kiwidad

Canon or Nikon.. whichever they are both good value for money. Personally I shoot Nikon. Indoor sports like basketball.. cheapest lens Canon and Nikon make will work superbly(and with using flash)! With film the classic 85mm f1.8 lenses are great but when you multiply the effective focal length for digital the good ole 50mm lens no-one wants, works as a 75mm or so and for indoor basketball and volleyball you will do great! VR lenses are a complete waste of money for indoor sports like basketball! WHY? simply because at most of the high school gyms wyou will find yourselve shooting at shutterspeeds over 1/250th to try an freeze the subject. VR removes shake and does not freeze the subject so taking pictures at 1/60th handheld in a gym is always gonna mean blurry pics. Unless you just have too much money to spend save the extra cost on a vr and buy a monopod. For football the same issues with speed apply. Some folk use flash and some dont. Personally I hate flash and I guarantee the fans opposite you do to! The number one concern in a camera is ISO if you can go over 1600 you will have a lot of trouble without using flash! I find myself using ISO 3200 and in some Gyms ISO 6400. You will hear whining about noise in high ISO settings but just ignore it. Better to get the picture with noise than not at all, and you can always post process a lot of the noise out. If you plan to shoot for a newspaper or clients take weather into consideration and be prepared for it if you shoot outdoors! Tenba make a great camera raincoat for under $50. you cant not shoot just because its cold and wet! A few weeks back I had to wipe frost of my bag on a sideline after a game! Right now I think the best sports camera on the used market is Nikons D2H.You can pick em up for around $1200 and you get an 8fps camera with a ISO setting whichs tops out at 6400 and wont cry if you get a splash of rain or two on it!. THe Battery will get something near 2000 shot per charge and it doenst care how hot or cold it is! This camera and a $50 f1.8 lens will get you great basketball pictures. Get a nikon AF 80-200 lens for another $500 and a monopod for a hundred bucks and you will have enough change from $2000 to get a flash!

This early in the season and since Harpeth beat them how can you possibly say CPA is a good team? Was it not commented here how it's a new year this year and last year doesn't count for anything? contraditions to say the least.. On that note I would therefore say Sycamores girls beat probably the best whitehouse team ever tonite! Actually I have no idea how good white house or CPA are this year, and honestly I dont really care. I do have a horse in this race and like many here I would like to see "my" team win out. Whether it happens.. we'll ALL have to wait and see and hopefully enjoy some great basketball along the way

I understood whoever wins this Friday gets a home game, so if Sycamore wins they have a home game.. is this not the case?

Actually the sycamore middle school last year went all the way, they won district, regionals and sectionals. The team your refering to went as far as regionals and may have won it but never made it through to win the sectionals. We'll all see soon enough how Mandy does against Sycamore.. dec 8th they meet at Sycamores court... and I believe its Sycamores last regular season game at Harpeth on feb 9th according to my schedule.

I suspect there will be some surprises, I cant wait till they play! It will be a great game to watch no matter who comes out on top. Incidently the only unbeaten junior high in this area (I assume this is middle school) last year was sycamore. 24-0. I assume you are talking more years back though? Mendenhall is the best in the state?? .. hmmmm really? Seems like there may be some difference of opinion here but even with the girls you named being great players, you have to sub sometime!

care to elaborate? you said if someone is in an offside position when the ball is shot they are no longer offside? Did I misread that?

in an offisdes position before the shot? so they are offsides then? dont you mean if she is onside when the ball is kicked? when the ball contacts another player they bring you onside unless you are in an offisde position relative to that player. So when the ball hits the goal crossbar and everyone rushes to the ball ALL players upfield become onsides! Imagine if it were not so.. at every shot at goal the defense would just rush up the field and no offensive player could advance to the ball. If the ball landed behind them it would be as you say but not when it falls in front of them I will never understand why people have so much dificulty with offsides, it is not that difficult. try explaining when a Ref gives advantage and calls it back to a spectator!

It seems like if the high school coaches would not break the rules this wouldnt be neccesary. The coaches are not permitted to coach a team over the summer so they try to make the kids all play on the same team with a "puppet" coach and then coach from the stands during games with motions and hand signal and even conferences with an assistant before time outs etc. I confess I have only seen this in Basketball Someone correct me if I am wrong here but I was told this is why the TSSAA is considering this rule change! Personally I wish the TSSAA would spend more time doing something to improve the standard of refereeing! Its almost requires a sedative to watch games some days. Can anyone tell me how you can be offsides when the ball comes off the crossbar? And seriously how many times does a goalie need to be kicked in the head in a game? Its a great game, hope we can get it right sooner than later

clearly all extremes of opinion here! If I may be permitted to have the last word however. Win or lose the benefity of my child playing AAU is tremendous. Her team was not one of "superstars" and yet they all managed to improve themselves as ball players. Did I mention they had fun too! To Team Pride I say "good luck" maybe next year we'll hold ya to 90! And, finally... does anyone know if this is the largest winning margin at a substate ever?

and just because a team gets beat by such a margin doesnt mean they are unskilled or coached by "dad" as you put it. AAU used to be about learning and improving, at least that was the impression I got. Some teams ARE made up of the best group of local kids the coach could put together and sometimes cicumstances put a team with injuries on the floor and they loose by a large margin. I started this thread becuase of something I saw which aggravated me and it has been interesting reading varied opinions. I still think it is an unacceptable action to win by such a margin and I am not convinced the game which triggered this couldnt of been played and won in a more sportsman like manner.

so correct me if I am wrong, but your saying that there is essentially no college recruiting going on other than in AAU tournaments?

I think it reflects poorly when your pressing and 50pts up. and well gee wiz I have seen middle and high school teams backing way off rather than running up the score like this.

Losing is always no fun but should a team run up the score to win a game by over 90 points? I think we al know how good the team pride u14 are but why did they feel compelled to run up the score to beat a lesser team by almost a hundred points? There is no question they could easily win and I think they showed that but what do they benefit from doing this?

Div 1 North Central 14u tn lady knights defeated TN truth 52-46

Yes the sparks disbanded, not really sure why. The realize the core of the sparks team played for sycamore middle this year and they went 24-0 two of the big girls went to u14 teams, the Lady Knights and a Father Ryan based team I believe, several play for the hoopsters and I believe two went to the tigers.

everyone has to lose sometime! how many unheard ofs have won medals at the olympics the sycamore middle girls went 24-0 this season.. an unheard of school beating lavergne, whittmore, mount juliet... um blackman so I say don't count them out... go war eagles!!!

One of the students at the game had a sign that said Sycamores Magic Season which of course spells SMS. Its been an amazing season. I did take a handful of the Harpeth game.. The boys played well, got down to business and looked good doing it. I will hopefully get the middle school tournament (district, regionals and sectional) pictures online in the next week. I already have the regular season pics online but just havent had tme to post any tournemant pictures My website is http://lifeexposures.com and the pictures under the gallery link at the bottom of the page. everything I shoot is there including the high school games Hey Congrats to you guys too, your HHS lads played a great game from what I heard to take district (even if it was a win over Syacamore).

Officials can justify most things it seems. I remember a year or two back at a tourney in murfreesoboro the rules were changed so a home team could make the finals over a visiting team. I would be interested in you expanding on this statement.... by the time my kids graduate maybe I'll understand the rules

I did reread your post and I wrote my reply several time over becauseI wanted to make apoint. My intention isnt to suggest you faulted the referees rather to suggest that we only see the fouls that didnt go our way. We dont remember the ones we got away with. If you sat where I think you sat from your reply surely you noticed the tackle I mentioned also. Both teams played the best they could on the day and the best team team on the night took the trophy home. maybe we"ll get a rematch of sorts in aau>> who knows!

half the fans complain about the refs all the time! Losing is tough and I guess I would complain about the officiating if Sycamore lost but just in case you only spotted that one foul, what did you think of the tackle around the waist of the sycamore point guard at about 2 minutes left on the clock by the LHS girl? Intentional? It was almost at half court and if there was an attempt at the ball it sure was disguised by the football move! How about the push off by the LHS point guard? did you miss those? or the holding underneath that wasnt called? I have given up scoring refs, good or bad they are part of the game Three refs out there and two said it wasnt so I guess its settled! What amazed me was the final score 53-51. that has to be a high scoring game. 104 point combined! Sycamore have had a 24-0 season. Their post season .. they won district and then regionals and sectionals is truly incredible. it is the first time they have played in the large school tourneys ( that had 34 too many students to play in the small schools). Way to go girls! Congrats to all the teams in the tourney, worth every penny of the $4 to attend!

and in the girls game (large schools div.) Sycamore over LaVergne 53 to 51 Go Lady Knights 24-0

When I watch my daughter play and she is pulled from the game when she makes a mistake it is annoying BUT isnt that what coaching is about? Correct her, give her a rest and lets try again I like coaches I can talk to.. .. If my kid's spending too much time on the bench my questions isnt gonna be a critcism it gonna be what does she need to work on! Next time she is on the floor maybe she will get it right! There are no guarantees when it comes to playing time, coaches ned to make that very clear to parents AND players. FAVORITISM!!!! this has to be the most annoying aspect of coaches who do it.. if they play favorites they have no sympathy from me if they are criticized. I coach rec soccer and it is so much harder when my kid is on my team to balance playing time, but I refuse to be accused of playing favorites!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I misread what you wrote.. The Mt Juliet loss surprised me 5 of the girls played AAU for the sparks the lady knights are still unbeaten this season 23-0 does anyone have the scoop on the Lavergne girls team? I left before they played Friday... predictions?

How do you figure that? I thought Sycamore was the top seed in the Northern middle district? They beat mt Juliet in the regionals final!!!! I was kinda hoping for a rematch.. So with the snow today have the finals been moved to tuesday ?

The Lady Knights won tonites matchup again whitmore (apologies if I mispelt it) the puts their season at 23-0 Does anyone k now who won the mt Juliet Girls vs Lavernge game tonight?