[ekybballfan]

It's hard for the smaller Eastern KY schools to come up with enough talent 7-8 or 9 deep to consistently compete against the larger schools in Central, Western and Northern KY. Occasionally E. KY will come up with a power house team but that does not happen very often. Just look at the results of the Class A tournament and the Sweet Sixteen Tournament. Now, (South Laurel) has a "power house" team, but that group of boys have played AAU ball together for years (this is the result of playing together for years against "top shelf" competition).

The smaller communities usually can't put AAU teams together that can compete at the AAU Div 1 state or national level. It's just a simple case of numbers, when you have a larger pool to pick from there is usually more talent in those large pools.

At the middle school level seems like the E. KY schools dominate, but here is my theory why....

Seems like it's more acceptable and more common to hold kids back to play ball in E. KY. Sometimes you will see an 8th grade team that has 5-10 hold backs on one team. From my observation, N. KY, Central KY and W. KY does not hold as many kids back to play sports. When boys are in that 13-15 age range, 1-2 years makes a huge difference in speed & strength.
However, when these boys get up to the 11th & 12th grade the speed and strength factor starts to even out around the ages of 17-19. That's when the talent comes in to play. Resulting in, More Talent, More Wins!