Gomab...Bartlettt @ Rumble on the Ridge...

[TJ]

What do you know? I saw where they beat McComb who has that Elton Brand type player. Let me know what you know. Thanks.

[gomab2]

TJ...... I don't know many details, but I know Bartlett did very, very well, going I think 3-1.... The big win was the one over McComb, MS, with man-child Jackie Bulter.... Bartlett may be even better without big Ben, which is scary... I heard Jaycean is playing very, very well.....

[TJ]

I dunno about being better w/o Ben b/c it's REAL hard to replace 6'10", especially in HS. Marc Gasol scored like 40 on them b/c they didn't have a guy taller than 6'4". I went and watched them play last week and they looked alright. Chase Hardin is playing really well and shooting the ball well and Jaycean is killin people by getting to the basket. He may be the longest player i've ever seen. He's like Scottie Pippen long. But anyway, Bartlett is good b/c they are REAL good defensively.

[cobrafan90]

jaycean is GOOD!

 

But Ben will be missed, he allowed a lot of gambling on the perimeter(defense). he initiated the break with his rebounding allowing herring and the other young kid(i always forget his name, he has mad hops) to get out on the wing and just beat everybody down court for an easy two. now they have to help out on the boards.

 

bartlett is still one of the top teams in TN though. i was thoroughly impressed with them this summer.

[Opperman]

Bartlett went 2-1. They lost to a pretty solid Jackson (Miss.) Callaway team in the first game. They struggled against Callaway's defense, but they just didn't come ready to play, IMO, not to take anything away from Callaway.

 

In the second game, they beat the host, Forrest City, by 8...Forrest City is not very good (at all), but they have a couple of good players, and their athleticism and rebounding kept them in it.

 

Against McComb, Bartlett basically frustrated them by slowing the game down and working the ball around patiently until they got open layups or open threes. They collapsed on Butler as much as they could, and tried to defend the other four with three guys, and it worked well enough to win the game.

 

As for Butler, I think Lorenzen Wright is a better comparison than Elton Brand. He's not the absolute punisher Brand is, but he is tall, long, big, and good.

 

6-9 junior Al Jefferson from Prentiss, Miss., showed more versatility than Butler did, but Butler was a ton better in the head-to-head matchup (24p 10 or 14 tr to something like 19p 13r, much of which was at the end of the game). Jefferson had 44 points, 25 rebounds, and "6" blocks (I thought he had more like 10-12, but the stat crew there didn't give him credit for some shots that he blocked but didn't swat back into the floor or the seats) in the 7th-place game against Forrest City. Jefferson is a complete player, but he might have been lazy. I'm not sure how much of his walking around was laziness and how much was trying to avoid running out of gas because the rest of his team, save for 6-6 sophomore forward Antwan Pittman, is an embarrassment to the game of basketball and because of that, they can't afford to put him on the bench.

[Opperman]

And yes, Jaycen Herring is *GOOD*. If he can improve as much between now and this time next year as he has since this time last year, I think he could be the best player to have ever worn a Bartlett uniform.