OS91

Congratulations to Oliver Springs Lady Bobcats and their outstanding coach on winning their 9th straight district championship. The players and coach did an outstanding job. And let's be real- Coach Christopher knew exactly what she was doing by scheduling one of the most brutal regular season schedules ( outside of the district) in the state of Tennessee regardless of classification. We are talking about Oliver Springs High School Lady Bobcat basketball, aren't we? Never underestimate pride, tradition, and a coach that knows what it means to win in late febuary and march. While Sunbright, Oakdale, Coalfield ( who did play a couple good teams), and Wartburg were playing average single a or aa programs, Oliver Springs was playing once again the best team in Tennessee- Jackson County, Clarkrange, Oak Ridge, Livingston Academy, Cookeville, and tournaments in Floridia. Also, OS played very good teams in Loudon and Clinton ( twice) and some more good OOD teams. So the rest of you district fans can laugh at the 8-18 regular season record all you want. However, that schedule along with all new starters finally paid off at district tournament time with three straight wins over single a teams that didn't play a tough schedule. Great job of preparing your team for a late season run Coach Christopher. Now time for a regional run!

This is a rivalry game to Coalfield. Not so much to Oliver Springs. As stated before, OS has something like a 70-8 record all time against Morgan County teams. OS to Coalfield in football is like: Tennessee to Memphis Alabama to UAB Florida to UCF Ohio State to Ohio University It's expected Oliver Springs should beat Coalfield. OS rivalry games are more with harriman, kingston, rockwood, and sometimes Wartburg. Now that OS plays in 1-a Onieda will be the " big game". Btw, 48-2 OUCH

Also, KC scored 40 points against Knoxville Webb when UT's faith dupree scored only 18 in the game as OS almost beat a powerful knox webb team. The media should be embarrassed about their selection. It was poor and just another example of having low information voter determining a state wide competition when they aren't knowledgeable to do so or very biased. As I said before, I am happy KC can now move onto greener pastures. She seems to have garnered more respect at the national level and AAU than she did in her own state- with exception to the Tennessean Newspaper which named her as one of the top 5 players overall in the state as a junior, yet the statewide media can't get something so basic correct. It's time for her to wash her hands and upgrade to college basketball where the sky is the limit.

Let's be realistic- Kayla Christopher was hands down the best single A player last year and this year- and it's not even close. East Tennessee players historically have difficulty getting their recognition from the Middle and West TN media who votes for these awards. Mark it down- anytime a player from Middle TN is up for the award ( just like last year) against an East TN player unless they are one of the top 50 players in America ( like Glory Johnson and Faith Dupree) the East TN player will lose no matter how much better she is - even if she is a national prospect. Kayla should have won last year and this year. I am just happy for KC that she can leave TN high school basketball behind and concentrate on her bright future in college basketball where she will get the correct recgonition she deserves. Mark it down- Southern Conference Freshman of the year. She's one of the highest rated Freshman to enter the Southern Conference in a long time. She has the potential to not only emulate OS's laura hall's success, but become a Stephan Curry type ( Davison- Southern Conference) player that elevates a mid major power into a national program.

Unless I'm in left field, I am assuming the comments being discussed in this thread are from a Knoxville News Sentinel article highlighting OS's win over Lake County. That particular article had 2-3 quotes from KC and Coach C regarding OS's Class A semifinal match up with Clarkrange. I want to ensure we're on the same page and this is the correct article. I fail to see disrespectful comments. My take was something completely different. I see a Coach and team excited after a 1st round state tourney win and in the initial stages of discussing it's ensuing match up with a foe that's #1 in state, defending state champs, undefeated, and already beaten OS twice. Let's put this into perspective: The comments were made after OS's quarterfinal victory over Lake County in post game interviews. The quotes/comments were most likely answers from reporters questions. It's plausible some of the questions were: " Everyone thinks Clarkrange is unbeatable. Do you think Clarkrange is beatable?" "You've played Clarkrange twice, are you happy to be playing them a third time"? " After losing to Clarkrange twice earlier this season by double digits, what are OS's chances?." Quotes can be misleading - especially when taken out of context or selectively applying comments supporting the writer's slant while at the same time dismissing comments not aligning with the slant. The Knoxville News Sentinel's covers Oliver Springs HS athletics. It's natural for the KNS to project OS as a motivated and confident team after a state tourney win when facing the #1 team. Should all answers have been along the lines of " we are just happy to be in MBORO" or " We have no chance against Clarkrange"?

I fail to see where their comments were inappropriate. OS should have thought going into the game Clarkrange was beatable. If not, why show up? They simply said Clarkrange wasn't invincible. What am I missing? Should they have trembled and all prayed at center court that Clarkrange have mercy on them? You guys and gals need to get off the plateau some or maybe even organize a football program since other schools like oakdale, coalfield, and sunbright have a lot less enrollments than you and feild programs. Too much time on your hands if you believe an opposing team shouldn't go into a game thinking they have an opportunity to win. I wonder if Clarkrange would be in this position if not for the Monterey transfer who left her hometown to play for Clarkrange. Isn't she CR's leading scorer or close to it this year?

Lets's review 2002 AA State Tourney 2003 28 wins 2004 AA State Tourney Semifinalist 2005 Ranked #1 a lot of the season in AA ( OS was without Hall or Christopher in this year) 2006 A State tourney 2007 A State Runner up 2008 A State tourney 2009 A State semifinalist That's too many years of outstanding basketball for little girls in Oliver Springs to have not understood what winning means to the Lady Cat program. Rest assured, there is an entire crop of 4-11 year old girls waiting in the wings for their time to carry the banner.

No worries. OS will get back. It probably won't be for a couple of years- but there is outstanding talent in the elementary program coming into the high school. OS had a very good to outstanding program before Hall and Christopher and that will only continue. There are too many young girls in Oliver Springs who are growing up who want to emulate the success of this decade.

The ones I know of: Louisville ( top 10 team), Kentucky, and MTSU ( top 25 team this year) were the final 3 along with Chattanooga I believe. Goose or someone else might be more privy to this than I. Also, She narrowed her choices down really early and eliminated many other bigger schools and focused on schools closer to home.

Alright, enough on Lake County. LC should be challenging for state tournaments in the next 2-3 years. I will watch the evolution of the Flowers kid. This thread has defintely gotten my attention. Good luck to her and LC in the future. It's time to focus on tomorrow's opponent- Clarkrange.

Good point. That is a lot of teams in a district.

Yes- they were upset one game. Jackson County beat some outstanding teams this year- including AA semifinalists Livingston Academy twice, Cookeville ( AAA state tourney team), Brentwood Academy, in addition to playing Upperman to a 2 point game. Again, you can't compare district 14a teams vs. OS, Clarkrange, and JC by their won loss records. The latter teams play oustanding out of district schedules while the 14a teams do not.

"enjoy that win and stop trying to belittle our players and coaches. " You can't be serious with this post. I don't even know where to begin with this. Regarding the post TT was the best player on the floor yesterday, Candice Parker was outscored at UT by opposing players many times in her career, yet if an opposing fan stated their player was the best player on the floor they would have been laughed at by knowledgeable basketball fans. There is a reason why I am laughing at you. I am not sure you possess the basketball IQ to realize why your comments are comedy. As for an assertion that I belittled your coaches, where did I make this? You LC fans are a strange breed. You hurl all kinds of insults and throw assertions around and even play the race card, yet you cry victim in the ensuing posts.

Lets' compare scheduling of out of district opponents of Lake County and Oliver Springs Both teams lost 8 or so games. Lake County lost to teams that were not considered an elite Class A team in their games - with almost all their losses coming in district play. LC beat up on weaker Class A and out of district opponents in the area that were average to below average teams. Oliver Springs lost to these teams twice: Knox Webb ( ranked in USA today top 25 last year and top Private school in state this year). Knox Webb has a UT signee in Faith Dupree and CUSA PG signee. They also had Glory Johnson last year who is at UT this year. Jackson County ranked #2 in Class A most of the year. Clarkrange ranked #1 in Class A all of the year. Possibly the best team in the state in all classifications. Clinton 22-9 Class AAA team that made the Regional AAA semifinals losing to Powell who is playing in Class AAA tourney. York Institute- traditional class AA team from the plateau. When you compare the two schools and you take into account who each schedules out of district, it's no contest. OS's program does this intentionally. Lake County feasts of below average competition this year. My comment was spot on. Lake County is good, but would not have made it out of the regions in other regions.

I am well aware of Gleason, Peabody, and Bradford's accomplishments. However, this years editions of teams fall way short in resembling those past teams who did damage in the state tournaments in those years. You can even look at Coacht.com schedules of all the teams from the district and see they didn't play any good teams out of district and when they did they were thumped by 35 points or so. The point is the district had 3 20 win teams, yet that's not reflective of those teams being great. It's a reflection of having average, bad, to very bad teams in the district and area this year. We know this based off how the upper teams in the district performed when playing teams like Gibson county and other elite team in the state. While that was few and far between, it ended in a bad loss. Btw, I am only speaking of this year- not past years. District 14-a had some good single A teams, but not one elite single A team. OS played Gleason for the state championship in 2007. No district 14a team is close to resembling the caliber of that Gleason team. Also, it should be noted that OS hardly played one of it's best games of the year yesterday.