Kentucky's girls' basketball state tournament tips off in less than an hour from Western Kentucky University's E.A. Diddle Arena in Bowling Green. You can watch the action and press conferences live at iHigh.com.
Today's games:
Walton-Verona vs.Bowling Green, noon Central
Louisville DuPont Manual vs. Crittenden County, 1:30 p.m.
Louisville Butler Traditional vs. Perry County Central, 6:30 p.m.
Marion County vs. Montgomery County, 8 p.m.
Tomorrow's:
Sheldon Clark vs. Boyd County, noon
Calloway County vs. Newport Central Catholic, 1:30
Madison Central vs. Rockcastle County, 6:30
Clay County vs. Owensboro Catholic, 8
Hooray for the emergence and ongoing innovation of the public Internet (and on to the Smart Grid)!
Uncle Buddy's been saying all along that Calloway County would be a special team in the First Region this year, per Ricky Martin in Murray's Ledger & Times.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first-ever Sweet Sixteen trip for Crittenden County, who advanced out of the Second Region.
Metcalfe County's coach told The Daily News that he felt that his three-point shooter should've been going to the line at the end of the Fourth Region final that Bowling Green won by two points.
The Litkenhaus Ratings say Louisville Manual is the best team in the tournament. Dave Cantrall and The Herald-Leader apparently have Rockcastle County right up there, too.
John Herndon, always good, at www.AndersonNews.com: "I still believe Anderson County was the best team in the Eighth Region in 2011, but when the lights shone brightest, it was Walton-Verona with the big trophy, and deservedly so. Walton had answers for Anderson and when Anderson gave an inch, Walton-Verona responded by taking a foot."
"Sheldon Clark is partying like it's 1992," Joshua Bell wrote in The Daily Independent of Ashland. The Inez school has earned "its first Sweet Sixteen berth in 19 years – when it won back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992 ..."
Scott Thompson, on the KHSAA radio broadcast, just said that six of the teams in the Sweet Sixteen have never won the title. Also, he said, with 2010 champ Louisville Mercy out, we will be crowning a new girls' state champion for the second-straight season.
ReplyDeleteGO ROCKETS!!
ReplyDeleteKHSAA's color commentator is Jaime Walz Richey, head coach of Fort Thomas Highlands, member of the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame, 1996 Kentucky Miss Basketball and the National Gatorade Player of the Year and co-convener of perhaps the all-time-famous players' meeting in Lady Topper hoops history.
ReplyDeleteThe Courier-Journal's Jody Demling details the Sweet Sixteen's star power.
ReplyDeleteMadison County's students, faculty and staff have no excuse.
ReplyDeleteBG, playing across town at WKU, opened with a three-pointer but has made only two of seven field goals in the early going of the first game. Walton-Verona, who probably wiggled more than 200 miles down Ky. 20, Ky. 55 and U.S. 31E through the gut of the state, has bottomed four of six and leads, 8-6, with 2:31 to go.
ReplyDeleteBig surge by the Purples after what was obviously a great timeout at 2:31: 15-8, Bowling Green, after a buzzer three-pointer to cap the first quarter.
ReplyDeleteGO ROCKETS!
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong, but I don't think any school from Crittenden County has been to the boys' or girls' state basketball tournament since Tolu went to the boys' tournament back in the 1930s.
ReplyDeleteWalton-Verona takes a timeout with 3:31 to go in the half. It's 20-13, Purples.
ReplyDelete24-21, BG, at the half. Good timeout for the Lady Bearcats.
ReplyDeleteLady Purples are up, 52-29, with under three minutes to go.
ReplyDeleteWell, here's to Walton-Verona, whose first ever Sweet Sixteen trip is about to come to an end.
ReplyDeleteWalton-Verona: "Not the Sunset, but the Dawn."
ReplyDeleteTerrific history of Walton. I'd forgotten that Steve Cauthen grew up there.
And Crittenden County and Louisville Manual are off and running ... running too much, in fact, for the Lady Rockets' good, says Coach Walz-Richey. It's 10-4, Manual.
ReplyDelete22-8, Manual, after one quarter.
ReplyDelete30-12 ... Scott Thompson in the KHSAA telecast: "Something Crittenden County has been unable to do is put the brakes on Manual's drives inside."
ReplyDelete38-14, Manual, at the half.
ReplyDeleteOh, outstanding, KHSAA is using Bruce Springsteen's "Rosalita" as a commercial bumper!
ReplyDelete"Kentucky Utilities Sweet Sixteen Radio Network," I should be saying.
ReplyDeleteA special guest is coming up after this break! I'm pretty sure Joe B. was in studio in Lexington this morning, and Mary Taylor-Cowles is probably just getting back to Bowling Green from Arkansas now. So, I'm going to guess ... hmm? ... Julian Tackett, KHSAA commissioner.
Second guess: Paul Sanderford, coach of three Lady Topper Final Four teams.
Third guess: Jeff Walz, current U of L women's basketball coach and brother of color commentator.
Went to Shady Grove High School ... jersey retired ... played for Ed Diddle ...?
ReplyDeleteCarlisle Towery? Wow.
Man, shame on me ... I do not remember ever hearing of Mr. Towery. From Wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"William Carlisle Towery (born June 20, 1920), nicknamed 'Blackie' or 'Big Boy',[1] is a retired American basketball player. A 6'5" (1.96 m) forward/center, Towery played for the Western Kentucky University Hilltoppers from 1938 to 1941. He was a two-time All-America selection and the first Hilltopper to score 1,000 points. He also led the Hilltoppers to three Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association titles.[2]
After graduating, Towery began his professional career with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons of the National Basketball League. He played three seasons with the Pistons before enterring military service in World War II, where he earned a Bronze Star as an infantryman.[2] He then returned to the Pistons in 1946, and remained with the team as they joined the Basketball Association of America (the modern NBA) in 1948. Towery spent half a season with the Pistons in the BAA, and later served stints for the Indianapolis Jets and Baltimore Bullets. When he retired from basketball in 1950, he had scored 2,317 combined NBL/NBA points.[3]
In 2003, Western Kentucky University retired his #42 college jersey. He became the sixth Hilltopper to receive such honors.[2]"
Rest in peace, Carlisle Towery.
DeleteCrittenden County scores quickly out of halftime, and Manual's irate coach immediately calls timeout.
ReplyDelete46-18.
ReplyDeleteThis Crittenden County game reminds me of the time Heath's girls went to the state tournament and were blown out by Franklin County with the whole school listening over the intercom.
ReplyDeleteIt is so hard to be from western Kentucky. You are really fighting uphill all the time.
ReplyDelete57-25, Manual, through three quarters.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, you get to be from western Kentucky -- which is a blessing in and of itself.
ReplyDeleteThe KUSSRN sideline reporter said that Crittenden County's coach is trying to fire up the Lady Rockets to strive to win the fourth quarter. So far, Crittenden has outscored Manual, 6-4, in the quarter.
ReplyDeleteTaco John's on the way home, baby. TAKE THAT, LOUISVILLE!
ReplyDelete64-33, Manual, in the game; 8-7, Crittenden, in the quarter.
ReplyDelete71-35 and 14-10, Manual, 3:27 to play. Every Manual player has already been in the game.
ReplyDeleteWow. I wonder what this was about:
ReplyDeletePrinting error in this week's paper
Due to an error at the printing plant in Elkton, Ky., this week's Special 4-Page Commemorative Section on the girls' basketball team's trip to the Sweet Sixteen has a major error. An entire page was omitted by the printer. Page 2 of the special section was not printed properly. We hope to have the matter corrected next week. We apologize to our advertisers and readers for this situation.
"DO YOU LIKE THE IDEA OF CRITTENDEN COUNTY CLOSING SCHOOL FOR THE GIRLS' STATE TOURNAMENT BASKETBALL GAME?"
ReplyDeleteMy vote extends Yes's lead to 234-111 over No. Don't Care is bringing up the rear with 20.
"Hey Diddle Diddle
ReplyDelete"Lady Rockets aren't here to fiddle
"They're here to
"ROCK THE HOUSE"
Final: 78-40, Manual.
ReplyDeleteOh well, now I don't care who wins it.
ReplyDeleteGO, LAKERS!
ReplyDeleteThe Crittenden Press has done a lights-out-fantastic job of documenting Marion's excitement around the Lady Rockets' Sweet Sixteen berth: the football coach’s getting his head shaved, pep rallies at both Rocket Arena and the elementary school, Lady Rocket Booster Club’s fund drive to offset travel expenses, free face painting and hair braiding provided by Marion’s Signature Salon at the team’s hotel in Bowling Green and a completely enthralling three minutes and 28 seconds of court-level video and interviews from the Second Region final in Smithland.
ReplyDeleteThis was Crittenden County's first trip to the state tournament, following only its second appearance in the Second Region championship game. The other came in 1978. "I remember being in about fifth or sixth grade and going to the game when Jeannie Hinchee and those other girls were in the finals," Lady Rocket coach Shannon Hodge told The Crittenden Press.
Congratulations to Coach Hodge, the Lady Rockets and The Crittenden Press on an outstanding run.
LOVE THE PROMOTION BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG!
ReplyDeleteStill 20 minutes from tipoff of the day's third of four games, so how about a little Dave Kindred?
ReplyDelete"Back when the world was young, an anvil-footed playmaker sat with a pretty girl in a car late one night. When not otherwise occupied, they talked.
"'I played basketball once,' she said.
"'You did?'
"'For our church team,' she said.
"'How'd you do?'
"'Oh, I scored all our points.'
"'All of them?' The playmaker, who never scored 20 points in a game, was impressed. 'How many did you get?'
"'We weren't very good,' the pretty one said. 'It was our first game, and it was a big tournament, and we played the champion team.'
"'How many points did you get?'
"'Fourteen,' she said.
"Alas, the playmaker laughed. Out loud. 'You scored all your team's points, and 14 was all you got?' The playmaker would live to regret those words.
"'We were just a new team,' she said cooly.
"'Did you win?'
"'We lost.'
"Maybe it was his imagination, but the playmaker sensed a chill in the air. 'What was the score?' he said.
"'That's not important.' An Arctic breeze moved through the car.
"'Come on,' he said.
"'If you must know, it was 72-14," she said. By a miracle of meteorology, icicles formed on the rear-view mirror. For years afterward, the bonds of wedded bliss could be tested for their strength by the use of that score, as in, 'Hmmm, 72-14 wasn't it?'
"Girls played basketball from the start in 1891. Happy Chandler and Ed Diddle coached college girl teams in Kentucky. The high school girls played a State Tournament until 1932 when the powers-that-were discontinued the game for either the public reason (too hard on the poor little dears) or the whispered reason (the men in charge mixed hanky-panky with coaching). But in 1974 the Kentucky state legislature required all high schools to have girls basketball if the girls wanted it. And 304 schools had teams ..."
Kindred, Dave Basketball: The Dream Game in Kentucky (Louisville: Data Courier, 1976) 183.
One of Perry County Central's players is making her second Sweet Sixteen appearance--10 years after her first, writes Jennifer Smith in The Herald-Leader.
ReplyDeleteHey, speaking of Dave Kindred, ...
ReplyDeleteA Mayfield student's National Anthem gets high praise, and The Courier-Journal's Jason Frakes is on the scene.
ReplyDelete"Commodore Proud ... Today ... Tomorrow ... Forever"
ReplyDeletePerry County Central is up, 4-2, on Butler.
Lunch Menu
ReplyDeleteMonday- Chicken Casserole, Cheeseburgers, Pizza
Tuesday-Soup beans, Chicken sandwiches,
pizza sticks
Wednesday-Dismiss at Noon
Thursday- NO SCHOOL SPRING BREAK
Friday-NO SCHOOL SPRING BREAK
This is the 15th year of Perry County Central High, and it has slightly more than 1,000 students--per the school's web site.
ReplyDeleteButler 7, Perry County Central 6 ...
ReplyDeletePerry County and its seat, Hazard, were both "named by men who served under Oliver Hazard Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie, September 10, 1813," says Kentucky's WPA guide.
ReplyDelete11-10, Perry County Central, but its starting point guard just went out with an injury. Replaced by a senior.
ReplyDelete2:57 to go in the half ... the Perry County Central player who got hurt is also the team's leading scorer ...
ReplyDelete16-14, Perry County Central, by the way ...
ReplyDelete21-19, Butler, at the half. In addition to playing without the leading scorer, Kendall Noble, for most of the first half after her knee injury (and Bowling Green Daily News Michael Compton Tweeted recently that her return seemed unlikely), Perry County Central played without a freshman standout for the last minutes of the half after she was assessed her second personal foul.
ReplyDeleteLove that story about Oliver Hazard Perry.
ReplyDeleteLove the Dave Kindred story. Eric, is "Basketball: The Dream Game in Kentucky," the best book ever written about Kentucky?
Jaime Walz-Richey: "I tore my ACL, and it's the worst feeling in the world. I hope the news is better for Kendall."
ReplyDeleteNoble tried to play here at the beginning of the second half but was again helped off the court after the knee was a problem on defense.
32-24, Butler ...
Commentating Coach Walz-Richey: "Perry Central girls are looking a little winded here; they're going to have to catch their second wind here without Noble."
ReplyDelete2:50 to play in the third quarter ...
Louisville Butler Traditional 34, Perry County Central 28, through three quarters ...
ReplyDelete34-30 ...
ReplyDeleteCoach Walz-Richey points out that Perry County Central's coach has conserved all five of his timeouts, and she thinks he'll use them to give his team extra rest in this fourth quarter.
ReplyDelete36-33 ... 6:28 ...
ReplyDeleteBack-to-back 3s from the same PCC player ... 37-36 ... 5:35 ...
ReplyDelete39-36 ... and Butler's zone press leads to a PCC over-and-back turnover ...
ReplyDelete"Was that over-and-back, Jaime?"
W-R: "Close call."
39-38 ... 3:32 ...
ReplyDeleteSeventh team foul on Butler ... one-plus-one the rest of the way for PCC ...
ReplyDeleteNow Butler is in the one-and-one ...
ReplyDeleteBoth teams miss front ends on first bonus opportunities.
Remains 39-38 ... 3:16 ...
PCC rebounds its missed three, scores and will be headed to the line after a timeout with 2:26 to go ... 40-39, Lady Commodores, pending the free-throw attempt ...
ReplyDeleteButler back ahead, 41-40 ... 1:44 ...
ReplyDeleteInside a minute, Butler ahead by two, and PCC calls a timeout ... will have the ball when we return ...
ReplyDelete6.8 seconds ... nothing happening on offense ... another PCC timeout ... Butler still by two ...
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, in the Northeast Conference final, Robert Morris hit a late 3-pointer to send their game with Long Island University into overtime.
ReplyDeleteButler timeout ...
ReplyDeleteTwo misses by Perry County Central, both near the goal, and Louisville Butler Traditional survives, 42-40.
ReplyDeleteLong Island wins the Northeast Conference championship over Robert Morris 85-82 in overtime.
ReplyDeleteEric, you're doing a great job with this coverage.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteAnd our last game of the evening--Montgomery County vs. Marion County--is underway.
ReplyDeleteThe Dream Game in Kentucky has been The City Game thus far in the Sweet Sixteen, with teams from Bowling Green, Louisville and Louisville winning the first three games. But we're sure to have one very happy small town, Mount Sterling or Maysville, in about two hours.
ReplyDeleteRight now, it's the folks gathered around radios and MacBook Pros up in Mount Sterling who are smiling, as Montgomery County leads, 11-10, with 2:13 to play in the first quarter at Diddle.
Happier further on up in Maysville now ... 27-17 lead for Marion County with 2:46 to go in the half ... their point guard is Makayla Epps, a relative of former UK Wildcat Anthony Epps ...
ReplyDeleteKUSSRN play-by-play dude: "Epps taking control offensively and defensively, and suddenly it's 32-17."
ReplyDeleteMarion in full-court pressure ...
At 0.2 seconds, Montgomery County scores low, is fouled and makes the free throw.
ReplyDelete"That is huge going into the half," Coach Walz-Richey comments.
Marion County coach, on the way to the locker room, "They're wearing down a little bit, and we're a little quicker than they are. We should be able to get some easy baskets."
Sounds like Montgomery County better be ready for another half of pressure.
KUSSRN bumper coming back to halftime show: the fantastic "Living for the City" by Stevie Wonder. Obviously, KUSSRN has been refreshing its Heath Post comments pane this evening!
ReplyDelete34-26 ... nice run by Montgomery County here ...
ReplyDeleteBut Marion County responds with a fierce third-quarter-closing burst, and it's 47-31 with eight minutes to play in the first day of the KHSAA Sweet Sixteen.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's it for tonight ... Marion County 55, Montgomery County 41 ... and in typing "Marion County" for the last time tonight, I realize I've been thinking "Mason County" each time in my head. Marion County High is, of course, in Lebanon. Mason County High is in Maysville. What a goofball.
ReplyDeleteHooray for Lebanon!
Still can't believe that I'd mixed up Marion and Mason County in my head last night. I have UK players Stacey Poole and Darius Miller to thank for correcting my error. Shortly after the game, Stacey Poole Tweeted that he was hanging out with Darius Miller and Brandon Knight at their hotel in Atlanta (in advance of this weekend's SEC men's basketball tournament). It was in replying to Stacey Poole to pass along to Darius Miller that his Marion County girls advanced in the Sweet Sixteen that it dawned on me, "Wait, Darius Miller went to Mason County ..."
ReplyDeleteSo, in conclusion, thank you to Stacey Poole and Darius Miller. And sorry again, Lebanon.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Anthony Epps also went to Marion Co. In fact, he took Marion Co. to the state championship in 1993 and he is now their coach.
ReplyDeleteAnthony Epps would rank very high on my list of favorite UK Wildcats. So I hope Marion keeps winning.