crazzyness

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.

I just looked at y'all's schedule in its entirety. IF it isn't missing any games, there's a very realistic chance y'all cruise into sectional with like a 30-0 record. I understand y'all gotta go to NG and Hampton, and those are never a given regardless, but I really don't see much of a challenge in there.

No sir I am not. I'm no chief, I'm just an Indian. I was under the impression our supervisors were at least partially compensated via the state. I could be mistaking though. In our association, after we pay the $70 to the state of course, we have dues of $50. That is to (to my understanding) either pay, or supplement pay of the supervisors (they really do put in work they are out and about throughout the area 3 or 4 nights a week observing,) pay for the end if season banquet, and to pad a contingency fund. After that, each assigner (varsity, sub varsity, MS) has a $50 charge. I don't really mine at all paying the local guys, especially the MS assigners. They got a tough job trying to fill out their schedules, especially on Tuesdays. They really have scrape the bottoms of the barrel to get games covered.

I haven't seen a team that's so one dimensional since I was in high school.

TSSAA officials were NEVER paid for regular season travel prior to last season. And that is still stipulated on you must travel x amount of miles before anything is paid. The TSSAA does pay milage for post season contests, but until this season, it was like only 21 or so cents a mile, and only one way. If you were paid milage for regular season games prior to last season, that was negotiated by your local association. And if that's the case, good on them! Awesome for local groups to be watching out for their guys like that.

Ohh. Yeah they're pretty dang good. The best games of the year in this are are gonna be the Hampton/SG games. It's a shame, they could hypothetically be the 2nd & 3rd best AA teams in the state, but one is gonna get bounced in the regions by Alcoa.

They're fairly solid for a AA squad, but they don't really have that fire that your used to SG having. The times I've seen them so far, they aren't getting nearly as many of those 50/50 balls that a SG team typically gets.

Ok, this is the way criticism should be conveyed. I can appreciate this point of view, put across this way. Unfortunately, this will be becoming the norm, moreso in some areas than others. In my local association, last week, we had to inform schools (2 or 3 middle schools) that their contests would have to canceled/postponed till a later date due to lack of officials. This is the first time our association has had to do that, ever. I'm afraid there will be a few more times in December and the early part of January that it'll happen again. The turnover is just too high, we can't keep up with it. I'd guesstimate the 5 year retention rate for new officials in our area is now roughly 15% or less. So with 3 or 4 guys retiring every year, we've got to bring in 20 new faces evey year, just to break even. So when you were used to seeing, say, two veterans and a younger, less skilled ref making his way up through the ranks in a Tuesday or Friday night game, now you're going to maybe see one veteran, one younger developing guy (or gal,) and a fella that quite frankly has no business being in that game. But the spots have to be filled with the personnel that are available. And to address your idea of the TSSAA offering constructive training, that's a pipe dream my friend. I suppose folks don't realize this, but the TSSAA doesn't really put anything monetarily into its officiating base. In fact, they actually rely on officials paying fees and paying to attend summer camps (where officials have to pay the state $200 to work an entire weekend for free in order to maintain 'postseason eligibility' while the TSSAA pockets the gate money) in order to meet their bottom line in the balance sheet. They do pay a stipend for a few supervisors in every area, but the reality is that you can't expect 2 or 3 people to be able to train/develop new officials efficiently, and especially not on the fly while the season is in progress. Any preseason training is paid for out of local associations' coffers, which are dwindling due to less officials in it to pay membership dues. It's just not a good situation. And it's going to get a lot worse, I'm afraid to say.

WR took Bearden into overtime today at East.

Yeah, playing those games does absolutely nothing for y'all, except getting reps for the reserves.

I was beginning to think I was in some alternate reality. Thanks!

Holy Mother of God, how bad is West Greene if UH beat them by 40?? Or did someone put the girls score in for the boys game?

Except a consolidated Carter County School would be firmly in 5A in football, and not have to horses to compete most seasons. In everything else, they'd be in 4A, the largest classification, in all other sports. And that's not even taking into consideration the fact that most the good athletes would just go to Elizabethton instead.

To interject, it's much more than "4 hours " Say it's 7PM game time. (1st off, in my association if you're not on site at a bare minimum of an hour 45 min, you're LATE. Typically arrive 2 hours prior to kickoff) so you need to get to the school at 5. Which if your an hour away, that means you need to leave your day job early, at 4pm, on a Thursday or Friday. 3 hour game. Half an hour to debrief, shower, pack up. Another hour home. It's 11:30 or midnight before you hit the door, and that's assuming you don't stop somewhere for a bite. So yeah, it's more than "4 hours." Alot of folks don't realize it.

Holy Jesus, I'd absolutely forgotten about that one. Imaging trying to drop that dime in 2023 ... You almost always had the better zingers, but I had your number that particular day

Easy there whippersnapper. Ol' King only needs to get up to pee TWICE a night. Get it right.

Unaka's overall record against Cloudland is actually 23-52-1. Albeit all but three of those wins came prior to the early 1980's.

Cloudland by at least 24. Maybe not running clock the entire 4th quarter, but it won't be a tight contest.