[Big Blue 09]

KBA 2012 Boys 8th Grade State Tournament
February 17-19, 2012
Is this considered "the" State tournament or is there another one for middle school?

[BC BEAST]

what about 7th grade

[Big Blue 09]

KBA 2012 Boys 7th Grade State Tournament
February 3-5, 2012
No Entry Fee
Registration Deadline January 22, 2012
Register Below
Contact Tom @ 859.219.9272

[KGB 28]

It is great that KBA puts on the middle school "championship", but keep in mind that many schools/regions in the state do not participate because their conference and/or regional championships are around that same time. KBA does not cooridinate with school schedules at all. The girls "championships" are in November as most middle school schedules are starting.

[Pepe]

Is there a playoff system set up?

[Coach Kleeofus]

Watch out for Frankfort in the KBA tourney this year. They have 3 studs that also play on the Ky Allstar football team. Hurst,Robinson, and Smith.

[KGB 28]

Is there a playoff system set up?

Nope.
Middle School bball varies widely around the state. Some have short season to allow for kids to play up in HS as the season progresses. Some areas in Kentucky focus on the KBA "championship" while some regions barely know it exists and/or are not allowed to participate due to Sunday play and/or conflicts with Middle school regional tournaments that seem to be scheduled near the KBA event. Too bad.

[Big Blue 09]

Any idea why so may 7th grade teams are playing but very few 8th grade teams? We were thinking about going but not really worth the drive to play 6 teams.

[catfanmd]

Last year there were near 80 teams in the 8th Grade KBA tournament. There may only be six listed, but I promise there will be a full field by the time the tournament begins.
The 6th Grade this year had 48 teams, which was similar to last year.
The 7th Grade this year has 54 teams, which is a little down from last year I think. I kinda remember there being 60 some teams last year.
There is not a playoff to get to the KBA tournament. You just register, play your pool games, get slotted into your bracket and play it out.
It may not be a true State Tournament, but it is impressive to win a tournament with 48, 54, or more teams.
The sixth grade tournament had teams from Eastern Kentucky, Northern Kentucky, Louisville, and all over Central Kentucky and Lexington.
The 7th grade I recall has teams from Mayfield and Leitchfield.
I would love to see more teams from Western Kentucky participate, but understand the travel issues. Last years 8th grade championship came from Western Kentucky... I think

[Block Down Kick Out]

Who are some of the teams to look out for this year?

[Wildcat man]

Knox County
Southern Pulaski
Wayne County
Pikeville
Louisa
Dorton
Betsy Layne
Johns Creek
Chavies
Hazard
Carr CreeK
Garrad

[catfanmd]

The Knox Central team is by far the best 8th grade team I have seen this year. They won the 7th grade KBA tournament last year. Northern Pulaski is solid, but their point guard broke his nose last week. Clay County, I believe is the only team to beat Knox Central in the last two years.
There is a team out of Louisville Kammerra?, that won the tournament as sixth graders two years ago.
With eighth grade it is hard most times because if you have exceptional eighth graders they play varsity, and will not be a factor in this tournament. Wayne county could be one of the better teams, but their two best eighth graders start varsity, so they will not be a factor.

[Catfan09]

Don't get too worried about your pool play games because they will somehow manage to mix up the brackets and change them after the tournament starts. The 6th grade brackets got flipped after it was down to 4 teams. The 7th grade brackets got switched around after a couple hours into the tournament...leaving one side of the bracket stacked. Evidently whoever puts the brackets together should probably delegate it to someone else.

[sharpracing]

yes bracketts got switched in the 7th grade in pool play a team needs to run the score up on weaker teams to get a better seed. if to teams tie there is no deffinate rule on how to decide the tiebreak sat one team cried to director and got the bracketts changed.and if you play in the ice center plan on paying 7 dollars to get in and have to stand up to watch games because of no seating. not because of people litterly no seats to sit in.

[catfanmd]

In the 6th Grade tournament, the brackets were changed after the final eight games. I do not know if it played a factor, but the number 1 and the number 2 seeds were placed on the same side of the bracket, and Lexington Christian was placed opposite what was thought to be the two strongest teams. Then in the final eight, Northern Pulaski beat Lexington Christian in double overtime. The representatives from KBA stated they made a mistake and they wanted to correct it, so they moved Northern Pulaski to Southern Pulaski's side and moved JCTMS to North Oldham's side.
The talk by the fans was Lexington Christian was placed opposite the two strongest teams, paving the way for LCA to make the championship game, by a KBA representative with a child playing on the LCA team. Then when LCA was beat by Northern Pulaski, KBA did not want Northern Pulaski playing Southern Pulaski in the championship game two years in a row.

[catfanmd]

The 7th Grade brackets were initially set based on the number of points allowed and not by the number of points scored. So it did not matter if your team scored ran the score up, it only mattered that your team did not allow your opponent to score. I saw teams hold the ball, just to keep the score lower.
When the brackets were posted on Saturday after the two rounds of pool play, the teams were slotted by the way they were listed on the KBA web site. Then someone noticed that Beaumont was slotted higher than Northern Pulaski. They were tied with the third most points allowed, but Northern Pulaski had scored more points than Beaumont and had won their games by a greater margin, so Northern Pulaski should have been slotted as a higher seed than Beaumont. The same was true for(Southern Pulaski and Casey County) and (South Laurel, Lexington Christian and Mercer County). These teams were the ones affected that were in the top twelve teams and involved a first round bye. There were additional teams in the lower seeds, but it was not possible to make changes to these seeds due to the playing times for the first round of the bracket play.
KBA done the RIGHT THING and corrected their mistake. Now they should not have made the mistake in the first place, but I applaud them for getting it correct.
Someone said the teams cried about the draw so they could be moved to an easier bracket. Northern Pulaski was moved to the right side with Knox Central and Southern Pulaski. Southern Pulaski was moved out of Knox Central's region, but they were still on the right side of the bracket with Knox Central and Northern Pulaski. Mercer County was the one team that gained a perceived advantage as they were moved to the left side of the bracket away from Knox Central, Southern Pulaski, and Northern Pulaski.

[new o]

They need to find a way to seed the teams. Virgie played Knox the first round of the 8th grade tournament last year and both were at worst top 5 or 6 in the state.

[footballfever]

Everyone is never going to be happy with pools or brackets. I just want to go play teams I haven't played before. With 60-70 teams you at least should be able to get 3-4 games and not face a team you have already played 2 times in regular season.

[Wildcat18]

I've attended around 3 state tournaments at KBA over the past 2 seasons and I don't think there's been a tourney where the brackets weren't "corrected" after the tourney had already started. Not sure how they keep making these seeing mistakes every time.

On another note, it seems like I heard that the seeding for the tournament is based on points scored. Is that correct?

[eku23]

They seeded the tournament based on how many points you gave up in the pool play games. It's still all about who you play against in those pool games.

[Courtside]

I've attended around 3 state tournaments at KBA over the past 2 seasons and I don't think there's been a tourney where the brackets weren't "corrected" after the tourney had already started. Not sure how they keep making these seeing mistakes every time.

On another note, it seems like I heard that the seeding for the tournament is based on points scored. Is that correct?

Points scored was for the 6th grade tournament , points allowed for the 7th grade. They need to make sure brackets are correct before the tournament starts. Regardless of what KBA officials think the tournament had begun and should have remained. It's not like their seeding process really sorted out the best overall teams. Some coaches allowed their whole team to play not focusing on the how much but instead W and L's. Points scored did come into play when they started moving the brackets around but I do not recall reading in the rules anything about points scored breaking the tie. Clinton was not the 2nd best team in the tournament but definitely had the easiest path to the championship game. Scott was certainly not the overall number one. I would agree that both do have nice teams but the other side of the bracket was heavy after the switch.

[Courtside]

I would recommend a double elimination format once your down to the final 8 and skip that silver bracket thing with all of the first round losers. It would at least balance out the possible mistakes in bracket placements.

[dozerdawg707]

There are 64 teams entered this year.

[Big Blue 09]

About time they have the other teams listed. With the list out, who is defending Champs and who should dominate this year? Ballard Middle is going to surprise a few, they have a kid that plays a lot of varsity time and is a hard match up.

[FMSbball]

Team to watch is Elkhorn Middle. They have 3 studs, led by Farmer.

[catfanmd]

Knox Central won the seventh grade KBA tournament last year and would be the favorites this year. Clay County and Northern Pulaski should be hard outs.

[eku23]

I didn't see Pikeville's name on the list of teams playing. Does anyone know if they will be in the tournament? They are supposed to have a good team and I would like to be able to watch them play.

[Cougar Connection]

They should be playing! Talked to one of their players and they said that they were playing.

[bballfanforlife]

Knox will be lucky to make it out of the first round. Heard the team is falling apart

[footballfever]

Shouldn't the pairing be posted by noon tomorrow [Tuesday]?