The Professor

I’m probably a lot older than you, so I can give you my perspective. I have been watching district tournaments since the early 1960s and they are very meaningful tournaments in my opinion. I know my small county school pretty much knew in most years that we would not win the region but the community alway would get pumped up for the district, to try to win that championship. And most districts have awards that have a lot of tradition. In the 56th we have an MVP award that dates back to 1979. I for one would hate to lose the tradition of the districts, which probably goes back to the late 1920s.

What would be the purpose of holding the statewide 64 district tournaments??? An everyone-gets-in region would make districts meaningless.

I don’t think he would leave MoCo but Jason Mays is a graduate of Scott County High and Georgetown College. I agree that with their new school and gym that it would be an enticing job. It may take a few years to rebuild the program.

I don’t totally understand the format but what I don’t like about it is that it basically eliminates the need for district tournaments. Why even play a district tournament if everyone is going to be playing in the region regardless? Just have one big regional tournament and seed it with some kind of ratings formula, which I don’t like either, and come up with a champion. I think I like the way we have been doing it for decades. If it ain’t broken there’s no need for a fix.

No, I don’t think he did.

27 points. Simply put his team on his back and carried them through. In the three regional games he scored 96 points. He had a couple of awesome two handed dunks on drives to the basket through defense. As a 6’3 guard his vertical hops are great! And he didn’t just do it with dunks. He had pull-up midrange jumpers, 3s, assists, rebounds….just all around solid game. Being from the a neighbor county I have observed Breathitt basketball since the early 1960s and in my opinion Austin Sperry is the most athletic and talented guard that’s ever played for the Bobcats. And they have had numerous great players who have played D-1 over the years.

I agree. I’m not a fan of the “Super Regional”. The regional tournament setup has worked just fine for eleven decades.

I wish I had known that. ?? I would have picked the Lakers in my contest.

Speaking of a region 1 vs region 16 Sweet 16 matchup, it’s almost the same distance from Ashland Ky to Washington DC as it is to Murray Ky from Ashland. Just some useless trivia with zero to do with the Rupp game. ?

Darn if I didn’t miss this game badly. Picked Marshall in my local Sweet 16 contest. Marshall had defeated Calloway 17 in Dec. then lost by 5. And lost in the district by 9. So I figured Marshall with only those 2 losses on the season would prevail in the most important of the four games, the regional championship game. But Nope!

Hazard is more balanced and deeper than Breathitt. But Breathitt has the region’s best player, in my opinion, in Austin Sperry and the Bobcats go as he goes. I believe he has scored 36 and 33 points in the first two games of the tournament. Extremely athletic guard, who can score in bunches and can jump to the rafters. Hazard has the 6’4 Evin Eversole, a stout built interior player with toughness around the rim, and the sharp shooting guard Seth Caudill. But they have several more kids who can go off and score like crazy. Against Ashland in a 76-69 win at Hazard in December guard Daulton Combs made seven 3s and I think five of them were consecutive without a miss. Hazard is no doubt the favorite but if they let their guard down the least bit and Sperry is not contained the Bobcats could squeak out an upset. However, Bulldog coach Al Holland has taken three schools to ten Sweet 16’s and has had the favorite to win the region the last two years and has been derailed by Breathitt in 2023 and 2024. I have a feeling he will be more than prepared and have his kids focused. For Breathitt to win it has to be the perfect storm. They have already lost to the Bulldogs four times this season. It will be interesting to see how this game unfolds. If Hazard jumps out to a big lead early it will put Breathitt in a bad position but if the Bobcats can keep it close it could get interesting.

Knott Central Lady Patriots advance on to Rupp Arena for the third time in five years. Could a mod transfer this to the girls forum. My mistake, lol. Or just delete it.

The Mountain Lions represented themselves well against a very good South Laurel team. David vs Goliath.

By what I’m reading here of the way that game ended it was just destined for Lawrence County to win this game.

Too much Austin Sperry today. The athletic guard scored on jumpers, acrobatic drives and dunks. 33 points and I’m sure double digit rebounds. Plus numerous assists.

?

Breathitt (22-8) will be the favorite but as seen in their last game if the Powell (17-11) players are locked in to what they want to do they can pull the upset. They will definitely need to make several 3s and need a big game out of their best player Bryson Edwards. And Tucker Ramsey, their best 3 shooter, needs to be making shots. They will have to find ways to slow the region’s best player, Breathitt 6’3 senior guard Austin Sperry. He had 36 points against Perry Central in their opening round win. He is strong, athletic, skilled, and simply can invent ways to score.

Estill County basically fumbled this game away. As Strikeout mentioned, two turnovers at such a crucial time in the game with a 4 point lead. One was on a baseline in-bound pass. I believe the Engineers had somewhere around 24 turnovers.

Their high school enrollment is around 550 and it would be a nice job for a coach who is totally invested in developing a program from elementary on up. Not to say that coach Parrot wasn’t invested, he was a good coach. But he kind of got sidetracked this season when two starters transferred at the beginning of the year, one to Knox Central and the other to North Laurel, and it was a big hit to the General’s chances for what many thought would be a solid season.

Some were predicting this was a possibility but I don’t think many actually thought it would happen. The Mountain Lions have roared!

Breathitt’s all time leading scorer, Austin Sperry, had 36 for the Bobcats.

Powell shot 4 technical free throws. But they had the game in control by that time anyway. They opened up the OT with a couple of 3s.

Is there a streaming service that will be carrying the Brossart-MoCo game? MoCo is down one starter tonight. That’s not good going into the first round of the regional tournament.

I’m not an official but I doubt there are many referees across the state that would have made that call. I’ve never seen it made in a game and it’s probably violated countless times. Officials just don’t call it and to end a team’s season that way is sad.

St Xavier is on a mission this season—all the way to Rupp.