ballboy92

Thoughts on this game: 1) Very painful to watch. A ton of turnovers and fouls from both sides made it even longer. 2) Grace's young guards were exposed and didn't handle any type of pressure Central threw at them. These guys, who will be very good, need to stop picking up their dribble and use their quickness to beat the press. 3) Grace played a lot of players and I know Coach Matheiss is still trying to find who can play and who can't, but Grace is now starting to enter the "real" season. The "real" season is 4 or 5 games against Temple and Grace needs to find 5 guys who can play and play together and go with those 5 guys. 4) If Grace had played Temple last night, Temple would have won by 30 or more points. Hate to say it but it's true. 5) Anxious to see how they play against Soddy Daisy today and hope they recover and play well. *Also that was a very bad call at the end of the game to send Grace to the free-throw line with no time remaining. I'm not even sure Grace was even going to get the shot off before the buzzer and the officials should not have been the ones to effect the outcome of this game.

I would like to thank Coach Matheiss and the rest of the Grace team for always winning and losing with class.

I remember when this game was important

Why wouldn't you hope for the best for both of these guys? I personally think it would be pretty cool to see 2 kids from Chattanooga make it to the SEC/ACC. It's been quite a while (CJ Black?) since somebody inside the city limits has made it big-time.

What is Grace's starting 5? McMasters Transfer ? ? ? By the way, who is this transfer?

As a Grace fan I am scared too death about the CSAS game. Grace needed an extremely hot Davis Eldridge (I think he made 7 3's ) last time they played CSAS to beat them. Defensively, if Grace was ever going to play zone, this would be the time to do it. CSAS has several quick guards who can drive around the Grace defenders and in doing so also get Grace in foul trouble. If I was coaching Grace I would come out in a zone, make CSAS hit the outside shot, and go from there. If CSAS starts making the outside shot, then jump back in man.

Grace's biggest concern right now is lack of depth. They are getting zero scoring from their bench in the games that count (Temple, Ooltewah, McCallie, etc.) Don't come back with so-and-so scored 14 points against Copper Basin because that doesn't count. Say what you want, but basketball is about putting the ball in the basket and outscoring your opponent. Therefore, let me provide a scenario for those of you who are going to disagree with what I'm saying: Grace is playing an opponent in the playoffs whose starting five is match-up for match-up completely their equal. However, the opponent has two kids who come off the bench to score six points each. We all know what that equals..............a 12 point loss for Grace. The lack of depth wouldn't even be a concern if there wasn't such things as fouls in basketball. But that's not the case and in tight, physical games we all know that foul trouble plays a huge part in who wins and loses.

If you think Powell can cover Skogen, you're wrong. He's too good and too quick for anybody in this city to check him.

CJ Black played at AAA Brainerd

What ever happened to Jon Cook from CCS? Is he playing anywhere right now?

Porter Roberts from CSAS. Led Purdue to 3 or 4 Big Ten titles in the early 90's. Don't know if anybody else has that on their resume.

The arguement over which team is better needs to die for right now. The postseason will determine who's better, so for right now it's obvious that Temple and Grace are about as even as you can get. Grace has got some breaks and made some key shots but both games could have gone either way. Great job by both teams and great column by Hargis in the paper today: "best rivalry in the city." Can't wait until the next one.

Temple's point guard had way too many turnovers against Grace. Needs to settle down a little bit.

I think the Grace coaches and the entire team deserve a lot of credit for coming back off those two losses. The coaches and players looked like they had done a little "soul searching" after the ND loss. They could have very well gone into a tailspin and got down on themselves, but instead they went to work and found a way to beat a very good team. NICE JOB!

Actually, I am very optimistic that these problems will be addressed.

My thoughts: 1) This year's team is not as good as last year's and here is why: It's basically the same team without Parshall's 15-20 points a game. Nobody has stepped up and filled that void, I assume everyone thought that Carter and Nick together would fill that void but it has not happened as of yet. Not saying it won't happen and I hope it does. 2) Grace is too reliant on the three-point basket. They have the ability to be very effective with the outside shot, however there is no one underneath to rebound the missed shots. Hopefully that will be addressed. 3) Nick has got to be a bigger part of the offensive gameplan. His best attribute is to drive into the lane, draw the double-team and either get fouled or dish it off to the open man. Otherwise, you've just got everybody standing around the three-point line not moving.

I've been watching basketball a long time in Chattanooga and Caleb was one of the top five players I've seen in the last 15 years. He is better than Mercer in my opinion.

I remember the days of Joe Reed, Ant-Man and the gang when they were the second best team in the city. Second only to some great Brainerd teams who were dominating the state. What happened?

The Times Free Press has nothing to do with this tournament other than being the sponsor. Temple is hosting the tourney so therefore they made out the brackets. Do you really think someone down at the newspaper drew this thing up?

Does anybody know what teams are playing in Temple's tourney? I know Grace and Temple are but who else?

I'm not going to try and defend Van Horn because he doesn't need it. He's a tough kid and a great ballplayer. But I will say this, if you saw him play in the state championship game a few years ago, you wouldn't be so critical. He brought the ball up the floor against a full-court press the entire game and almost led a very young Grace team to a state title.

Right now as of 12/13/05, Grace is the best team in the city. That includes AA and AAA, which doesn't say much for Chatt basketball in those upper classes. Things may change over the course of the season, but nobody matches up with Grace right now. Van Horn is now starting to relax and get back in the flow of the team and therefore becoming the X-factor that nobody else has: a 6'3" guard who can drive to the basket, rebound, distribute the basketball and knock down a long-range jumper when he needs to. If he continues to progress, Grace will continue to be the best team in Chattanooga.