OT- Kentucky H.S. Basketball Topic

alblack56
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It's time for the original Sweet 16, the greatest spectacle in high school basketball.  Kentucky owns the name 'Sweet 16' and the NCAA uses it with permission.

Kentucky has only one classification in basketball and, each year, 16 teams advance to Rupp Arena for the State Tournament.  Small schools rarely win it anymore but there is usually one that captures the fans' attention and support.  Last season, tiny Shelby Valley won the whole thing! Their star, Elijah Justice, is now at Louisville.

There are two small 'Class A' schools in this year's group and, surprise, Shelby Valley is back.  They lost all 5 starters and their coach and finished 9-16 in the regular season. They avenged 5 earlier losses in making it through the district and regional tournaments.  They're not expected to go far and are a 35 pt. underdog in their opener.

The other Class A school is Bardstown, the location of 'My Old Kentucky Home', Jim Beam Distillery, and Maker's Mark Distillery.  They are 11 point underdogs in their opener.

Other trivia:

1) Louisville, with it's large number of schools, has 2 regions and sends 2 teams to the State Tournament.  But, this year, Bullitt East, one of only 3 non-Louisville teams in those regions, captured the 6th region title.  The three outsider schools weren't happy when realignment put them in a Louisville region and, generally, refuse to play those schools. Bullitt East is 28-5 but only had 5 Louisville schools on their schedule (except for holiday tournaments.)

2) Dixie Heights is here for the first time since 1957. In their regional final, which went 4OT, their coach looked at the scoreboard at the end of the 2nd OT and said, " Look at the scoreboard! 57-57! 1957! This is our year!"

3) Daviess County qualified for only the 2nd time in 52 years. Unfortunately, they defeated my alma mater in the regional finals, 64-63.

4) In the 70's, when large Louisville schools won 7 of 9 titles, there was talk of splitting the teams into classes. But tiny Edmonson took the title in 1976, ending that talk. It flared up again in the late 80's, when Louisville won 4 straight.  Now, 'state' schools have won 9 of the last 10 (beating Louisville schools in the final 5 times). This year's favorite is Louisville Eastern.
3/13/2011 9:12 AM (edited)
sol_phenom3
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That's actually quite interesting, Al.  Being from New Jersey the high school playoff system runs nothing akin to that, and there isn't as much parity (at least when it comes to the non-public divisions) as would be necessary to really make things interesting.  St. Patrick's and St. Anthony's are just too dominant. 

Kentucky high school basketball definitely sounds rather fun to follow.  I might have to keep tabs on this "original Sweet Sixteen."  I'm not usually heavy into high school basketball outside of my home state and outside of keeping an eye on the top recruits out there, but this tournament sounds truly interesting.  It seems like the level of parity and unpredictability should be high.  
3/13/2011 12:54 PM
alblack56
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Posted by sol_phenom3 on 3/13/2011 12:54:00 PM (view original):
That's actually quite interesting, Al.  Being from New Jersey the high school playoff system runs nothing akin to that, and there isn't as much parity (at least when it comes to the non-public divisions) as would be necessary to really make things interesting.  St. Patrick's and St. Anthony's are just too dominant. 

Kentucky high school basketball definitely sounds rather fun to follow.  I might have to keep tabs on this "original Sweet Sixteen."  I'm not usually heavy into high school basketball outside of my home state and outside of keeping an eye on the top recruits out there, but this tournament sounds truly interesting.  It seems like the level of parity and unpredictability should be high.  
You might find this article interesting. It was about the 2008-09 Elliott County team, another small school that made Kentucky's Final Four.  USA followed them throughout the season, writing 3 or 4 articles about them.   There's only 1,000 people in their town but over 21,000 came to see them play their opening game at Rupp Arena. Incidently, in the Elite Eight, they beat Shelby Valley, the small school who came back in 2010 to win the title.

As for a coaching carousel, Shelby Valley's coach left to take over at Covington Holmes, one of the state's largest schools.  Holmes had eliminated Elliott County in 2009.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/basketball/2009-03-18-small-county_N.htm
3/13/2011 1:21 PM
bradriddell
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I love the playoff system we have here in KY. Hopefully we don't ever have to go to a tourny for each class. The sweet 16 is truly a great week of basketball in the bluegrass state! Thanks for posting this Al
3/13/2011 4:46 PM
willowcards2
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Growing up in Kentucky and playing high school ball at Henry Clay the Sweet 16 is a week long state holiday . With the NCAA tourny also going on its 24/7 basketball, its better than the XMAS season.
3/13/2011 5:33 PM
jbob23
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Growing up on the East coast and close to basketball havens I know a little about our basketball, but this sounds like a really good format. Thanks for the lesson on Kentucky basketball Al. BTW, I got to see a couple teams a few years back in a National Holiday tournament we used to have around here. Are Ballard and Hopkins any good any more?
3/13/2011 6:23 PM
alblack56
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Posted by jbob23 on 3/13/2011 6:23:00 PM (view original):
Growing up on the East coast and close to basketball havens I know a little about our basketball, but this sounds like a really good format. Thanks for the lesson on Kentucky basketball Al. BTW, I got to see a couple teams a few years back in a National Holiday tournament we used to have around here. Are Ballard and Hopkins any good any more?

Louisville Ballard is still powerful. They were 29-4 this season but eliminated in the regional semis.   They last won state in 1999 but were runners-up in 2003, 2007, and to Shelby Valley  in 2010.

By Hopkins, I'm assuming you mean Madisonville-No. Hopkins.  They were regional runners-up to Christian County this year but haven't made the Sweet 16 since 2001.

3/13/2011 6:32 PM
nachopuzzle
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Indiana used to be the same way with only one class for basketball and it was awesome, but the switch to the tiered class system wasn't as big of a drawback as predicted. I'm from southern Indiana, just north of Louisville, so I'm comfortable saying that high school basketball in KY & IN is a religion. It is truely a spectacle to behold, and I always feel stupid trying to explain how important it is to other people, words just can't describe it.
3/14/2011 7:53 PM
pjbrankin
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The Sweet 16 is a really, really big deal in KY. I lived in Lexington for about 5 years. good post, al
3/14/2011 8:38 PM
pitino27
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Posted by alblack56 on 3/13/2011 6:32:00 PM (view original):
Posted by jbob23 on 3/13/2011 6:23:00 PM (view original):
Growing up on the East coast and close to basketball havens I know a little about our basketball, but this sounds like a really good format. Thanks for the lesson on Kentucky basketball Al. BTW, I got to see a couple teams a few years back in a National Holiday tournament we used to have around here. Are Ballard and Hopkins any good any more?

Louisville Ballard is still powerful. They were 29-4 this season but eliminated in the regional semis.   They last won state in 1999 but were runners-up in 2003, 2007, and to Shelby Valley  in 2010.

By Hopkins, I'm assuming you mean Madisonville-No. Hopkins.  They were regional runners-up to Christian County this year but haven't made the Sweet 16 since 2001.

That is my old high school and I was at that game! We beat Scott County 74-47. I think we lost 7-8 games that year ending like 26-7 or something like that. The following year we were ranked Nationally and had a much better team collectively. We were like 30-1 going into district. The team was too arrogant and overconfident though, they ended up losing on a last second shot to Louisville Male 66-64 in the district finals that year. They had beaten Male I believe twice during the regular season pretty handily too if I remember correctly (Might have only been once). Another bit of history, Louisville Male's star senior player that year, Larry O'Bannon, went on to play at Louisville and had a pretty decent career there.
3/14/2011 11:11 PM
pitino27
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The state championship in 1999 I meant :)
3/14/2011 11:11 PM
pjbrankin
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Posted by nachopuzzle on 3/14/2011 7:53:00 PM (view original):
Indiana used to be the same way with only one class for basketball and it was awesome, but the switch to the tiered class system wasn't as big of a drawback as predicted. I'm from southern Indiana, just north of Louisville, so I'm comfortable saying that high school basketball in KY & IN is a religion. It is truely a spectacle to behold, and I always feel stupid trying to explain how important it is to other people, words just can't describe it.
Basketball in general is religion in KY. The only thing bigger than HS basketball in kentucky is UK basketball.
3/15/2011 1:18 AM
nachopuzzle
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Posted by pjbrankin on 3/15/2011 1:18:00 AM (view original):
Posted by nachopuzzle on 3/14/2011 7:53:00 PM (view original):
Indiana used to be the same way with only one class for basketball and it was awesome, but the switch to the tiered class system wasn't as big of a drawback as predicted. I'm from southern Indiana, just north of Louisville, so I'm comfortable saying that high school basketball in KY & IN is a religion. It is truely a spectacle to behold, and I always feel stupid trying to explain how important it is to other people, words just can't describe it.
Basketball in general is religion in KY. The only thing bigger than HS basketball in kentucky is UK basketball.
No doubt, the same goes for indiana and IU. More specifically though, I would say that IN & KY have a better overall quality of high school basketball teams than other states. Football isn't even on the radar in comparison, so basketball is typically kids' main sport growing-up, which means the overall talent and competitiveness is much higher. Similar to high school football in Texas or Ohio. 
3/15/2011 1:54 AM
pjbrankin
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In terms of producing high-major quality players, IN is light years ahead of KY. The talent coming out of IN is unreal.
3/15/2011 2:45 AM
alblack56
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Posted by pjbrankin on 3/15/2011 2:45:00 AM (view original):
In terms of producing high-major quality players, IN is light years ahead of KY. The talent coming out of IN is unreal.

Absolutely agree...but it's not surprising. Indiana's a much larger state.  There are 413 basketball playing schools in Indiana compared to 256 in Kentucky

3/15/2011 4:22 AM (edited)
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