KY Buckeye

BOYS Rank-School FPV Rcd TP Pvs 1. Mason Co. (9) 19-3 133 1 2. Lex. Bryan Station (4) 19-1 118 2 3. Lexington Catholic (1) 19-3 112 3 4. Holmes - 18-1 79 7 5. Scott Co. - 13-9 67 4 T6. Muhlenberg North - 19-2 44 9 T6. Lou. Jeffersontown - 16-3 44 8 8. Lou. Eastern - 18-3 31 9. Lou. Male - 14-3 28 6 10. Elliott Co. - 17-2 19 5 Others receiving votes: Lou. Ballard 15. Lou. DuPont Manual 11. Lex. Henry Clay 9. George Rogers Clark 8. Hazard 7. University Heights 7. Lex. Paul Dunbar 7. Paintsville 6. June Buchanan 4. Lincoln Co. 3. Henderson Co. 3. Shelby Valley 3. Pineville 3. Adair Co. 2. South Laurel 2. Marshall Co. 2.

This comment absolutely hit the nail on the head, whereas... This one couldn't possibly be more wrong. You have certain writers, as mentioned earlier, who want to be out covering games because being out around the sport, the kids and the coaches is the one part of the job they truly love, yet are forced to stay in to do somebody else's job. You have writers covering games for free on their day off just because they love it and because they take pride in the quality of the coverage. Unfortunately, said writers all too often get nothing but negativity not only at work but on places like here, all because of things the writers themselves have no control over. I'm going to leave this one alone now, because I've just about reached the extent of what I'm willing to say on a public forum. If anyone has a real interest or concern about the sports coverage, I'd be more than happy to talk by PM.

Well played, good sir.

Bracken beat them last year in Brooksville, the last win in Falmouth, I'm not sure of.

Wow.

Being fairly close to the situation (and we'll leave it at that), I'm usually one to defend the Ledger coverage when warranted, however, I'll also give criticism where it's due, and the coverage has admittedly been garbage for the last few weeks. While I hate to tiptoe around the issue, I'll just say it's kind of a situation where the writers have their hands tied. I wouldn't rule out a lot of turnover fairly soon. To respond to a few comments as best I can: I probably have more first hand knowledge than anyone and no game results are ever left out that get in before deadline. The only exceptions I can think of are a few cell phone calls that have been broken up and the occasional fax from manchester that cuts off half of the stats. It was a "news" story. Really, at the time, nobody in Ledger's sports department could believe they did it either. Speechless. Making a writer who already had their stuff packed to go to Lexington stay home and write it from TV because help was needed in the office is at best unconscionable. Take my word, said writer was more upset about the pathetic story that had to go in the paper than any Mason County fan could be. Now these are a couple I don't get. If any area of the coverage really suffers when they're shorthanded, it's Ohio hoops. There have been something like 3 ohio games in there this year, all of which were pretty big: Georgetown/Ripley (local rivalry and G'Town's first game following state championship), Manchester/Peebles (up and coming team vs. one with a freshman averaging 24 ppg) and Eastern/Georgetown (probably best two girls teams in the area). Any other games mentioned have just been a matter of scores getting called in.

55-53 Lewis Both teams had chances to win, handful of turnovers both ways in the last 2:00. Dayton had an open look at 3 in the last seconds but missed the shot and the follow.

It usually gets on my nerves to hear people criticize officials but it's probably warranted in this one. I'd say I see on average 50-60 games a year and come away feeling like the officials didn't get the job done in about three or four. Well, this was one of them. Like somebody said above, neither team really benefited, just terribly inconsistent. Somebody could get clotheslined going to the rim with no call, then a couple minutes later somebody would get called 30 feet from the basket for just playing good D. I can't get inside anybody's head, but you almost got the impression that they knew they blew a bunch of calls and were trying to make up for it, but just got out of hand.

The LI story finishes on the next page, as does the Deming/Campbell story. It's just a mistake that says "See page 8" instead of 11.

Sooner or later, everybody is going to realize these guys are for real. Their defense doesn't get nearly the credit they deserve. Anyway, I'll leave you with these, which after watching them in person, I don't think are out of the realm of possibillity... UC, Best team in Ohio? UC, 2nd best in the Big East?

Oregon State's D was good last night. Other than a beautifully executed fake where the RB got wide open and scored on a 50 yard TD pass, all UC's points came either on or as a direct result of defense and special teams. Before they got the long TD pass, they had something like 120 total yards in the last minute of the 3rd quarter. UC's touchdowns came on a blocked punt, a run from the two after a fumbled punt and a 31 yard drive set up by an interception. One of the field goals was set up by an interception and the other was a 55 yarder. I thought the UC defense would be good but seeing them in person for the first time last night, I was thoroughly impressed. If the offense (read: offensive line) can cut down on the mistakes, they can be very good this year.

After only one week, especially one where most of the top teams are facing inferior competition, there aren't many guys whose stock is dramatically changing one way or the other. The only guys I really see being affected much by this past week are Henne and Hart, who despite putting up pretty good numbers, will have that loss hanging over them all season. I guess you could say a few guys who were afterthoughts like Tashard Choice, Matt Ryan or Demarco Murray have at least put themselves on the radar after some pretty good performances.

While Michigan losing to a 1-AA squad (albeit a very good one) is a worse loss than ND getting beat by a pretty good georgia Tech team, UM is still in a lot better shape going forward this year. ND is a mess rirght now and will be lucky to get to .500 whereas Michigan is still a very good football team that just had a one week meltdown. Wisconsin is probably now the frontrunner, but Michigan is still going to be right there in the mix for the Big 10, along with OSU and PSU.

Kent State should be one of the better MAC squads out there and not a complete walkover, but if UK is anything like they should be, the Flashes shouldn't be a problem. UK 37 Kent 21

Nice poll idea. I think it comes down to what they do with Purdue and Michigan State. I'm thinking they split those two, but it really could go either way.

This game was kind of a mixed bag if you're a Buckeye fan. On the bright side, you have to be pumped that the question marks turned out well but concerned that what should have been strengths looked awful. Boeckman looked pretty sharp and made good decisions, though he got away with a couple dangerous balls. The young WRs, especially Robiskie, showed everything we thought they were capable of. The defense did what was expexted of them, all while getting a bunch of young guys in there early and often. Saine was the most impressive running back, which is good and bad. On the flipside... You have to be seriously concerned when you can't run the ball with Chris Wells on a team who your line outweighs by an average of 50 pounds. Even more disturbing was that you could tell the coaching staff was going out of their way to establish the run game, especially on those goalline situations, and got absolutely nowhere. I don't like what that may mean when the Big 10 season rolls around. Also, I know Robert Rose and some good young guys are waiting in the wings but I can't believe nobody is making a bigger deal about the loss of Lawrence Wilson. Overall though, you don't really want to nitpick a 30 point win too much, especially considering what happened elsewhere.

While I do think this is Lloyd's last year (and would have been regardless of outcome) the idea of running him out during the season is a bit far fetched. Really, it's not like you see a ton of college coaches getting canned during the regular season, and the ones who do aren't guys who have won a NC and have been somewhat sucessful over a long period of time at that school. Especially when they still have every opportunity in the world to win a Big 10 championship. The guy's earned the opportunity to finish out the year and step down on his own terms. I'd be very surprised if it went down any differently.

If you read the thread, that's what all the discussion is about. Last night, when the thread was started, KHSAA had Bracken as the winner, but they changed it this morning. The Herald Leader, WKYT and and the AP also had Bracken as winning 48-12, though they could have all just got that information from the first (and possibly erroneous?) result on the KHSAA site. We've been trying nto confirm one way or the other all day but have yet to hear from anyone who was actually at this game.

Yikes. Still would like to hear some confirmation on this one, but like All In said, if Berea did indeed win, it's a big blow for Bracken in what looked like a winnable game.

Polar Bears snap a 2+ year losing streak. Anybody have any more information on this one?

I totally buy into Scott County's decision. I watched two episodes of the Two-A-Days with Hoover football and it was exactly what you would expect from MTV. It's an idea that had potential but there were all of about 2 minutes of football shown and all the rest was just high school drama type stuff. It was horrible. A complete waste of time. I couldn't expect that a basketball version would have been any better.

Congrats to both. Link to story

Just terrible news. Having not been in the area long, I was just getting to know Danny and I was just hanging out talking with with him at the softball game on Tuesday. It's still hard to believe, and he'll definitely be missed. Anyway, here's another link, a well written tribute by Chuck Hamilton. http://www.maysville-online.com/articles/2007/05/04/sports/478remembering.txt

You're right on all the info about the AP other than that there is an online ballot. Before the actual vote, they take nominations from each of the AP papers. The point is basically to list anybody in your area who may even be remotely worthy of consideration. Everybody nominated gets on the ballot. As jonathan mentioned above, we were shocked to see Hicks not on the ballot. The only thing I can think of is that when nominations were made, their nearby papers, for whatever reason, didn't nominate him, and everybody else assumed it was such an obvious call that they didn't have to.

Going to OSU.