[Old School Hound]

People calling Bell beating Corbin an upset crack me up. Bell beat South Laurel without Woolum this year. Corbin was Woolum’s first game back and he only played half the game. Both of these were away games for Bell. Only 2 teams that Bell hasn’t beaten that are in the region tourney are NL & Knox. Go Cats!

Unless I have overlooked something, not one single, solitary soul has  said that Bell beating Corbin would be an upset. NOT ONE!  What I said(and it's true) is that if Corbin wins over Bell it would be only a minor upset. I think either Corbin or Bell could win that game and almost no one would be surprised either way. It's very close to a pick'em game.

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I think there is strong potential for a couple of upsets in the opening round(albeit very minor upsets, imo) --- Corbin over Bell and Harlan over South.

Just for fun,  lets go with a semifinal round of Harlan vs. Knox  and Corbin vs North.

Knox and North in the finals and sadly...VERY sadly ... I'll say Knox 4-peats.  Hope I'm wrong.

I think Corbin beats Bell County but North beats Corbin and Knox beats North for the 4-peat. Corbin could have really used Seth Mills, Brandon Baker and Treyveon Longmire ( Seniors ) against South Laurel and in the Region Tournament. Those Seniors were scrappy on defense and could have helped Corbin in so many ways. They were much better than marginal players and is why Corbin won’t make a deep run. Knox and North will be a showdown for sure.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I will add this. Tony P. usually has good success with getting all the kids to buy in to his vision for what the team needs to do in order to achieve the goal of advancing to Rupp. This season it doesn't appear that everyone bought in, as evidenced by the exodus of Mills. Baker, and Longmire. One can only speculate as to why these kids didn't share Coach P's vision, but it may have had to do with seniors feeling like they should be receiving more playing  time than  freshmen and eighth graders who are kids of coaches.

Tony knows his personnel a lot better than I do so I'll defer to his judgement on that. Also, Mr. Patterson could have given the Hounds another talented player and big athletic body to bang down in the paint with the bigs from some of the other teams like Knox , North, and Bell.  Not sure why why he was MIA  all season.   With the defections and the MIA's , Tony has been a miracle worker to get 22 wins. If all of those pieces had bought in and been contributors, Corbin would have been right there with North and Knox as one of the three favorites to win the region. Ah, but that's how it goes with the "if onlys."  If only I had the physique I had in college, I'd be getting  lucky with the ladies more frequently than I do now.