The Professor

I’d would liked to have seen Owsley County’s Addison Terry made the team. She’s one of the state’s top returning juniors in my opinion. Of course I am more than a little biased being from Owsley, lol. 
 

Update:

I’ll add this edit. Addison is a sophomore this year and not eligible. I wasn’t thinking. 

Someone give a few details about this school. Is it a new public school? Is it a private? What’s the high school enrollment? Basically I’m just wondering. I had never heard of the school before seeing this thread. 

Personally I don’t think the NCAA will allow the transfer portal and NIL to stay exactly like it is now. I believe they will sometime in the near future pass a rule that will limit the number of times a player can enter the portal to one.
As for the NIL I don’t know how they will address that issue. I’m not too familiar with it but do schools and players have limits or caps to how much can be spent or earned? If not it will become like MLB where the big market franchises with money dominate the sport in most years. 

No one seems to be commenting too much about the effects the transfer portal and NIL have had on mid-major universities in sports but in my opinion it has pretty much destroyed their chances of building sports programs with any kind of continuity like they have in the past. All of us can think of stars from the past that excelled at mid-majors and stayed through their senior season in football and basketball. But that has changed. Morehead State two years ago lost a very good 6’10 player to Auburn is just one of many examples. Players all over the nation are jumping from the mid-majors to the power conference schools. 
As Bob Dylan’s song says, “The times they are a-changing”, and for the mid-majors it’s not a good change in my opinion.

46 minutes ago, DragonFire said:

Jason Frakes said he declined an invitation. 

That’s a big loss for the team. He would have helped immensely. 
And there’s no players on the team east of I-75. He would have been the lone 606 representative. 

South Carolina was just too tall for Iowa. They owned the boards and blocked or altered way too many shot attempts by the Hawkeyes. 
I sure hope Coach Brooks is able to bring in some talented size to the UK program. That’s something that has been lacking just about every year and it’s difficult to compete in the SEC without it. 

On 4/5/2024 at 9:08 AM, FlyPattern said:

I believe this will be an internal hire for the Pirates as the middle school coach will be brought up to the high school level. They just graduated a good senior class and have a similar class or two coming up he has coached and had success with. 
 

Big Joe and the locals in Stanton are perplexed why the Pirates never contend for the region title while being one of the 3 largest schools within the 14th region. 

Powell County has 649 students grades 9-12

Estill County has 646 grades 9-12.

Almost identical enrollments. 
Perry Central and Letcher Central are both larger but not by a great amount. 
I agree, both these 56th district schools should be a competitive factor every year in basketball in the 14th region. They definitely have the numbers. They just need the player development, which starts in the lower grades. 

Huge blocking foul on UConn with seconds remaining and them down 1 point. 

Hazard is an easy pick as the region favorite next year. They return everyone from a 27-6 team. They probably had the best team from top to bottom this year but Breathitt was able to squeeze the Bulldogs for 2 of their 6 losses. The two teams were 2-2 in the games they played with Hazard’s 2 losses to the Bobcats both overtime games. They matched up pretty good with Hazard and basketball can be a game of matchups. Hazard beat eventual region winner Perry Central all three games they played. The Commodores lose Kizer Sloan but have all other players back. Breathitt graduates Isaac Bellamy and Jaxon Hamilton but return Sperry, Terry, and Gross. I had heard some rumblings that Sperry might transfer to a prep school but that as of late that may not occur. 

UConn’s blood has become more blue than the celebrated Blue Bloods of the college game. They have joined the ranks. I don’t think anyone can beat them again this year. They will have 6 national titles, tying North Carolina. 

Two traditional football powers playing for a trip to the Final Four. As Dylan said in his song, “the times they are a-changing.”

7 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

UK fans don't want to hear this, but if they want to have hope for UK next year, they need to hope Duke goes far. Duke is the only team left that is playing any freshmen. We know Cal's model is to play freshmen even though it hasn't worked the last 5 years. If a UK fan wants to have hope for a deep tourney run next year, it would be helpful to see the one team left that plays freshmen go deep.

Sorry, I can’t ever hope that Duke goes far in men’s basketball. 😁 
I’ll just take a chance on it not affecting Kentucky in any way.

I believe, and one will never know, that if Kentucky could have figured out Oakland’s zone and also kept their 25 year old accountant from having the game of his life, they would have gone deep into this tournament, maybe even won it. When I see some of the remaining teams that made the Sweet 16 they don’t look like they have any special advantages over UK when the Cats were at the top of their game. It’s sad it ended like it did. 

Duke’s big guy Filipowski is allowed too much liberty with his game inside the paint. He made a basket last night by literally lowering his shoulder and pushing the defender backwards. The tv guys said, “Great move. He cleared a space for himself and scored. He’s putting the team on his shoulders.”

No, he’s putting his “shoulders” into the defender to clear that space. That is an offensive foul every time. Or it is unless you have DUKE written on the front of your jersey. He does it all the time and gets by with it. The defensive player is put at a disadvantage. 

It’s always a good day when the Tar Heels lose.

They had the 2017 national championship gift wrapped and handed to them with some shady officiating in the UK, Arkansas, and Oregon games. I haven’t liked them since they held the ball on Kentucky in the regional finals in 1977. Overrated Dean Smith (two titles in 35 years with NBA talent every year) single handily led to the adoption of the shot clock in college basketball. 

I don’t think anyone can defeat the Huskies in this tournament. 

When East and West Carter consolidate in a couple years with an enrollment of over 1300 they will be the biggest school in the region. They are most definitely going to be a new power player in the 16th in all sports. 

2 hours ago, ElitePatriot said:

I always thought the right coach could turn this program into a power in the 14th. 

Dave Fraley did just that in the late 1960s until he left for Pulaski County in 1978. They were a regional contender every year and won the championship in 1974, defeating Breathitt County and Hazard in the semifinals at Breathitt. 

Powell County is the 3rd largest high school enrollment in the 14th region, about 650 students. That’s a nice number from which to develop a good program for an energetic coach. 

On 3/24/2024 at 3:44 PM, Strawberrybarrow250 said:

Cooper will be very good again next year and a definite top 10 team for sure.  I would imagine them and Newport will be battling it out for the 9th region again.  Cov Cath will have some good guard play, but unless they get a transfer will really be missing a big man.

I felt bad for Newport this year. You could see they had an awesome team but without their best player in the lineup (he tried to play some but it was obvious he couldn’t cut it with his groin injury) they were fighting an uphill battle. If any one of Lyon County’s main players——Perry, Riddick or Shoulders, had been absent from their games they would not have been the champions. Most teams in the tournament could say the same thing—-take out their best player and they’re not going very far. 

Posters are raking the superintendent over the hot coals on Facebook and X/Twitter. He won’t survive this is my prediction. Just made his job 10X more difficult going forward. Rodney Woods means so much to that county.
I remember him back in the day when he was a burr in the saddle to Adolph Rupp’s teams (Rupp didn’t recruit him out of old Lone Jack High in Bell County) when he played guard at Tennessee. 

What are the chances that Boyle and Danville consolidate in the future? A lot of city schools around the state have done that over the decades such as Harrodsburg, Maysville, Salyersville,  Monticello, etc.

On 3/24/2024 at 4:29 PM, futurecoach said:

At this point I know it would hurt pulling the offers.  However, you do what it takes to win next year. If they get back to winning next year that will help in itself, and wouldn’t then hurt the recruiting. 
 

As for Bradshaw and Edwards. I think both are very talented and showed glimpses, and would be very good if they came back. Theiro didn’t look like much his freshman season, and much better this year. Nick Richards didn’t look like he had much of anything especially his freshman year. Then became one of the best big men in the country. Then even someone like Hopkins didn’t look like much. Then his sophomore year after a year of experience, looked much better. IMO it just takes some of these talented guys a year to get use to the college level after having it come easy in high school. 
 

Wagner may go, but I even think he may want to have a better year after having a disappointing freshman year overall considering his expectations. 

IMO Wagner was giving a lot of freedom this season to show what he could do and he did have a few good games but overall I think his season was disappointing. He is not ready for the next level, although he will probably enter the draft. I believe he will be disappointed in draft position when it is held. 

Hazard has their entire roster returning next year from a 26-7 season. The Bulldogs were actually the best team from the 14th to represent the region at Rupp but Breathitt County put together one of their best outings of the season at the right time and defeated them in overtime at Powell County in the regional tournament semifinals.
They had beaten eventual regional winner Perry Central three times during the season. 

On 3/24/2024 at 11:51 PM, futurecoach said:

That was a fun game to watch. Taylor picked a bad game to have his worst shooting game of the season, or else they probably win. 

If he could have simply imagined that the jersey lettering said Kentucky instead of Houston he would have sizzled the nets.