Henry Steele

Wasn't there a thread leading up to the Holmes-Elizabethtown game a few weeks ago comparing Holmes athleticism to Etown's? I thought there were some Hardin County posters that were talking about Etown's as being athletic. If that's the case, since Btown beat Etown in the regional finals by 2, does that give us northern Kentuckians an expectation that Bardstown is similar to Etown (which Holmes handily defeated)?

I don't know about who earned what, but isn't he/his family worth in the hundreds of millions?

No matter what the caliber of play for LexCath has been recently (and they did lose to CovCath earlier in the year), it's hard to imagine a blowout when you've got 2 guys like Edmonson and Hopson on the other side. I guess we'll see, but I expect a close game if Edmonson and Hopson show up.

Not to highjack the thread, but that was the year after Paul Andrews hit a half court shot to win the state championship for Laurel County I think, which was the year after Simon Kenton won the Ninth Region's only state championship - those were two consecutive pretty historic state tournaments (three to those of us in northern Ky).

Did Carlisle County have any size to play with the likes of those teams? Was Cliff Hagan's boy, Kip, on that Henry Clay team?

Now that the regional is decided, is there consensus on the Ninth Region POY? Henderson, McGraw or Sorrell? I'll start with the updated case for Henderson - he was clearly the leader and go to guy for the dominant team in the region - best player on the best team. He put up a much needed 30 on CovCath in a winning effort in the district finals, and then was selected the MVP in the Regional. I anticipate all the discussion about PPG and RPG but IMO the bottom line is this - when Holmes needed a huge night from Arrez, against easily the second best team in the region, he delivered. His points and rebounds totals in blowouts, like the two lopsided regional games, for example, are pretty meaningless. If the argument is that Arrez doesn't deserve it is because he didn't put up the numbers that Sorrell or McGraw did, then he really is just being penalized for being blessed with more talented teammates and the best team. When he HAD to be the man, though, against CovCath in the District finals, he WAS the man. I will take his performance that night and compare it to Sorrell's performance against CovCath in the districts (28 points in a 10 point loss) and McGraw's performance against CovCath in the regional (25 points in a loss). Arrez answered the call, and his team won. How is he NOT the POY?

Someone posted in another thread recently the breakdown of Ninth Region titles by school, and I think it put CovCath's total at 7 - which, if correct, means that when you take away the 5 in a row from the late 60's, that leaves two other than that - presumably 2004 and 2006. Is that right - that CovCath has two regional titles in the last 37 years? If so, how many losses in the regional finals in that span?

I know it doesn't answer the question, but Willie Schlarman was pretty close (Highlands as player 82 and 83) and at Brossart as a coach - and they used to be Ninth Region, after all.

Thanks. I also looked for a recap of the Trotwood Madison game and couldn't find one. It looks like that was the closest the Birds came to an L - was it close or was the final score deceiving?

I need some help on background of the 15-0 state champs - how many guys did they have that went both ways? And how many players out of each class (soph, jr., sr.) started and how many out of each class were on the varsity roster? Thanks to anybody with answers.

Wiithin an angstrom? Been a long time - that's .000000001, right? I haven't been keeping track, but I'm fairly certain that's the first time any number had to be written in scientific notation in a boys forum thread.

"Because we got a great deal on the used fire escapes, that's why!"

"Hi y'all and welcome to the Spears family compound. Now that Britney is back and Jamie Lynn is expecting, we will need to add a double wide and at least one more flight of stairs before shooting can begin on our new reality show "Disney Princesses: The Next Generation".

His call - he's got the chops to play, and I'd like to see him in blue. There are only a couple of things I can think of in this world that beat playing basketball for UK, and they have nothing to do with sports. I would hope that northern Kentucky would collectively rally behind him trying to make it at UK. Mark Krebs' story and journey to play for the Cats is truly inspirational. Adding another chapter by Greg McGraw would be great. But I think he could play at a lot of other places if he was ready to try the walk on route, and I think the path would be easier and the reward (i.e. playing time) greater somewhere else. I hope he has a successful career at the next level - I think he's earned it by perservering through the injuries.

As an all-around player and strictly from a talent perspective, McGraw is several steps ahead of Krebs was coming out of high school. Having said that, I am hearing a lot of chatter about McGraw walking on, or Stepp walking on, etc., but I think it would do some good for all of those people talking about these guys walking on to read the article about Mark Krebs journey to make it as a walk on (I think it was in the Enquirer a few weeks ago - anybody got a link?). Making it as a walk-on at UK requires some modicum of talent, to be sure, but it demands a work ethic and manic "against-the-odds" type motivation that not a lot of kids have, particularly those that have been stars in high school. That is not in any way a comment about the guys I mentioned - McGraw in particular battled like a warrior just to get back on the court after his injury- I just think it is the rare kid who can go from being a star, the focal point of the school and team, to a situation where they're the tackling dummy that may never play. For any kid that can endure that, and has the right mindset, I say bravo and go get 'em - I for one would love to see another northern Kentucky as a Wildcat. For whatever its worth.

Only saw the last few minutes, but out of McGraw's 25, did I see 8 or 10 that came in the last minute and a half?

Great background. If I can add a couple of additional insights (that I am sure are shared by many others out there) Mr. Shields was very visible to the 8-14 year old set in the early and mid 70's as the referee in the Covington Recreation League at Turners on Saturday mornings and as the conductor of baseball and basketball clinics at Meinken Field and Latonia Elementary back before every college and high school coach conducted summer clinics (Mike Listerman refereed at the Kenton County Boys Club). Youth leagues and summer clinics might seem insignificant, but they gave Coach Shields a lot of exposure, access and familiarity to guys named Beal, Draud, Blasingame, Terry, etc. Sure he is well known as the winningest coach in northern Kentucky history, but he was really involved in northern Kentucky basketball at all levels in a way that few others have been, which might help explain his success.

I'd say that's probably about right, but he's got better guard skills than are apparent right now. The end of last year, when he wasn't doing the inside scoring, he showed a good outside stroke and handled the ball more than he has this year. Last year when Jefferson got in foul trouble, Arrez and Hill split the ball handling duty. This year, Avery and the kid off the bench bring it up. I think he's got better "2" skills than a lot of people realize, but even with that his size is tough to sell as a D1 "2".

Thanks. Good job doing the research.

I agree that Holmes is better, and I agree that the venue doesn't matter much. Even when Holmes is better, though, somehow CovCath finds a way to hang in there and be there at the end. I did not think Holmes played particularly well last night defensively or offensively. The only thing working at the offensive end was Henderson takin it to the hole and jumping over people. I think that component will be there every night. R. Johnson did not play as well as he has been, and defensively, other than Henderson, I didn't see a lot of heat on the ball. On the other hand, CovCath got white hot when they had to in the final minutes. If they bury 3 after 3 after 3 like they did last night at the end of regulation, they can stay with anybody. We'll see what happens next week.

OG - Don't know if I have an evil twin named Jemry or if you just need to check the alignment of your right hand on the homerow, but assuming it was me, Henry Steele, that was being quoted, I think it has been a great run of games in this rivalry. Probably the only thing that will keep there from being another chapter is Highlands - we'll see tomorrow which of the Covington schools has to deal with the Birds. Just out of curiosity, how did you check the historical home wins data at khsaa.org?

cancelled

Arrez Henderson is the real deal. He was the only consistent offensive presence for Holmes tonight, and even defensively I did not think the Bulldog pressure bothered CovCath much EXCEPT when Henderson took over from Avery and manned up on Bondick. Up until that point, CovCath ran their offense, got some good looks, and shot the ball okay, but did miss some open shots. After Arrez moved onto Bondick (did Henley wait to do that so Arrez didn't get into foul trouble? It was probably the right thing to do, since Arrez did pick up two fouls while he was guarding Bondick, and could have picked up his fourth when he ran hard into a pick) I definitely saw Bondick's comfort level drop, and there were several turnovers. Bottom line for Holmes is Arrez is a great defender, but when he plays aggressively he runs the risk of foul trouble and I don't think Holmes beats CovCath or Highlands next week if he's watching from the bench. They need his offense, and they also need their other athletes to pick up their defensive intensity - outside of Henderson I didn't see a lot of the ballyhooed frenetic defense tonight. I have to give CovCath credit, though. When it came to crunch time tonight, down 7 late in the game, they caught fire. Shover was huge late in the game. On the downside for CovCath, though, they played Holmes well and took them into overtime, BUT that was with them executing their gameplan (keeping the score in the 50's in regulation) and shooting 60 % from behind the arc. Can CovCath possibly play any better than that?

Am I right about NCC being ranked no. 1 and only having 1 loss that year going into the Sweet 16?

If that is the team that beat NCC in 1984, that was a HUGE upset; the NCC team was ranked first in the state for a large portion of the season. I think they only had 1 loss, then they got to Lexington and things went haywire and they got knocked out in the first round. I just didn't recall who it was that knocked them out.