to the second weekend of December next year (and we start handing out trophies by the case), Louisville's season will be over. That is, unless the NCAA goes to a 13-game schedule.

UofL's game time is not set. The schedule on uoflsports.com still lists the game as 12:00 OR 7:45, and a release on uconnhuskies.com says the time will be announced tonight (Sat. night) after the UofL-Pitt game. If the college game is at 12, probably the absoulte earliest the KHSAA could get the stadium would be 6 or 7, and that's for setup, meaning kickoff would be 2-3 hours after that at minimum. UofL tailgaters would still be in the parking lots, media would still be in the press box and so on for at least 3-4 hours after the game. And if UofL plays at night, time would have to be allowed before the game for ESPN setup, tailgating, teams' arrival, etc. It just wouldn't work, and I think that's why the KHSAA was told that UofL and ESPN would need the stadium for the whole day no matter the kickoff time.

Duffy coached at Danville for a big chunk of the 1980s, then went to Highlands for a long run there through much of the '90s. He won championships at both schools, but always had very small rosters. I'll leave the more insidious details to others.

Call me crazy, but I'm guessing that estimate's a little high.:confused:

Sounds like standard operating procedure for Duffy. If he can't use you -- really, truly use you -- he'd just as soon not have you around taking up space and time. I always wondered how that would play at a superhuge school like Henderson. Have Henderson's teams been similarly thin the last few years?

This record absolutely could go down. I'm not willing to say Mercer will do it for sure, but if not they'll come really close. Wouldn't surprise me at all to see them score 50+ again this week, which would put the record in jeopardy next week.

I would guess most of those games faded away once the playoff format took hold. I read where Danville hosted the "first" Youth Bowl vs. Lynch on Thanksgiving Day 1951, which was probably meant to be the start of some sort of tradition, but the first one was apparently the only one. Danville also appeared to have some Thanksgiving games in the '20s and '30s and might have had a mini-rivalry with Richmond during that time.

I'm not ready to call anybody in this region a top-15 team right now.

I've never heard the 12th called the weakest region in the state, and I don't believe it is. However, I think it's probably in the bottom one-fourth of the 16 regions based on overall level of play and on the quality of its champions in recent years. (The 2005 South Laurel team was an obvious exception to the rule.) But South Laurel (and North Laurel to a much lesser extent) were only really strong for the last five years, and South really only raised the profile of the region for a couple of years. The year before South won its first title in 2001, the 12th sent a team with a losing record to the state tourney. The region was considered weak for most of the '90s -- the 12th had only one win at the Sweet 16 during that decade -- and hasn't had a sustained period of strength since the '80s, when Laurel County and Pulaski County dominated and Wayne County rose to power late in the decade. Gchs_uk_9 might be right to a point about the region being hurt by a lack of larger cities, but there other regions without big cities that are clearly better (I'm thinking 2nd, 5th and 13th off the top of my head.) One difference is that those regions and most others have more large schools. Lincoln County is the only school in the 12th aligned in 4-A for football, and most of the schools are medium-sized. The 12th hasn't generally fared well at the state tournament, and it hasn't fared well when it goes outside the region to play the better schools in nearby regions or tournaments like the Fifth Third Classic. I don't think that'll change this year. The region will be highly competitive once again, but that won't make it better. Still not the worst, but way down on the list. Of course, as a former coach once told me, the 12th Region championship means just as much to the team that wins it as any of the other 15. If this were the NCAA, the 12th would be an "automatic bid only" conference, but in this setup it gets the same number of bids as the power conferences, and the trophy is just as shiny.

That logic might work in a poll, but not in a rating system. The win last week doesn't supercede what happened in the previous weeks, it's only added to the mix.

I still don't rate it as worse than going to 6 classes, but it's a solid second. Calling these brackets regions rewrites the actual definition of the word. Then they should just be called quarterfinals instead of regional finals. That'd make things less confusing AND more accurate.

Good to hear you're back behind the mic with what sounds like a terrific setup for all involved. We still miss your broadcasts (and your 60-minute pregame show) back in the Bluegrass. Best of luck to the Celtics.

I re-read the KHSAA playoff regs, and it only says schools should "discuss and agree on" things like allocation of reserved seats and ticket prices. So the KHSAA probably wouldn't get involved unless the two ADs couldn't agree.

Almost every lower seed that won should meet this criteria, right?

The fact that Trimble County is even taking pep buses on the road speaks volumes about how things are changing there. I've been to games at Trimble within the last 4-5 years where the home crowd probably couldn't have filled a bus. Good for them. It'll be interesting to see where this program goes in the next few years.

Schools can use any ball approved by the NFHS in rounds 1-4.

It's true that Southwestern's playoff record is not good, but I'm thinking they may have chased their Boyle demons with their convincing win this season. Boyle might still beat 'em, but I doubt Southwestern views Boyle quite the same way as in years past.

London might have been the Tigers, but you'd better confirm that. That's what the elementary school goes by now.

This is me backing away from that one: :walk:

From By-Law 33: "Probation is a more severe penalty and may be described in the following manner. Normally, an individual or a school on probation is on conditional Association membership, but may engage in their/its regular schedule, sanctioned events, and district, regional and state championships. This is provided that the individual and/or school has taken steps to insure the problem which placed the individual, sport or school on probation has taken steps to alleviate the problem which caused the probation. Additionally, a school on probation may be restricted to limits on contests/scrimmages as may be deemed appropriate." Even though it doesn't appear to carry a lot of weight, the KHSAA lists it just one step short of suspension.