[Van Hagar]

At the risk of making JP die of shock, I’m gonna end my sabbatical and put my two cents in. I favor North, but I won’t in any way be stunned if Pikeville pulls the upset. The key for Pikeville will be to keep Sheppard from just getting to the rim with no resistance—easier said than done, because the kid is ultra talented. Knox gave up probably five or six layups to him that looked like no one was attempting any defense. When Patterson finally had them try to pick up some charges on his drives, they kept sliding over too late, giving up shooting fouls. Davidson is very talented as well, but the rest of the team is the definition of role players. Sizemore is the wild card, he can be a great three-point shooter, has basically shot a few opponents out this season, but he can also be very streaky. North’s team defense isn’t great, and they don’t have any kind of physical presence inside, Davidson and Sheppard are fairly tall, but they are finesse players not bangers. So there are flaws there. On the plus side, I’ve seen them on probably 8-10 occasions this year put together a run of something like 12-14-16 points in just a couple of minutes, they are tough offensively when they get cooking like that. Pikeville has to avoid one of those runs. The bright lights shouldn’t bother North, but shouldn’t bother Pikeville either with the sports year they’ve put together. I’ll go with North by single digits in a game that’s still in doubt into the last few minutes.