Themightymac

I also agree that LC has a better starting 5. I think our starting 5 are better than any 5 from UC. However, and please don't misunderstand what I am TRYING to say, you don't play as individuals and you don't win or lose as individuals, you play, win, and lose as a team. And as a team UC is better. Why? Because their 10 are a combined better than our 5 (or 8 as Tuesday night proved). If I may make an observation, the biggest difference between the two teams is this: Shane has taken his weaker players and turned them into ball players. Whitby depends on raw talent and doesn't develope his bench, at least not like UC does. If LC beats UC, and they could, I still believe UC will have been the better team. I think they are only 5-10 pts. better. But it only takes 1 to win. I would also like to add that I have to believe that if no other reason than this, UC has to have a lot of respect for LC for doing what they did on Tuesday night. I don't think I could have been prouder of my Falcons if they had won. UC wasn't beat but I garauntee they were rattled a bit. I know you guys won't admit it so don't bother replying. Good luck to everyone tonight.

Ok, maybe not 27 but as Man in Black said, Gleason is the favorite in a loser go home match Guys, Gleason is whose favorite? It's not mine and UC will beat Gleason. I am sorry, just like LC, gleason beat them by by 6 the first game the 7 the second, UC will win the third time around. So don't pack your bags yet.

Now boys and girls, let us not forget that Gleason did get beat by LC just a week ago. I personally think that UC will beat them as well. Gleason impressed me durring the season, but they looked much weaker durring tourament play. I will not speculate as to why.

Congrats to the tornados on the Tourny Win. You gorls have worked really hard. Good luck on your way to the Boro!

Closer to WHAT!?! You live in Newbern! Try leavin' from Ridgely

First, Congrats to UC boys and girls! And likewise to LC. I want to point out what I saw Saturday night that just confirmed what I said early this season. I watched the game from the rail which gave me a good vantage point. I don't think UC has the athletisism of either LC or Humbolt, BUT I do believe they have the best coaching philosophy anywhere in the state and all the other coaches need to take a good look at it. (save for MJ, and Simpson) To beat UC you HAVE to do the following: 1) Stop throwing lousy lob passes. UC eats this up! They are always looking for a steal from weak passes. I am not so sure the press is the problem so much as their ability to look for weak passing. There is no such thing as "free-ins" with them. UC ripped Trenton a new one this way. UC never makes weak passes. Good job UC. 2) Keep your eye on the stinkin' ball! UC passes the ball down the court more than they dribble it more times than not beating the defence to the other end of the court forcing a one-on-one down low or the open three and you just can't give them that Much room! The same for offence, UC double teams at the hlaf court line or sooner and most teams don't even know it is happening cause they are all looking the other way. Good job UC. 3) FUNDAMENTAL FUNDAMENTALS FUNDAMENTALS! You cannot miss lay-ups and 4-6 ft jump shots. You just can't. 3's are a little trickier, but there is not reason to miss a short jumper or lay-up. UC is super solid right here. 2 points every possession. Their 3's are pretty but most of their points are scored within 8 ft of the rim. If you can't shut it down, match it. Good job UC. If LC beats UC it is cause of athleticism. And yes, I want LC to beat UC. BUt some of the rest of us need to take a good look at why they win and learn from it. Quit squakin' about them being single A and start running and shooting. Free throws are important, but don't say a team lost to them (UC) by missing a few frees at thend of the game. Get your junk together and play the first three quarters and it won't be an issue. ...I think I am done now....I feel better...um... Go LAKE County!!!!!

Good post. Lake County put a hurt on Halls tonight. Whitby cleared the entire bench about 2 minutes into the 4th with a 30 point lead. While I will agree the reffing was not on Halls side it wouldn't have helped them any. They couldn't control the ball on open wood. So all you halls fans can say I mentioned it. On defence, UC is a monster with that press. It isn't unbeatable until you combine it with a huge offencive percentage then you have a beast to be reconed with! LC has been playing better defence as of late. Forced a BUNCH of turnovers on Halls. Kinda bummed Bradford is out. Look forward to Trenton playing again. And the LC Humbolt game will be pretty awesome. Prediction: I have LC by 3. Channen fouling out and maybe springer. Big step up by Patrick Robertson who showed out a bit tonight. I am worried about some bad decisions by Valentine on offense but a good defensive night. Copeland won't see much time for some reason we won't understand. But big numbers on both sides. Humbolt will get into a lot of foul trouble as well, and a VERY physical game if they let the boys play. UC will blow out trenton by 25+.

It's been done... Check the UC-LC-Humbolt Forum. We've already beat that horse to life again!

I got my information from TN.gov under school report cards. It gives the student number, race, gender, income status as well as the obvious grades on test scoresl. In looking at your numbers I found there to be about a 30 student difference in each corresponding school so it may be that they count differently !?! Short answer: I don't know why.

http://www.tssaa.org/Handbook/classification.pdf This selection is from the TSSAA Handbook. 2006-07 TSSAA Handbook CLASSIFICATION REGULATIONS FOR 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09 I. In Division I, TSSAA schools shall be divided into three classes for basketball, baseball, and girls softball. In cross country, girls soccer, golf, soccer, tennis, track and field, and girls volleyball there shall be two classifications, Class A-AA and Class AAA. In the three-classification plan, schools are classed as follows: AAA Schools with an enrollment of 997 and above. AA Schools with an enrollment of 462 to 996. A Schools with an enrollment of 461 and under. As of last year UC has 425 students reported to the government. LC has 271 students reported to the government. Humbolt has 466 students. Dresden has 477 students. Gleason has 604 K-12 Greenfield has 604 k-12 So hopefully I have made my own corrections.

Spellerone, well said. There is a definite number of students, and for classification one A I believe the cutt off is 499 students at the time of census. I am very likely to be wrong so I look for correction. Lake county has just under 200 students. I find it hard to believe that money would play a part in influencing the field of play other than the mindset. A "when you look good you feel good" type of thing. You can't pay for athleticism. And before it happens no one can mention recruiting. It happens everywhere and nowhere. The only other way I feel money can help is in the ability to hire and keep good coaching staff. Some schools can do this through the school board. Towns with a high tax base like Union City have the ability to do this and still provide their students with the educational materials they need for class. Schools with a lower tax base don't always have this luxury and must depend on their athletic clubs/boosters to make up the deficit required to keep the staff and coach from moving on to higher pay. In my opinion, if parents want a coach to make more money they should pay him through the athletic boosters. I feel that tradition is a HUGE part of any program but I feel it falls with the fans as well as students. Union City is very demanding of it's athletic departments. Other schools fans tend to be bandwagon fans. In union City, there is a deliberate pressure on the students to excel. I am afraid that in Lake County when a student doesn't excel they are ignored by the public as a whole. This is different than it used to be. I dont have a problem with Union City overstating their confidence. What rubs me wrong is when they do not make a distinction between CAN NOT be beat, and WILL NOT be beat. They are indead very different things. As for playing up a classification, I wish Lake County did more of it themselves. While I understand that in larger schools their are more students to harvest athletes from, but 1A or 5A there are only 5 basketball players per team on the court at a time. There is no reason why a 1A's five can't be better than a 5A's. Even if you have a lot of subs. UC is 1A and they have a bench action packed full of subs. I firmly believe that UC-LC-Hbolt could easily beat and have beaten many 2 and 3 A teams and I for one welcome the challange. If your team cant hang on quit crying and get back to practice.

Somewhere: yes. Somewhere big: Probably not.

yes... As said before, Bradfords coach has done great things with that team. Bradford has some tall players and the whole team seems to play really hard. Much like UC they play hard from start to finish and hustle and play hard defence. Unlike UC they don't have the dpth of talent or the stamina of their level. Also, I might add that though they are tall they are also very skinny and have become masters of drawing the offensive foul. Lake County earned more offensive fouls that defensive. The likes of which would not have been called against a "beefier" set of player such as any of those from UC or Humbolt. Because of their size differential I saw them get away with a lot of fouls. One kid jumped to block a shot on Springer and landed on his shoulders, but because he was so small Springer really didnt flinch much and shot regaurdless. Either way it should have been a foul. For these reasons I believe Bradford will show out come tourney time but will get beat solidly by either UC, HUmbolt, LC, should they face them early. yes... LC had their heads wedged in their tails. Did not follow shots. Failed to get rebounds. Many horrible passes. Missed dozens of short 6 footers and under. Lots of fouls. The team decided Copeland is 9 feet tall and threw passed to him that were so far off mark he didn't even know he should try to catch them. Some were thrown so high he didn't even bother looking up.

I also believe Bradford could be the sleeper, but it is a long long shot for them in the tourney. They do have a great coach and some good shooters. I do not however think they will go far in the tournaments but I will lok forward to watching them in the next few years. Should be fun.

My fault, I was refrencing the last comment in your post.

Yes I believe that was in my comment.

Sorry guys, While UC is favored to win, it will not be handed to them. You will have to work for it. I don't know how far down the poll you have to be to be a long shot but I will put Humbolt in there. I think they have talent, and good staff. But so far I don't think they have exhibited what it would take to go to the final rounds against schools like UC, or LC. Yes they beat LC once but I all but bet the farm they won't do it twice with or without epperson/sain. That said I believe that it is possible for this club to pull out some upsets and rank very high and yes possibly win. Obviously I believe this to be a long shot.

Lake County beats Trenton in a physical but relativly uninteresting game 69 to 55. The boys came out playing to the competition the first half allowing trenton a few small leads from time to time. but after the half they came out hustling pretty hard. Thought valentine was going to duke it out a couple of times. Copeland ran straight over a kid for a cherge completely leveling him. Obviously blatant. But then he picked him up and dusted him off. Chanen shot 20+. Springer had 14. Sep had 10+. I left after the third. whitby kept his starting 5 out most the game and continuously rotated down the bench. I think he is trying to find kids to give his starters a break for when we play humbolt and most likely UC again.

Tnwareagle, I find myself agreeing with you on more than one plane. As a teacher I have to find my word to be professional, yet honest at the same time. Using a students language is almost necessary from time to time, but it can be used correctly and incorrectly. All teachers, coaches, and PARENTS have to do this from time to time. Here are a few rules I find work wonders: 1) Be honest: if a kid makes a mistake point it out, but make sure the kid understands the mistake. A kid who know his mistakes can fix or attempt to fix them. 2) Make a point everyday to compliment or point out one positive thing about each student or player: Remember it takes 100 "at-a-boy"s to make up for one "oh, shoot". 3) If you can't come up with something positive, don't make a negative comment cause you are to stupid to be doing that job: a positive comment may be, "Hey, nice backpack." or "Hey, glad to see you smile today", something, anything, everyday. Try em. They work.

OC: You're wierd....I love it!

yeah, sometimes getting in and out of traffic is tough in a lot of our smaller gyms. The locker rooms are right in the way of traffic leaving the gym and there is veryy little side line to work with. Just like trying to get to UC's concession stand, and have you ever had to go to the rest room in the middle of a game at Dresden? It took me half a quarter just to find it. It's just part of it.

High school student aren't young adults, they are kids. As a teacher I see very few, maybe 1 out of 50 kids I would call adults when they graduate. I don't care if they figured out how to reproduce, or how to join the miltary and get shot at or killed, or how to do a drive by and sell dope. These are kids! Not adult nor young adults. A 20 year old today doesn't even come close to the maturity of a 20 year old 50 years ago. Therefore they should be treated as they are kids. They should be respected and she be damanded that they be respectful.

I agree bigster. I believe someone said it correct6 when they said it will all boil down to how the brackets fall, UC,LC, or humbolt would have a fantastic shot at state. I don't believe their are too many teams that can beat these 3. Bradford is underated, but out of 10 games any of these 3 would win 8 or 9.

Here is my 5 cents worth. Great game by both teams. Good win by UC. You definitely deserve it. As most LC & UC fans predicted, LC can hang if they come out ready to play and play smart. Whodathunk they would do it! What bothers me is why can't our boys play like that all the time?!? If we'd play like that more often it wouldn't be such a stretch for us to do it in crunch. Here are my numbers: Valentine: 6 Geanes: 15 Springer: 23 Avery: 13 Copeland: 13 1st Q: 21/21 2nd Q: 35/44 (14/23) 3rd Q: 56/58 (21/14) 4th Q: 73/75 (17/17) I think we blew it on the free throw line, also we got our heads wedged in our dark spots in the second quarter. A few silly mistakes also cost us. UC is impressive from the FT line. I didnt see the huge number outside like I was waiting for.

I am going to shed a little light on the whitby case from my point of view. My information comes from the mouth of the man himself. I will paraphrase to keep from misquoting him. "We were idiots back then. Running our "butts" off day and night, extra practices, summer heat. These kids aren't fools! If I had a souped up car and P-(girls)-y all over the place, heck I wouldn't work my butt off for anything either and I don't blame them". For those that aren't around whitby much, his health is seriously deteriorated. I had him as a teacher and a coach in H.S. He is trying to act as if he isn't getting worse. But he is a bit older than most people think he is. I THINK in this condition he may see the above arguement and agree with it. I liken him to Bret Favre: " I'd retire but I don't know how to do anything else!" I really think the world of that man, and it hurts like crazy to say this but his time is over. Maybe he could find a spot like Marty and be around to give "pearls of wisdom" to younger coaches. Shane sisco wishes he he knew what whitby has forgotten, I won't say that for Marty. But the Whitby era is past with respect. And at this point in time Shane will outcoach whitby. Whitby can not physically do what it takes to coach young players these days. He has the mind, not the body.