[16thregioner]

I figured this game deserves it's own thread as it's the biggest regular season game in the 16th region since perhaps the OJ Mayo days.  What makes this game interesting?  Well, here you go...

Ashland has beaten Boyd County 12 straight times.  That was all under Coach Jason Mays, though.  Mays was fired right before the season due to a secretly recorded and released phone call made by Jerry Spurlock, father of Boyd County's top player Jacob Spurlock, who ironically has been compared by D&D Sports to the next OJ Mayo.  Spurlock's Lions with the class of Cole Hicks, Griffin Taylor, and his son, were successful in their middle school days, regularly crushing teams according to Spurlock on the call.  Their first venture into varsity basketball wasn't as successful as they lost by 18, 26, 19, and 32 to the Ashland Tomcats.  Exit Jason Mays as Spurlock caught Mays on recording espousing why Ashland would be good a fit for his son.

Ironically, Spurlock blamed the lack of success of his young group on current Russell-to-Boyd-to-Ashland transfer point guard Rheyce Deboard, calling him a "cancer" on the call and admitting he confronted him during open gyms to tell him what he was doing wrong last season, as well as Boyd County Coach Randy Anderson, who he claimed played the wrong players.

Even with Mays, this Ashland team was going to be very different as they lost 3 all-timers in Colin Porter, Cole Villers, and Ethan Sellars.  Homegrown coach Ryan Bonner has taken over and it's his job to keep the Tomcat success going.  He's 2-2 out of the gate with wins over Ironton St. Joe and Fairview and losses to Great Crossing and GRC.  You can't glean much from these games as Ashland should have beaten the teams they beat and even Jason Mays would have had trouble with the defending state champs GRC who returned 4 of their main players.  However, from watching the Tomcats play, it's a very different style as they seem to be relying more on 1-on-1 play from Zander Carter and Rheyce Deboard than the beautiful ball movement of the Jason Mays days.  Sharpshooter Tucker Conway hasn't gotten great looks so far and Ashland seems to be searching for who the other players might be who will help the Tomcats win.  It's showing in the stats as the 3-point percentages of this season's Tomcats are pretty bad, something that was never said under Coach Jason Mays.

Boyd County is out of the gate like gangbusters, though, at 4-0 as no team has come within single digits of the Lions.  Spurlock is shooting 43% from 3-point land and Cole Hicks is shooting 38%.  They had an impressive 10 point win over Pikeville, but keep in mind Pikeville only returned 2 of the guys who were playing in last season's state tournament.  In any case, though, Spurlock and Hicks are to the Lions what Carter and Deboard are to the Tomcats, only they're making more shots at this point.  Jason Ellis as a 3rd option seems to trump any 3rd option that Ashland has as well.

On paper, I'd say Boyd's odds of winning are much better than the odds we see Jason Mays walk through the doors of the Boyd County gym on Tuesday night.  Some might say it's just another game, but there's no shying away from the fact that the off-season shenanigans have turned this game into a reality show episode.  This is an important game for both teams because the result could end up in either the team coming together or fracturing apart...and that goes for both sides.

Prediction: Boyd County 75 Ashland 63