Master of the Hardwood

Breathitt/Wolfe Jackson City/Riverside Another reason for seeding, two best teams play first round, not good for the regional tourney.

The regional level really is not a draw. You get to be opposite your other team in your district, so a couple schools get drawn out and the others get placed in where they need to be. If your going to draw, then don't put any stipulations in it, if you draw out the team you just beat in the district, that is how it should be. Either way I still hate the draw, we could come up with a way to seed the Sweet 16 too and that would make for a great tourney. The best teams would end up getting a better game for their effort during the year. Seed in districts, draw out the region, and seed the sweet 16, that is what I myself would like to see happen. Would make for better games in the 2nd,3rd, and 4th rounds at Rupp. First rd games would be boring probably but the rest should be pretty good.

Just thought I would get started a couple weeks early. Here are my picks on who will make the Regional tourney and how it could be drawn out. 53rd #4 Seed Letcher upsets JBS #2 Seed Knott beats #3 Cordia Letcher/Knott rematch in the finals with Letcher being the winner of the district. Letcher has had JBS down both games they played by 10+ late in the game and blew the lead both times, but I think the 3rd time will be the charm. Also the Cordia/Knott game next week could have some impact on how the seeding may change. If Cordia wins, I think them and Knott still stay #2 and #3, but if Knott wins it may move Letcher up to #3 and put Cordia to #4. That would change things a lot. Then I would have to say JBS/Letcher out of this District. 54th Perry Central/Hazard with Hazard being the winner of the district Perry will play Leslie and Hazard will play Buckhorn, should be 2 good games, but the Commodores and Bulldogs will play in the region for this district. 55th Breathitt draws Wolfe, again 2 best teams playing first round. Jackson city plays Riverside. Wolfe as the winner and Jackson city as loser in this district 56th Estill/Powell should go to the region with Estill being the winner Estill will play Owsley as the #1 and #4 seeds and Powell and Lee will play as the #3 and #2 teams. Since this district is at Powell, I'm going with the upset in this one. Both the games they have played this year were buzzer beaters and each won on their home floors, giving the advanatage to the Pirates. Lee also does not play very well away from home. Regional tourney possible draw for first round Hazard-winner 54th Powell-Loser 56th Letcher-winner 53rd Jackson City-Loser 55th Estill- winner 56th Perry- Loser 54th Wolfe-winner 55th Knott-Loser 53rd Possible semi's Hazard/Letcher Perry/Knott Possible finals Hazard/Knott Heck of a lot of tournament possiblilities, this is just one of them! Never know what will happen during tournament time. Good luck to all teams in the region and good luck in your districts.

Leslie vs Perry Central Hazard vs Buckhorn Hazard/Perry Central draw opposite 2 years in a row after drawing each other 4 years in a row. Crazy stuff, that is why I believe teams should seed based on your district game during the year. Makes them worth playing.

Who would be next in line for the job? Would they try to lure Coach Noble back from Owsley County? He did a great job at SMS their in Jackson.

Looks like another good one in Beattyville. Lee continues to play well at home. We will see how well they play away from the friendly confines in Beattyville when they come to Hazard Saturday night to take on the Bulldogs in a rematch of the All A 1 pt game. Was anyone at this Magoffin game? Give us some details, we all can't be everywhere and see all the good games.

Just don't understand what happened to Jackson City. They have some good talent on this team, but just don't seem to be meshed together like they have been in the past. I know they lost Coach Hall and he was a good motivator, that has a lot to do with it I would say. Don't know the new coach from Morgan County, but when a team has different coaches every year, it's hard to really get together and play like they are capable of. Davidson is a great player and really expected a lot more out of the Tigers this year.

Listened to the first half on WKCB 107.1 and it sounded like one team came to play and the other team didn't. Letcher seemed like they out hustled them the whole first half and got every loose ball and rebound. Knott made silly turnovers and didn't really sound like they were doing much on the offensive end. Letcher hit some 3's and Knott really didn't make anything the first half. Seemed like Knott just wanted to fight and push around, there were some Technical fouls called for pushing and things like that, it seemed to calm everyone down, I think Letcher was up 17 or so at the half. Seen the final score on WYMT, must of been a better second half, Knott must of made a run and made a game out of it. Guess I should of listened to the rest of it, Any Stats??????

The fans and players deserve to play the game. If a coach refuses to leave and there is someone there to help him leave, that is what should be done in my opinion. I paid my $5 bucks to get into some games that were called with a lot of time left in them because a coach wouldn't leave and the officials didn't get any help from much security at the game and I don't think it's fair to everyone in the gym to let a coach cause this much of a problem for everyone, when you could simply have him/her removed.

The Defense is what is doing it for them. They have finally bought into Coach Hatcher's defensive game plans and realize they have to play defense first and the offense will take care of itself. The did finally start hitting some shots in their offensive sets which has helped a lot, but as long as they play the defense like they are supposed too, it will make it difficult for teams to score against them.

This game is scheduled to be played at Hays Lewis Elementary in Leslie county. Due to the fire in their gym, they have had to play some of their games here because the other gyms they have also been using are being used on certain nights with everyone's busy schedules.

This should be a good game at Perry tonight. Breathitt and Perry both have had their problems with losing players and having trouble scoring. Perry got a big win last night against JBS and it will be interesting to see if that gives them the confidence to continue building their program back to where it is used to being. Should be a close one, I'll have to go with Perry at home in this one, 52-47.

This was a very entertaining game over at Letcher the first time they played. This will be a great match up of 2 good teams in the 14th region. Letcher is playing well and has had some tough close losses. Right now they are the #4 seed in a tough district and need this win to have a chance to move up to the #3 seed away from the first round game with JBS. I see this game coming down to a last shot just like last time. Knott will take this one at home 67-65.

I'm sure Coach Hatcher could tell you from Perry Central, this happened to him with 3:28 left in the game at Bryan Station over Christmas break. Didn't leave, ref signed the book, game over. Crazy stuff. There was security in the building though, all they had to do was ask the nice police officer to escort them out the easy way or the hard way, if no security, sign the book and get the heck out of their.

JBS was idle for 8 days and you could sure tell it, they were very flat. Making stupid turnovers, not hitting shots and not playing with any kind of heart. Tate Cox played for the first time in 3 weeks and didn't look very good, only had 11 pts. Clark Stepp finished with only 16, but shot 300 times. J/K Perry Central had a great game plan and executed it to perfection. Chris Noble led all scorers with 19. Congrats to the Commodores for getting a much needed big win, they have been close all season long and have lost a lot of close games by 1,2,and 3 points. Looks like they are going to try and make some noise in this region yet. The draw for the 54th district will be fun to watch. If Perry and Hazard can draw opposite, they both could do a lot of damage to everyone else in the region.

I have heard that Coach Whitaker's demands were too much for Perry Centrals pocket books, but if hind sight is 20/20, I'm positive that they would go back and give him anything that he asked for to get the talent that those 2 young kids have.

My apologies, just trying to give bb king a hard time. All in fun, sorry if I made anyone mad..

J.B. Holmes sure played well this past weekend again at FBR. He must like that place. Sure thought he was going to blow it, till he made those last 2 putts. Very proud of him. Would sure like to see him in Louisville.

E'bay is the place to shop for everything. I got my Slingshot irons for $148, a steal, regular $799. Got my Sasquatch Driver for $124, regular $350, and got a bright yellow and black Nike tour limited edition back that they only made 400 of for $189, regular $400. Got a top Nike set and bag for under $450. Should of cost me about $1500.... Best thing is the driver increased my distance and accuracy. You have to know nothing Tiger plays with is going to be just average. Just wish I could find some Pro V1's to go with them real cheap, they are still the best balls in golf. IMO

Just seems like your "Opinions" always seem to come with excuses for why this and that happened. Yes you said they won fair and square, but also in the same post you mention 1-10 excuses of why that happened. Yes this is just an opinion board, just not a lot of people agree to much with your opinion's it seems like!

Try to keep up with everything I can on all the teams around this region. Never know who will want to know what is going on with who. Some of the people that can't make it out to all the games has to get the info somewhere. It's not hard to get the info on this region though, gossip travels from Jenkins to Estill county in a matter of seconds, funny stuff. Gotta love mountain basketball.

7 Rose Hill 5 Cumberland 3 Knox Central 2 Prestonsburg 1 Pike Central TB: Rose Hill

Congrats Professor, guess I should of had more confidence in Paintsville, they can play.

No, not a chance. He is gone for good this time. Him and Coach Hatcher just didn't mesh too well together, so they ended the relationship.

Looks like Hazard/Jbs could come out of the 14th and make some noise at rupp. They could either one make it to Saturday morning with the show down with Elliott/Rose Hill or Mason. Should be a great saturday morning game. Lot of work to do before that though! I could see Paintsville/Bryan Station and Hazard/Mason in the saturday morning session.