ashjan

I'm not going to say whether a change should be made or not but I'll make points both ways. First, away from the gym, coach Hall is a good family and christian man and a good teacher. When the previous coach stopped coaching, she stayed on staff also being a good teacher(she's now the ad). He was the boys assistant and was on staff and wanted to do it. He also coaches golf, and does a great job with that. My daughter played golf 4 years and got a full ride for golf to Belmont. It wasn't his job to get her a scholarship. On the floor, the team definitely underachieved the last 2 years. It was talented at different positions, very experienced, but just never put it all together. Now he has 1 experienced solid high school level player. There are only a couple of other kids that are talented and they are young and inexperienced. The best player from one feeder school went to Station Camp 2 years ago and is a contributor. The best players from the other feeder school has gone to JPII the last 3 years. All 3 had older siblings at JPII and all 3 pay tuition. Anyway, this factor has hurt as much as anything. Also the best returning player (a 6-2 post) went to Blackman. So thats a post and 4 good guards not there. Talent can make any coach look good or lack of it can make coaching weaknesses more glaring. I wish luck and good things for all, but Hank, your not going to get your change unless he decides after this year to give it up. Just my slant. Happy Holidays to all

Huge congrats to Paige Baechle of JPII for winning Miss Basketball this afternoon for DII-AA. She's deserving for what she's done on the court, but more so who she is off the court. A great all around player, she's a 31 on ACT, 4.25 GPA at JPII, and volunteers many hours for various organizations. In my 20 years being around girls basketball, she's the epitome of of being the best student/player/teammate/person combo I've been fortunate to be around. Congrats also to Taylor Reece of BA and Marie Carpenter of Ensworth fo being nominated. Thanks Paige for reminding us why we coaches do what we do! Good luck to all the teams playing the next few weeks and the other Miss Basketball nominees.

I agree that this fee should be an optional donation. To those of you that this really bothers, ask yourself these questions: 1) Does my kid really need a 250.00 bat for fastpitch or baseball? 2) Do I really need to spend 300.00 next weekend going out of town for that travel soccer or softball tourney? (by the way, your kids not playing in college) 3) Does my stay at home wife really need a Lexus SUV to go to the store? (hun, when you're out, pick me up 20.00 in powerball tickets. my 1/3,000,000 chance may hit. 4) Does my middle school daughter really need that 200.00 cell phone? 5) Will that new 400.00 Taylormade driver help me break 100? 6) Does Andy Griffith look a lot better on that 60" plasma? While over the top, my point is we all waste money on stupid items, it's only 3-5.00. Good luck to the teams still playing.

Williams has 618 pts this year and should've been around 500 last year. Bell has 431 this year and if she averaged around 12ppg last year would've put her around 330. She would have to averaged 8-10ppg as a soph to get 1000 and I don't know if she did.

Williams is good and will get better but there are 2 better all around posts in the midstate, one you'll see in Clarksville. The other is a DII-AA finalist.

Congrats to all finalists. Actually, the DII-AA was right on. The only change might have been Clay from GPS over Reese. I've seen Briarcrest and St. Benedict and while they are good teams, they don't have a state top 4 player that has performed on that level all year. Good luck to everyone tomorrow.

Ensworth should be favored. However there are only 3 out 8 teams that have a girl that can get you 25 any night. GPS has one of those, as does Ensworth, so GPS's chances improve. Ensworth doesn't have a guard to guard Clay. Hubie won't put Carpenter on her, in fear of foul trouble. He'll play zone which helps Clay. Ensworth should win, especially at home, but it won't be more than 10-12. Also, I like our position in the brackets. But we could lose, Paige could hurt her ankle again, who knows. Paige Baechle for Miss Basketball!!!! No surprise. Go ahead and put your laughing face in your post! Congrats to Paige, she's one you only get once in a blue moon, off and on the court! Good luck to all.

There's a reason they finished 4th in the district tournament.....they were the 4th best team. Clarksville will win by whatever they want it to be. WC had a 10+ lead vs Station Camp in the semis and folded late. Also they didn't look good vs Beech in the consolation. Clarksville tops the midstate poll for a reason. It will be out of hand by half.

Clarksville will beat Mt. Juliet. How the game is officiated will be key. Clarksville is deeper and quicker. Also, Graves is 6-2 and is quicker than Williams and goes to the glass well. She's hard to block out. Williams is great on the low block and has good hands but MJ can't high low over Graves. Key will be which one gets into foul trouble. MJ didn't play any good big posts in 9AAA and Clarksville's pressure is much better than Station Camp's. Either team could win by 10 but I'll say CV by 6. Good luck to all.

That same logic also indicates that Ensworth can be beaten by an average team, such as HH. GPS beating them wouldn't be as far a stretch as HH beating them earlier. GPS was like 20-6 and somehow lost to Baylor twice. If they would've beaten Baylor once, they would've finished second on our side. Also, wouldn't surprise me if BA beats Briarcrest. We'll know in a few days. Good luck to all.

It was 40 pts on 18-20 from the floor and 4-6 from the line. She came out of the game with 5 minutes left in the game. Also 11 rebounds, 7 steals. BGA isn't good but she played against a solid 6-3 post in Ramer. Earlier in the year she dominated 6-5 Myers from Lavergne (28pts) in a 4 pt loss. Also hit Sycamore with 25 in a 1 pt road loss. Missing time with an ankle and sitting half the game 6 times against bad teams may keep her from getting the consideration she deserves. We should see the Memphis players in the tournament so I'll have a better comparason. Good luck to all.

JPII's Paige Baechle hit BGA for 40 tonight. Hit 18-20 from the field and came out of the game with 5 minutes to go. She's one of the best there is.

They shot lights out early and soundly beat us and are the team to beat. Slots 2-5 up for grabs. Every game counts. As I said before, anyone on any night... Good luck to all. At least we finally snuck into the top 10... where we should've been all year.

No, she had 14 playing about half the game vs hillwood. They called it in. She's basically 100% now. Our last game vs Ryan was her first game back and has slowly got back to her Paigeness. I guess Ensworth didn't like losing to Harpeth Hall and slapped them by 40 last night. Last AP poll was more of a joke with HH getting votes to be 12th with a 8-13 record and 2-5 in the region. Gimme a Break! Good luck to all.

Ryan at JPII is now Wednesday the 3rd. Varsity girls at 5:00, boys at 6:30.