[LOOKAYANNER]

Hometown24 streamed their 14th Region Roundball Preview for the 2023/24 girls and boys basketball season last night. It was taped on November 2 at historic Carr Creek’s gymnasium. You can go to their site on Facebook and rewatch it if you missed it. The crew of Manus Blair, Nathan Little, David Adams, Jamie Hughes, Brendon Miller, and James Sandlin did a fantastic job. The moderator, Winston Lee, kept it moving along. There were some laughs and funny comments made, and of course plenty of predictions and analysis. 

One observation made by Hughes though was a little puzzling to me. He said one thing that might hold Owsley’s girls back from winning the region is they rely on the 3 too much and to live by the 3 is to die by the 3. But a quick check of the KHSAA website statistics from last season and averaging how many 3 attempts were shot per game and divided that total by the amount of games played, Owsley ranked 11th of 15 teams in the region in 3 attempts percentage.

1 Wolfe 24.6 average
2 Breathitt 21.7
3 JBS 20.6
4 Perry 20.2
5 Buckhorn 19.0
6 Hazard 18.7
6 Lee 18.7
8 Leslie 18.2
9 Estill 17.0
10 Powell 16.4
11 Owsley 16.1
12 Cordia 14.0
13 Knott 13.5
14 Letcher 13.2
15 Jackson City 11.8

Owsley actually has well balanced scoring from outside and inside. A good portion of their baskets come on drives to the basket or getting the ball to the post players. In the loss to Letcher in the regional tournament they did take above their average 3 attempts (21) but they also made quite a few of them (Carly Smith was 8/11 from 3). What hurt Owsley most in the Letcher loss was not being able to get to the free throw line. They only had 5 free throw attempts for the entire game. Letcher took 19 and made 13. Owsley lost by 4 points. The first foul of the game on Letcher wasn’t whistled until halfway through the 3rd quarter! It’s hard to win a close contest when you can’t get to the line. And it wasn’t as if fouls were not being committed, they were, but most of them were simply judged ‘play on’. 
But getting back to the main point of this post….Owsley doesn’t live and die by the 3 point shot. 16% attempts per game is not living and dying by 3’s.

They have no idea about any of the teams in 56th district nor do they care to know. They will know more about them after this season. Owsley will wipe the floor with the blue bloods up that way.

Actually, the panel of 6 was very knowledgeable of the regional teams, but they were more aware of the lower region’s teams and players because all of them except Brendon Miller are from that part of the region. They invited the media/streaming crews from Powell but they were unable to be there. Brendon did a very good job of analyzing the 55th and 56th. 5 of the 6 picked Owsley to prevail and make it to Rupp. Most said they have to get over that hurdle of never winning it and take care of the little things that have cost them in the past. And the region will be held in the 56th at Estill County this year. All but one of the panel saw that as an advantage for 56th District teams. Brendon explained that Estill will not be a push over on their home court and, like Owsley, they have their entire team returning. They agreed with some of the preseason polls that have Smith, Terry, Caudill and Brown from the 56th in the top 10. Terry was left off the Catspause and they were critical of that, saying she is most definitely one of the better players in the region.