buick

This was not a case of her standing still and letting the point guard shoot into her hands. The point guard was driving down the floor, Riddle slid around the seal by White County's post, timed her jump to not only block the base line, but intercept the ball in flight from the point guard. It was a great basketball move and a great block for anyone, boys or girls no matter what age or division. In my opinion she has the talent and skills that if DEVELOPED will get her a starting position on any college team her sophomore year.

I agree that she is not SEC quality right now. From what I understand she missed half her sophomore and all her junior year because of injuries. So if you look at her as a "junior" as far as playing time, I believe that she has the potential to be able to play at SEC level. Give her a year on weight training and conditioning and she would be another Snow who played for UT. Every coach will tell you that you can teach quickness, shooting, and speed, but you cannot teach 6'5". Plus, if you saw her play in the second White County game, you could see that she can play at SEC levels, just ask the White County point guard whose driving layup was not only blocked, but recovered by Riddle. She got up enough that she palmed the ball after the White County girl released it in her shot. A lot of exciting basketball in this girl's future, and as I said in my original post, I am really surprised that no one has signed her, whether SEC, mid major, or just local. The area coaches are really missing out.

I was talkin to some Oakland fans last week and I was surprised to find out that Sarah Riddle has not signed to play College level ball. I find this hard to beleive. What is the matter with the college coaches around here. I was told that Middle hasn't even called her. According to the article in the DNJ on Thursday, she has a 4.0 is a valedictorian and is averaging 10 point, 6.7 rebounds and 2 blocks per game. After the touble UT had with the height of LSU, I'm surprised they aren't camped out at Oakland along with Vandy and the rest of the SEC. It would be a real shame if she doesn't play 4 more years.

Oakland, She shot 7 or 8 of 17. think of what a presence she would be if she could shoot 12 or 14 of 16. With a little work she should be able to do so. I got nothing against riddle or grandstaff. Riddle does a fantastic job on defense and no coach in their right mind can overlook her when coming up with a game plan. I just think that grandstaff is really overlooking an aspect of her team that could help her get to state and perhaps get a championship. As an Oakland fan, I would think that you would want the best for Riddle and the team. Some extra work, say 10 15 minutes after each practice could make the near misses Riddle puts up into scores. That way a coach could not gamble on double teaming ashbury and hoping Riddle misses. It would open the game up even further for the guards and the outside shooting if you have to use 4 of your defenders to cover Riddle and Asbury.

Oakland, DNJ has little to no respect for Oakland girl's basketball. They never have. Just last week, the two undefeated girl teams in the district Oakland and Cookeville played and one third of the front page of the sports page was a picture of Riverdale girls with an article and I believe that Riverdale lost. DNJ sports page must be edited by a former Riverdale grad. By the way, I saw the Seigle game and Oakland better be careful the second half of the season. Seigle figured out the Riddle can't shoot and doubled -tripled teamed Asbury whenever she got the ball. Grandstaff had better invest some time with Riddle or she is going to come up short in the playoffs. I think Riddle was 7 or 8 of 18. If Grandstaff would spend some of her time working with her, she could be the difference come march. She needs to put in some quality time now or she will be making excuses in the future.

Oakland saw in the papers that Oakland won by 6. I was wrong. one thing that i was righ about was fouls, asbury fouled out and riddle was held to 5 point. what i was saying in my earlier posts is that grandstaff has to work on ashbury to keep her from fouling, she needs to realize that a basket by the other team will not kill her and her being in the game is more important (this goes for riddle two) and someone needs to help riddle develop her skills till she is in doulble figures every game. if oakland wants to make a serious run at the state championship, someone on the coaching staff needs to put in some extra time with riddle and some of the other girls because regular practice is not getting it done. good luck

Oakland, I think that Cookeville will get the win tonight. It will be a close game but once the refs(home cooking) get Riddle and Ashbury in foul trouble, the inside game will open up for Cookeville just like it did in the Mount Juliet game. And the only one to blame will be Grandstaff. I have had the opportunity to watch Oakland three time in the last two months and I have noticed that Riddle has not improved one bit in this time. This is the usual Grandstaff reaction to post players. If you cannot improve on your own she is not going to invest any of her time to help you improve. She has to get over this attitude and work with Riddle after practice, on the weekends etc if she expects to get anywhere in the division, sub state or state. She has a player who is 6'5" tall has good speed and some talent who could score 15 to 20 points a game but is scoring under 10. If you watch her play she has only a couple of faults that if she got rid of them, and perhaps put some time in on her shooting she would be unstoppable. Hopefully Grandstaff will wake up and take some time to develope this talent in time for the playoffs. I know what everyone thinks of Rick Insell, but you have to give the man credit, he has a system that will not only take advantage of natural talent, but he develops that talent.

Mover, take a deep breath, relax and have time for a little reality check. It is very nice that you think that in your opinion your sister is a "phenom" and that you want everyone to know about her. But you put your opinion on a public forum, which encourages other people to voice their opinion of your sister. Not everyone is going to agree with you. Now if you go back and read the three posts from five, oakland, and buick you will find that all of us agree that your sister is a fine player, but we feel that as a young player she has to learn where the line between agressive and rough is and how to stay on the correct side. In the case of Hughes she went over that line repeatly, including the lovely habit of tripping a player during transition. If she didn't do it to you personally, I am sure you had one of your teamates get tripped. She got so bad, she was personally cautioned by the TSSAA going into her senior year. I think the point being made was that we feel that your sister is good enough that she doesn't have to stoop to this type of "cheap tricks" to win, and Hughes was being used as an example of what you get when you let emotions blind you to where aggressiveness ends and rough begins. Further, she is like a lot of young players who are agressive. She has discovered that aggressiveness worked when she was playing in grade school and freshman year because she is playing against girls who are not used to banging it up on the court. As she gets older, she will come up against players who are not intimidated by aggressiveness, and in fact are as aggressive or more so. I have seen a lot of young players loose their confidence when they can no longer intimidate the other players. It sounds like she met such a group when she played Oakland. She is going to meet a lot more as she plays in older age groups in AAU, and she is going to be in for a real shock if she plays college ball. I think the point all of the posts are trying to make is that she will be a better player when she scores only 12 points in a game but has 16 assists. Now in fairness to you and your sister, I got hold of a copy of the game film and watched it from beginning to end. And I got to tell you your sister in my opion is a rough player. The best example that I can give you is when she is coming up the floor with the defense in front of her and she repeatly runs into the girl in front of her who is backing up as they goes down the floor. She will run into the girl, push into her with her arms and then fling them into the air looking at the ref for a foul call. There are a number of other instances, but this one was the most obvious. As far as the name fish that five mentioned, during my years as a ref, we used this name for the "actors" who loved to hit the floor trying to draw a charge. They looked like a fish thrown on the deck of a boat flopping around. I have not heard this nick name used in reference to your sister, but after seeing the flop she took in the second minute of the game against Riddle, I must say that she is really good at it. Now before you think I am picking on your sister, let me say that it is one of the best flops I have seen in the 20 plus years I have been watching or reffing this game, great timing, good balance, and perfect execution. No ref in the business would not give her the call. If you don't beleive that it was a flop, do what I did for you and watch the film with an open mind, and then ask your sister.

Oakland, I couldn't get to the game in time to see the girls play. I would appreciate any highlights. I also agree with you about playing rough vs aggressive. The last player to skate the line in district 7 was Nikki Hughes from Blackman. I believe she got a number of Ts and was even ejected from a couple of games. She was also the one who tripped Sarah Riddle in her Sophomore year to end her season. Aggressive is to be expected but there comes a time when it has to be controlled. Lanning had better understand the difference or she might get a lesson on the court when she meets someone who plays the same way. Burke might also need to settle her down before it gets out of hand. I know Hockenberry at Blackman was too concerned with winning to sit Hughes on the bench when she acted out, maybe Burke has more class.

Just courious, can anyone name the players on a Rick Insell championship team that was made up of all "local" players. You know, girls who went to elementary school in a feeder school for Shelbyville Central High School. It sure would be nice to know that Insell can do it with "local" talent. I would settle for a local starting 5.

hey oakland2001 you need to read the post by five re riddle. maybe you ought to get a little more info before bashing a patriot by the way rick insell doen't recruit of pay for player, just ask anyone from shelbyville. (you know it hurts to type with your tongue in your cheek)

Shelbyville will never be considered good until they win with 5 starters who came up through the system and were not move-ins. Until that time anyone who even beats them even once, has more right to brag than they ever will.

Mindy is a great coach and really focuses on the fundamentals like help side boxing out and so on. Once they mastered those skills and put them together with all of the hustle and heart they have it is no wonder why they were the 1st place team going into the district.

Yes Riverdale did win I don't know the exact score but they won by 25.