crazzyness

Extreme edge of the state?? Have you ever even seen a map of Tennessee?? It might be 300 miles from Memphis to Chattanooga, but it's still 225 miles from Chattanooga to Bristol.

I think every person in the state of Tennessee aside from Chat Prep family members are gonna be Frank Hughes fans tomorrow. Go Lions!

Well I've been seeing you rant on here about Tennessee Temple Academy a while now, and I've contemplated correcting you, but haven't really had the inclination until now, when it's clear you haven't one iota of a clue what you're really talking about... Tennessee Temple never "forfeited" any football championships because they never won any. Heck they only ever made they playoffs twice, made it to the quarterfinals once, in '06 I believe. Their championship winning basketball teams ('02, '03, '07?) were never found guilty of any wrongdoing either. What got them seriously looked at was they DID get into some rather shady recruiting type territory after the Skogen family had all went through. But by that time, the writing was on the wall. See, by the end of the 2000s, they had to shutter their athletic program due to a declining attendance, and the school was closed by Tennessee Temple University in 2011 I believe. You keep talking like Temple Academy was some pop up outta nowhere fake school, when in reality they were a school set up and run by the university, and they'd had a high school since the early 70's. Their rise to prominence occured when the Skogen kids (one every two years, like clockwork) started reaching high school age, along with the Wadleys, who's dad was the coach. Yes, the Skogens were from North GA, but they'd been in the school for a while because of the family ties to the Highland Park Church, which kinda partnered up with the University. In the mid 80's they had over 1K kids enrolled in the school. By the late 2000's they'd lost over 85% of their enrollment, and were shut down. Their decline went hand in hand with the University, which by the early 2010's saw a decline in enrollment of over 90% from the early 80's enrollment of 4k+, and they went belly up in like 2014. I've heard it had to do with some sort of theological disagreement with the direction the new folks running it were taking, but who knows. You saying the school shutting down because of "cheating" in football is just incorrect. They were going to shut down anyway, because the school was failing. Just as the university was failing. Moral of the story, you calling Chat Prep "tHe NeW tEmPlE" is just bogus. Chat Prep is obviously just a handpicked travel team that they set up a charter school for so they could win some hardware. Tennessee Temple Academy was a legitimate secondary school operated by a legitimate university, for decades. Yes, I'm sure they recruited some kids along they way, but ALL private schools recruited. That's just the way it was, that's just the way it is. We had a good friendly rivalry with them, and we were only best them once, in the game that mattered the most. But when they were winning championships, there was nothing going on there that was any more nefarious than what was going on at Chatt Christian, or CPA, or DCA, or Friendship Christian, or Nashville Christian, or Clarksville Academy, or USJ, or any other private school powers from that time. They just happened to have a family of extremely talented basketball players, that were associated with the school anyway, hit high school at just the right time. The comparison between them and Chat Prep is unfounded.

I've seen muffin here and there, but I haven't noticed Jimbo44 in quite a while, now that you mention it. 2003, btw.

Meh, seeding in high school sports has and always will be quite arbitrary. TBH, if they were using SOS as a yardstick, Cloudland would be a low seed anyway. I look at it this way, if Cloudland wants to win it all, they're gonna have to beat Pickett and Wayne County at some point along the way to do it.

I saw Elizabethton a few times at the beginning of the season, and they couldn't play dead in a cowboy movie. The way they turned the corner in mid January has been impressive. I've never really ever liked Lucas, but the guy sure can coach, thats apparent.

I really don't think it'll be that interesting q game. I believe Sunbright will run into traps they're used to beating in region 2 and Cloudland will turn them over, and/or they'll be in foul trouble early. I don't think it'll be a pretty game to watch, Cloudland will get most their points off turnovers and in transition. I expect like a 45-30 type of game.

In all honesty, I personally believe if Sunbright tries uptempo against Cloudland, AT Sonny Smith, they'll turn it over 20 times. They haven't seen the pressure they're going to see, they haven't played a schedule that challenges them at all. You don't run and gun against teams like Rockwood, Coalfield and Jellico all year and then magically have the skill to do it against one of the best defenses in the state. Cloudland wins by 15ish.

Cocke County?? Sure, I'd even go as far as to say they're the 3rd best team east of Knoxville (GP, Sevier County.) But I think when these folks say "upper east TN" they're talking Greene County and eastwards.

Hats off to Frank Hughes, gonna play in a substate, possibly at home. They got a good looking record, and doing it all with like 90 kids in the whole school. 2nd smallest public school in the entire state to field a team this year. If they make it to Murfreesboro, I know who I'll be pulling for.

This time of the year, especially, I'll take better coaching over slightly better talent 11 out of 10 times. And that's exactly what happened last night.

The more I think about it, a double elimination style, only two teams advance type district tournament in basketball sounds better. You remember how exciting district tournaments USED to be?? I remember when A would straight up pack Milligan. AAA at Central used to have folks sitting in the rafters. AA would fill Treadway Gymnasium. It's not like that anymore. Aside from the game where Unaka's boys pooped the bed against Cloudland, the areas district tournaments were devoid of all any and all excitement this year, except for AA. Part of the reason for that is A and AAAA had NO elimination games. Everybody advances anyway. AAA only had one, and I think everyone knew Elizabethton's boys weren't going to advance. District tournaments with more games and more teams being eliminated would, in theory, mean more excitement. Every game after the opening round would mean something to someone. And the extra days it would take to do this would be somewhat offset by Regions being one less round. Just a thought. (btw @dogtruth part of the reasoning for taking only two to regions in baseball is now that the Regional tournament is a nice, square, double elimination tournament. Last year was the 1st year of that, and I think it worked out extremely well, especially after 20 years of single pitcher teams throwing their ace in both win or go home games (Monday region semi-final, Friday or Saturday substate.)

Baseball plays double elimination tournaments, that's why they only have two advance.. Don't get me wrong, I'd be ok with only taking two teams while playing a double elimination format, but I'm not sure alot of folks would get behind the added two nights it would take to accomplish that (without having teams play two games in a night, which I don't like in basketball). I say if we're going to play with 4 classifications, only take the top 3 teams from a district tournament, and make both the consolation (elimination) and championship (1st round by) games mean something.

Well, it's like I tell my child. They don't NEED it. They just want it.

None of this will ever happen because the T$$AA won't pass up a chance for a dollar, but all that aside... Taking only 3 from each district makes the most sense. It makes the district consolation game meaningful. Also look at the numbers: When we were operating with three classifications, we had 110-120 teams per class. 64 advancing to regions was about 55%, and I feel that's a fair, solid amount of teams. But now with 4 classes, there are 85 teams per class, but still 64 advancing out of districts. That's over 75%, which is ridiculous. If we made the district consolation game an elimination game and only have the top 3 teams move on, that leaves us with 48 teams, which is back at (you guessed it) roughly 55%. An added bonus to that would be the district champion gets a by straight into region semi-finals, which makes winning that district championship game an even more important. IMHO, I'd only be in favor of taking the top 2 teams from districts if they made (at least for the last 4 teams remaining in district) a double elimination format, like baseball.

Take 26 up into VA, stay on 58/421 till Clinchport. Take a left into VA 600, and it takes you all the way to Kyles Ford. It's really not that bad. I'd personally much rather have to drive to Sneedville than Cosby, honestly.

I saw them a couple of times at the Ladies Classic, they looked like they were starting to unglue.

https://portal.tssaa.org/common/classification/?type=middle

I can tell you in MY area, every school that is a member participates in the post season. In fact, in my county, some of the small basketball only school's membership would fluctuate every season. If they felt they were going to have a decent team and a chance to advance in the postseason, they'd pay the fees and be members. If they were going to have a bad team, they wouldn't join that year and save the money.

Sure, there may only be 306 "Middle Schools," but that surely doesn't take account all the K-8 member schools. There's nearly 200 registered eligible schools in Single A alone.

Out of curiosity, roughly where are you located? I ask because nearly every single school east of Knoxville is a member.

It was a tight, UGLY game until about halfway through the 3rd. You would have watched them today and wondered "how in the heck did these girls beat Oak Ridge??" They pulled away in the 4th after CD gave up like 10 snowbird layups.

I dont believe 99.8% of us could find anyone who could hit 17 of 21 from behind the arc in an empty gymnasium, let alone during game conditions. The folks who are trying to diminish 17 of 21 because she was playing a far inferior opponent can take a hike. Now flip the coin, and I could understand why some people might think that running offensive sets and setting multiple screens to give your star player, arguably the best player in A, open looks at 3 point shots while the game is obviously in hand up 40 points + in the 2nd half against a far inferior opponent is a somewhat... Distasteful.

I'd counter that the best A team in East TN is UH. Returned pretty much the whole team from last year's semi final run. Arguably the best team east of Morristown, in any classification.

Of course there's gonna be some tougher games, but the Lady Landers are going to be favored in every single game this year. I'm just worried the same thing that happened to the 04-05 Unaka team will happen to them once the can match them step for step.