I haven't been able to listen much to this morning's Joe B and Denny Show from the food court at Rupp Arena in Lexington, but, at one point, I heard the assembled listeners clapping as they went to commercial break. So we can assume it's at least something of a happy scene as we commence Day 3 of the 2012 PNC/KHSAA Boys Sweet Sixteen® Basketball Tournament.
I've never been to either the boys' or girls' Sweet Sixteen, so I can only imagine the pageantry around the tournament itself. Here's the "Program of Events" promoted on Page 10 of the program for the 1960 tournament at Louisville's Freedom Hall:
I'm not much of a skater, but, even still, I think all of this sounds pretty fun. I'd love to see Operation Petticoat. My guess is that the action might get a little lively in the "TEEN TOWN GAME ROOM AT THE ARMORY," and I'm a big, big shuffleboard fan. And it's pretty fantastic that you could golf for free for four straight days at five different courses.
I hope they're having as much fun in Lexington this weekend as it seems like they would've in Louisville 42 years ago. Here are today's quarterfinal games:
-- Rowan County Vikings of Morehead vs. Southwestern Warriors of Somerset, 11 a.m. Central
-- Trinity Shamrocks of Louisville vs. George Rogers Clark Cardinals of Winchester, 12:30 p.m. Central
-- Oldham County Colonels of Buckner vs. Knott County Central Patriots of Hindman, 5:30 p.m. Central
-- Scott County Cardinals of Georgetown vs. John Hardin Bulldogs of Elizabethtown, 7 p.m. Central
First-round games Wednesday and Thursday:
-- Rowan County 64, North Laurel Jaguars of London 46
-- Somerset Southwestern 52, Hopkinsville Tigers 41
-- Louisville Trinity 52, Bullitt East Chargers of Mount Washington 32
-- Winchester George Rogers Clark 56, Apollo Eagles of Owensboro 36
-- Oldham County 55, Bowling Green Purples 48
-- Knott County Central 71, Boone County Rebels of Florence 54
-- Scott County 59, Marshall County Marshals 43
-- Elizabethtown John Hardin 49, Johnson Central 36
Searching "Rowan" at Twitter for game updates is likely to be a little frustrating this morning.
ReplyDeleteSouthwestern 11, Rowan 10 through one quarter ... both teams shooting worse than 25 percent from field ... KHSAA commentator Cameron Mills notes that he has yet to see any of the Sweet Sixteen field "come in here and 'litten' it up ... not that 'litten' is a word." Cameron Mills is very, very good at this.
ReplyDeleteAnd busy. Per his Twitter feed, Mills ran down to London last night and spoke to the Laurel County chamber.
"Adam Wing does things that do not show up on the boxscore," roars KHSAA play-by-play dude.
ReplyDeleteThe future University of Evansville Purple Ace has missed all seven of his three-point tries in the tournament so far, but Wing's Rowan County Warriors, the 2011 state runnerup, lead Somerset Southwestern, 31-28, with 35 seconds to play in the first half.
Rowan, 33-30, at half as Wing misses a long heave at the buzzer ...
ReplyDeleteWES STRADER COMING UP ON THE KHSAA HALFTIME SHOW!
I hope Wes spends the whole halftime talking about George Fant, Jim McDaniels and Kim Norman.
ReplyDeleteClose. We've already had mentions of Coach Johnny Oldham and Coach Jim Richards.
ReplyDeleteWes Strader's halftime guest is Coach Guy Strong.
Guy Strong, who played at UK and Eastern Kentucky and coached at EKU and Kentucky Wesleyan: "I never thought I'd be yelling for Western, but I was yelling just as loud as I could."
ReplyDeleteRowan leads 33-32 with 6:38 left in the 3d quarter. I like these inter-mountain games.
ReplyDeleteLove the map at the top of this entry.
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah. Rediscovering that fantastic map almost sent me into a whole weekend tailspin of figuring out a pretend NFL Strategy football league with teams from each region.
DeleteMore from the 1960 tournament program ...
Delete1960 was one of the last years that they used that map, where Jefferson County gets only one team in the tournament. A few years later, they changed it to put both the 6th and 7th regions in Jefferson County. (Although these days, the 6th Region also includes Bullitt County).
DeleteKHSAA play-by-play dude just referred to this as a "tightly contested chess match." Southwestern on 9-0 run and leading five in third quarter ...
ReplyDeleteSouthwestern leads 45-43 with 1:08 left in the 3d quarter. Adam Wing is 0-5 from three-point range.
ReplyDeleteThis is turning into just a fantastic game. After a 13-1 Southwestern run, now we have Rowan County on an 8-0 burst. Tied at 45. We've had a bit of a scuffle that led to technicals on both teams. Six seconds to go in third ...
ReplyDeleteBest game of the tourney so far. Tied at 47 with 5:41 left in the game.
ReplyDeleteSouthwestern, in Sweet Sixteen for first time, edges back ahead, 49-47, with 5:28 to go ...
ReplyDeleteNow Southwestern is on another run. They lead 54-47 with 3:09 left. Clutch performance from Southwestern so far.
ReplyDeleteAdam Wing finally made a three-pointer, but it's going to be too little, too late. SW leads 61-52 with 1:19 left. SW is 22-29 from the line.
ReplyDeleteSouthwestern wins 67-57, and they become the first team to make the Semi-Finals.
ReplyDeleteOK, now we have a huge game coming up: Trinity v. George Rogers Clark (or, as I like to call it, Clark County).
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Florida -- which went 11-22 from three-point range against UK last week -- is 0-4 from behind the line against UVA. Five minutes into the game, the Gators trail 8-2.
ReplyDeleteThe radio guys just said that the folks at George Rogers Clark High School want to be called "George Rogers Clark," not "Clark County." The announcer guy says that "George Rogers Clark" is a lot to say, so he's going with "GRC" or "the Cardinals."
ReplyDeleteI was pulling hard for Clark County, but my enthusiasm for their cause just went way down.
We had this argument last spring, too.
DeleteI do agree with you that, if The George doesn't want to be called "Clark County," they ought to change their uniforms.
DeleteMeanwhile, Alabama leads Creighton 30-23 at the half.
ReplyDeleteTrinity is 32-3, while GRC is 31-5. So these are two powerful teams.
ReplyDeleteFlorida now 0-8 from three-point range. They trail Virginia 18-13 with 8:12 left in the first half.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, they were really cold from outside in two of the three games where we played them as well.
Trinity leads 12-6 with 2:21 left in the 1st quarter.
ReplyDeleteTrinity leads 12-8 after the first quarter.
ReplyDeleteFlorida is now 0-11(!) from three-point range, but they lead UVA 19-18 with 5:27 to go before halftime.
ReplyDeleteFlorida shoots too many three-pointers. It killed them against Butler last year, and it's hurting them today.
ReplyDeleteTrinity is cruising along, up 26-17 at the half. I think this game will be another easy win for them -- and how many times have we been able to say that this school year?
ReplyDeleteThe problem isn't just that Trinity wins all the time -- it's that no one can give them a game in football, and this year no one outside of Ballard has given them any real competition in basketball.
ReplyDeleteThey're interviewing Joe B. and Denny at the halftime of this game.
ReplyDeleteI can't get over how happy Joe B. turned out to be. He says, "We don't program any guests. They just come on."
ReplyDeleteNow they're talking about eating lunch at Hooters.
I find listening to a radio show in which the hosts are so consistently happy and friendly with each other and anyone who calls to be just totally, totally satisfying.
DeleteThese were two of the most intense men in the whole country when I was a kid, and I'm very happy that they ended up in such a good place.
DeleteJoe B. is sorry that he missed so many state tournaments when he was coaching. "I don't miss them any more."
ReplyDeleteDenny says that Trinity moves their feet on defense as good as any high school team he's seen.
ReplyDeleteTrinity still rolling along, up 31-21 with 6 1/2 minutes left in the third quarter. I just realized that Trinity isn't even playing two of their starters, which just underscores their dominance.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that would be a potential rule. In any football or basketball game against another Kentucky school, Trinity should be required to sit 40 percent of its starters. Of course, they wouldn't have to sit the same kids every time.
ReplyDeleteFlorida is now 1-15 from three-point range, but they lead UVA 32-22 with 18:50 left in the 2d half.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Alabama leads Creighton 50-46 with 7:11 to go in that game.
Trinity is 6-9 from three-point range in their game. Florida could use those guys.
ReplyDeleteAlabama has stopped scoring, as they are sometimes inclined to do. Creighton leads 52-50 with 5:04 left.
ReplyDeleteTrinity now 8-11 from three point range. The Shamrocks lead 42-29 with 2:09 left in the 3d quarter.
ReplyDeleteWith 8 minutes to go in their game, Alabama was up 50-43 over Creighton. They haven't scored since, and the Blue Jays now lead 54-50 in the battle to see who loses to UNC. There are 3 minutes and 41 seconds left.
ReplyDeleteI think Alabama may have the worst offense of any team from a major conference to make the NCAA's.
Alabama is done. They have given up 14 points in a row, and they trail 57-50 with 2:40 to go.
ReplyDeleteFlorida is still only 2-17 from three-point range, but they now lead UVA 45-30 with 14 minutes to go.
ReplyDeleteTrinity still rolling along; up 45-32 heading into the fourth quarter.
ReplyDeleteAt the Florida-UVA game, which is taking place in Omaha, TNT just had a great shot of a bunch of Creighton fans standing out in the lobby, watching the end of the Alabama/Creighton game. The Blue Jays lead 57-55 with 33 seconds to go.
ReplyDeleteThere are 14,181 people in Rupp for today's afternoon session. I wish I were one of them.
ReplyDeleteAlabama has the ball, but they trail Creighton 58-57 with 3 seconds to go. The Tide call time.
ReplyDeleteThe kids from Winchester have finally accepted defeat. Trinity is pounding them now, 54-36, with 4:18 to go.
ReplyDeleteAlabama fails to score -- or even to get off a real shot -- and they are eliminated 58-57. See? I told you that game was over.
ReplyDeleteIn Omaha, the Creighton fans celebrate their imminent blow-out loss to UNC.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Florida is rolling over UVA, 55-34 with 7:34 left in the game.
ReplyDeleteFirst-ever trip to the state semifinals for Trinity.
ReplyDeleteTrinity wins with ease: 62-39.
ReplyDelete3:28 to go in our third game tonight, and Knott County Central is beating Oldham County, 30-28 ... the twitter reviews of this game have been pretty bleak, but one of these teams is about to pull out a very close game to make it to state semifinals. and around either buckner or hindman, at least, this next three minutes and 28 seconds will be talked about fondly for years. and years.
ReplyDelete30 apiece, 2:48, and knott county will be headed to the free-throw line following a timeout ...
ReplyDeleteSo Knott County Central missed the front-end free-throw attempt, and Oldham County rebounded as Knott--in a tie game--kept no players on the lane. All four were back for defense.
ReplyDeleteThen Oldham comes down, and Knott sinks back into a zone defense. Oldham seems content to dribble away the clock. Finally, the top-of-key dribbler--a little guy wearing the No. 21 jersey--steps to the 3-point arc and fires. Good! And then he flashes the "three goggles" gesture, which get you a technical foul in some parts of the state.
Knott comes down and makes two free throws, this time with rebounders on the lane.
33-32, Oldham, with 1:03 to play, and Oldham is headed to the line now after a timeout ...
Oldham misses the free-throw try, and now Knott County Central is headed back to the line, trailing 33-32, with 47.7 to play. There are, again, no Knott rebounders on the lane ...
ReplyDeleteMiss, good and Oldham ball, 33-33, with 30 seconds ticking away ... Knott in zone and Oldham dribbling ...
ReplyDeleteLittle 21 ... top of key ...this time dishes ...
ReplyDelete00 ... looks first for recipient ... drives by one defender ... crashes into a second ... no call ... banks in a layup ...
ReplyDeleteactually, yes, a foul on knott ... oldham 00 also makes free throw: 36-33 with 3.9 seconds left ...
ReplyDeleteJason Frakes @kyhighs
DeleteTyler Wesley's 3-point play with 3.9 seconds left gives Oldham Co. 36-33 lead over Knott CC; Wesley's 1st pts. of game http://blogs.courier-journal.com/khs/
7:07 PM - 16 Mar 12
3.0 seconds, and knott is going to the free-throw line ... first is a make ... knott trading out rebounders on lane ... intentional miss ...
ReplyDelete2.3 seconds ... knott shooter slams ball off front of rim ... grabs miss ... fouled on follow ... back to line, down 36-34 ...
ReplyDeletemiss ... intentional miss ... almost got it again ... clock gone ... oldham advances ...
ReplyDeleteknott shooter sitting on floor, head in hands.
ReplyDeleteknott shooter, huffing through tears, comes out to accept some kind of plaque at midcourt ...
ReplyDeletepandemonium!
ReplyDeleteTyler Bloyd @BloydKYSportsco
ReplyDeleteOldham County wins 36-34!!! Advances to KHSAA Final 4 for the first time since 1985 when they knocked out Rex Chaomans Apollo team. Go OC!!
7:13 PM - 16 Mar 12
Knott County Central shooter.
ReplyDelete