bball1984

Here we go again... Look, I am not a CSAS fan at all, but I can assure you that Coach Dragoo isn't out scouting the local playgrounds and recruiting kids to come play ball for him. I have had many interactions with Coach Dragoo- he is good guy who would never go out and recruit kids to come play ball for him. These same comments were made about Grace, Temple, etc. in the past few years when they were good. Success brings kids in- period. Once these schools have a good year or two, other kids transfer in because they want to play for a state title. Coach Mattheiss at Grace wasn't out recruiting kids either during their run over the past four or five years. It gets old hearing people whine that school X "has to be recruiting kids to come play for them" because the school they cheer for hasn't beaten school X in a while. If you want to argue about something, argue about public schools having to play private and magnet schools. I don't have a problem with that at all, but if you want to argue about something that could even remotely be viewed as "unfair," argue that point. And it works for public schools as well. If I am not mistaken, there used to be a rule in place that allowed students from downtown Chattanooga to attend Lookout Valley?

How about CA was just more aggressive and took the ball to the basket, while Grace ended up settling for more jumpers; thus, CA went to the line more.

Halftime: CSAS- 30 Harriman- 17 CSAS' talent is starting to take over.

There is no easy solution to this situation, and like I have said multiple times on here, I think the best solution is to leave it as is. What I was trying to say earlier was misunderstood. The state tournament is not set up so that the "overall, absolute best 8 teams in the state" make it to the Boro. You have to prove your worth by winning the district, region, substate, etc to get there. The point is to win state- bottom line. If you are good enough, you can make it out of your district, region, etc. Are some districts tougher than others? Of course, just like some conferences in the NCAA are tougher than others. It is what it is- people (fans) can either complain or help their teams get better. We could go on all day about whether the fourth place team from Humbboldt's district could beat Harriman or CSAS or Grace, but it is pointless. The fourth place team from that district was not able to make it out of their region, therefore they do not go to state. Deciding who the top 8 teams in the state are is pretty subjective anyway- I don't necessarily believe the fourth place team from Humbboldt's district would beat a Wayne Co. or Clarksville Academy or Harriman automatically. This argument is really no different than the debate about whether Miss. State should have been in the NCAA Tournament this year. Were they good? Yes. Could they beat some teams in the tournament? Sure. Could they also lose to plenty of teams in the tourney? You bet. The bottom line is, if you want to be in, beat the teams ahead of you. Otherwise, you sit at home and complain, when you have no one to blame but yourself.

Do you think the best 8 teams are in the state tournament this week ?? I agree with IceCold, I like things the way they are. If it was to be changed, I think the best suggestion I have seen so far is the one about changing the matchups between regions for the substate games. However, I personally think things are good the way they are. I don't think the best 8 teams are at state this week- but that is not the point of the state tournament. The point is to have the best 8 teams from different parts of the state come together to play and determine who is the state champion. By winning your district, region, and substate- you prove you are the best team in your part of the state. Then, you go to the Boro to play the other best teams from their part of the state. You go to state if you are the best from your area. The point is not to have the best 8 overall teams play. If you are good enough to win state, you are good enough to make it out of your district and region. If you don't, you aren't the best team in the state. I understand where all of this is coming from. Some districts and regions are a lot tougher than others. It is entirely possible that the fourth best team from Humbboldt's district is better than Oliver Springs. However, they weren't good enough to get out of their region- so they don't get to play at state.

It is not a bad idea. But, do you match these regions up every year? Or change it year-after-year? Eventually, a couple regions will get matched up that works out to eliminate some very good teams. I still like the system the way it is, but this suggestion is the best I have seen so far.

You didn't read my point...they do not seed their own team....they only seed the other 15 teams. If a coach does not know something about another team in their classification, or cannot find out something about them, then they are not doing something right. I guarantee you that the top teams (coaches) in the state are able to get information almost instantly on a team IF they need to...very poor excuse! You are right, I missed the part where you said the coach could not rank his own team. Still, that would not solve the problem. I agree that a coach is able to pick up the phone, call another coach at the opposite end of the state, and get a scouting report on a particular team. However, that does not help compare a team like Humbboldt to a team like Wayne County or Oliver Springs. Is a coach going to make fifteen calls, then rank teams based on what another coach says about a particular team? That would never work, and would cause more problems than we already have now by doing a blind draw. What if one coach is more negative than another, and makes Westwood sound worse than Harriman? I actually like the idea about mixing up the substate matchups each year instead of having region 3 play region 4 each year, for example. The only problem with this would be travel and how much it would cost a school from somwhere like Johnson City to travel and play a team in Memphis. That would be a heck of a drive, not to mention hotel costs. But, this would be the most fair way to do it. The only problem would be how do you determine which regions play each other? Blind draw? Then we are back to what we have now. Also, the regions and substate tournaments are set up so that the state tournament has representation from different parts of the state, which is something I like.

Yes, it was unfortunate that Manassas and Humbboldt had to play in the first round last year. However, the point of the state tournament is not to set it up so that the two teams that everyone thinks are the best play in the championship. As someone already said, the point of having the state tournament is to determine the state champion. If you win your games, you will be the state champ. I believe blind draw is the best way to do it, at least at this point in time. I know Humbboldt has had some bad luck with the draw the past two years- but it evens out over time. I guarantee there will be East TN teams upset with their draw in the coming years. In 2006, everyone was on these boards claiming that Humbboldt and Union City were the two best teams in the state in A ball. Then, Grace Baptist beat Humbboldt in the semis before losing to UC in the championship. Just using this as an example of why it is hard to seed teams- no one really knows how certain teams match up or how they compare since they play in different parts of the state. Even when two teams get a good draw, like UC and Humbboldt did that season, it doesn't mean they will meet for the title game. I still say blind draw is the best method we have at this point. I don't agree with the idea of letting coaches seed teams. I guarantee that CSAS's coach has no idea how good Westwood really is, and vice-versa, since both teams play about six hours apart and have never crossed paths this season. That would not be a good way to do it, not to mention most coaches would end up putting their team first to give themselves an easier draw.

This is a poor example for obvious reasons. Teams are seeded in the District tournaments based on record because each team has already played the other teams in the district, so you have an objective measure of how each team compares to the others. In region play, teams are seeded based on how they did in their district tournament. You can't seed teams in State based on record because some teams play easier schedules than others. You can't do it based on AP state polls because of reasons already discussed in other threads. Unfortunately blind draw is the best way to do it right now.

Seeding the state tournament makes absolutely no sense and would be a travesty if it ever happened, espcially if they seeded based on the state AP rankings. Everyone knows those rankings don't mean a thing. West TN teams are always ranked highly (probably because there are more writers in the west half of the state). Several East TN teams are severely underrated. Unfortunately this is not the NCAA, where you have RPI's, strength of schedule, and head-to-head results to compare a lot of teams in order to have a fair seeding. Blind draw is the best way to do it, unfortunately, it means some teams won't get the draw they want and will inevitably complain. For example, the post above mine has Wayne County #4 and Westwood #3. I can almost guarantee that the top 4 teams in the tournament, in some order, will be Humbboldt, CSAS, Clarksville Academy, and either Westwood or Grace Baptist (flip a coin). This post has CA #1, but I would be shocked if they beat CSAS in the actual tourney bracket. I think the final four teams left in the actual state tourney will be CA, CSAS, Humbboldt, and Grace Baptist- and I think those are the four best teams in the tournament, so the blind draw worked out well this year. Last year, Humbboldt and Manassas were upset, and I understand why. But if you get a bad draw, all you can do is go out and play the games.

Where is Sexton going to play college ball at? I would think he would have signed by now if he was going D-1? I like his game, just have not heard anything about his recruitment.

I personally would like to see Grace matched up with Manassas in the tourney at some point. I think it would be a great game. I have seen both play. Buckner is hands down better than Shaughnessy, so let's not kid around with that topic, but that is not a put down of Shaughnessy. Buckner is an impressive player, and in my opinion he and John Jenkins are the top two players in the state this year. Shaughnessy is an excellent player, but his game is much different than Buckner. I like watching Herman for Grace as well. He is good when his mind is in it.

Upchurch had 14 the first time they played. Unsure how many he scored in the second game? Alderman had 20 for Clarkrange the first go-round.

Look, I did not mean that comment as a knock on Temple, rather as a knock on Grace and their (lack of) coaching. I did not mean that Temple is a bunch of scrubs- I think Sexton is individually better than anyone Grace has. However, over the past few years, Grace has had more overall talent as a team. Did that make them better? No, not at all. Grace's problem is not talent- if this game was all about talent, Grace would be playing for a state title every season. However, I was trying to point out that Grace's coaching and lack of team play hurts them every season. Again, three future DI players, two of them over 6-9, should have no problem walking over the competition in A ball to Murfreesboro and competing for a title. The same could be said of this season. They have PLENTY of talent. The problem lies in the fact that they run no offense and have some players take an inordinate amount of shots they should not be taking. Just my opinion. Feel free to disagree, as some already have...

Grace's problem for many years now has been their lack of team chemistry. Even those years they made it to the state finals they still did not play as a cohesive unit. We can talk about lack of foul calls all we want, but Grace had the same issues when McMasters was there. Their players are underutilized, period. If you have two Division I caliber big men plus a Division I caliber guard and you can't make it out of your region in A ball in Tennessee, something is horribly, horribly wrong. It is not like they lost to White Station or anything. They have had way more individual talent the past two years than Temple has, however, Temple utilizes their talent much better and plays a lot smarter (and harder). Desire and good coaching make up for a lot in basketball.

I think the problem is they just run no offense. They never have. Their best players touch the ball about as much as anyone else, whereas if you watch a team like Temple, they have always run their offenses through players like Skogen, Sexton, etc. Not that those players take every shot, but the offense is run through them. Their have been times where Grace's best players go six or seven consecutive possessions without even seeing the ball, much less taking a shot. I like Shaughnessy because he is skilled and works his tail off. He will be a good college player, and I guarantee would average more point production somewhere else. The paper credited him with 9 boards tonight.

Thanks for the update. I saw on here that the score was reported as 78-54 for the Smith Co. game, did not see a posted score for the Monterey game. Don't know anything about these two teams, but figured they would be able to win pretty handily.

Any updates from today's Hall of Fame games at Clarkrange? I know Grace played Monterey and Smith County. I believe there were other games going on as well. Any scores/information would be appreciated.

Yes, they return pretty much their entire roster from last season. Jeremy Sexton is obviously their best player. They also have several supporting players who are solid as well.

Everyone gets a pretty good education at the schools in this discussion, so it is best if others lay off attacking the education or accreditation status of Temple, Grace, or CSAS. Just my opinion... As far as development, I can give a few examples, without being overly critical. These are just high school kids, so I would rather not tear them down needlessly. 1) McMasters- to me he is a little bit more aggressive than four years ago, but that is about it. No real skill improvement to speak of. 2) Nick van Horn- their star from few years ago. Saw him play a few times his sophomore year, then caught him a couple times his senior year. The exact same player in both cases, had never added anything to his game. Granted they have had some players improve a little bit here and there, but I think that has more to do with individual attitudes and desire than it does with coaching or instruction. Shaughnessy (sp?) will improve, but that is because the kid has tremendous drive and desire, not necessarily because the coaches will sit him down and say "here is what you should be working on this summer." In contrast, let's look at Temple. Jeremy Sexton has made significant strides in each year he has played. Same could be said for the Skogen brothers and Ryan Wadley. Jeron Williams showed much improvement over his career while he was there. Just my opinion, take it or leave it.

Jon Mattheiss is a great, great man to be sure. Wonderful leader and really instills some life lessons in his teams it would seem. However, the men's basketball program at Grace has major issues. Sideline coaching is poor, game strategy is usually poor as well. Also, I think their biggest problem is player development. Their players never seem to improve over the course of their careers. This is usually a major indicator of something be wrong.

One more thought on the coaching... I want to congratulate Temple and Coach Marcum. I did not attend the game, but I am sure it was proven that with a little talent, hard work, effort, and coaching, you can beat many teams. Having said that, it is interesting to read these boards and see how many people recognize the fact that a box and one would have been perfect strategy against Temple. Through the years, I have never seen Grace play a zone, which is why they almost always lose to teams more athletic than they are. I have also never seen them play a junk defense, which is a big reason for last night's loss. I have only seen them play man, which would be great if they put a lot of effort into defense. However, they strictly play a man defense and never seem to guard anyone, which creates lots of problems.

Bingo! Coaching continues to kill Grace, and has for years. This year's team has more talent and ability than just about any team in the city, save for maybe Howard or Red Bank. I do not mean to disrespect other teams by saying that, it is just true if you understand the game. There are only about 5-10% of high school teams in the entire country with two skilled big men like Grace has, yet they continue to lose to mediocre teams. The few times I have seen Grace, I always leave amazed at how anybody on the floor can take any shot they want at any time, with no repercussions. They take bad shots, they handle the ball poorly, and most of the time don't even play defense. It is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. And, I am not one of those people advocating for the big guys to get their back to the basket and take hook shots all day. However, their bigs don't get nearly enough touches, and a lot of the wrong guys end up taking shots. Just my opinion. I really don't have a vested interest in Grace, and it is just frustrating as a basketball fan to see so much talent get wasted. I don't they even make it out of the region now, which might be the biggest upset in city history...

My two cents worth: Region semifinals: Grace- 21st Century and CSAS-Temple. I think the probable region championship has to be Grace playing CSAS. I think Grace has the best overall talent in the region, but I think CSAS is the most athletic team in the region (and probably best coached). I will pick Grace to win it all, but it really is a toss up. I could see either team winning it. I also could see Temple beating CSAS, and/or Temple beating Grace in the District finals. It will be interesting to see how everything pans out.