[FIRST]

I do not believe Canady will play basketball. He is such a great talent in football.

[LexBaller]

What is there not to like about Canady? He's good athelete with the ability to help KC, become a top 5 team in the region.

[McCameraMan]

I got a chance to see Harlan County play last year in the Christmas Tournament at Belfry and they were very solid. I enjoyed watching them play.

[BigBad]

I think Harlan Should easily win it all, and North should / could be a continder.

[Black Bear Grandmom]

Harlan County has all the ingredients for going to state this year. Go Black Bears!!:yum:

[EKYBubbaWatson]

Not sure if any team has all the ingredients...yet anyway. Harlan, Clay, and North definitely stand above the rest though.

[HDE]

I'm thinking several teams have the ingredients. It will come down to who mixes them the best. I think Harlan County, North Laurel and Clay County are a little ahead at this point with South Laurel, Pineville, Knox Central, Corbin, Middlesboro and Jackson County not too far behind, with Bell and some others also capable of making a run.

[UPIKEFAN]

Harlan County will be the team to beat.

[IKnowBasketball]

IMO the Pineville Mountain Lions will be the team to beat in the 13 region this year. Having returned 6 seniors they will be very mentally along with physically strong. They have excellent inside play with 6'4 Byron Asher and 6'5 John Simpson. They also have people that can step up and shoot the 3. Guards
Seth Jeffrey and Cody Collett both shot in the high 40% from downtown. Look for the mountain lions to have the best season in school history.

[IKnowBasketball]

IMO the Pineville Mountain Lions will be the team to beat this year. They have excellent inside play with 6'4 Byron Asher and 6'5 John Simpson both great scoring threats. They also have great 3 point shooters like Seth Jeffrey and Cody Collett who both shot in the high 40% from downtown last season

[Lazyjracing]

Knox Central is not a threat until they get a real coach. KC should have been state bound last year and they were out coached to say the least.

[Lazyjracing]

I think that Harlan County and Pineville will be the top teams in the region.

[Newjacket]

Why isn't anyone mentioning Williamsburg?

[jed]

Clay will never have a chance until they get rid of Marcum. He has choked in the last two regions and is not smart enough to ever win the region. Everyone in the building except him knew that he blew it last year when Clay had an 8 point lead with under 4 minutes, and Marcum decides to come out and chase carson around allowing him to break down the defense. Even after wathcing the film later, Marcum is too dumb to realize what happened. He did the same thing against Corbin the year before by trying to come out and pressure Freemon. Freemon would penetrate and either score or dish it out for a 3 , and Marcum was not smart enough to change his defense.

[BriarCreekBrave]

Why isn't anyone mentioning Williamsburg?

You don't go from 4th in the 50th district to region contender. You have to earn your way there, and to date the Jackets have not. They do possess some nice talent but are lacking in the coaching department since Coach Vernon left. Even he could see it was time to get out, and he was a Jacket.

[hoops_town]

Clay will never have a chance until they get rid of Marcum. He has choked in the last two regions and is not smart enough to ever win the region. Everyone in the building except him knew that he blew it last year when Clay had an 8 point lead with under 4 minutes, and Marcum decides to come out and chase carson around allowing him to break down the defense. Even after wathcing the film later, Marcum is too dumb to realize what happened. He did the same thing against Corbin the year before by trying to come out and pressure Freemon. Freemon would penetrate and either score or dish it out for a 3 , and Marcum was not smart enough to change his defense.

I dont know about the Corbin game, but last year against North was a definete head scratcher. Clay up 10 with about 3:00 left in the 3rd and playing a zone that North Laurel has no idea how to attack. North actually goes into a delay game ....Behind by 10......and Clay comes out of the zone and goes man.....needless to say the rest is history.

[EKYBubbaWatson]

Jed: Marcum might have made some mistakes and yes, he should already have been at Rupp twice in his first two years but you're comments are quite blunt. If Clay County can develop something inside, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come. When your team leader/best player is a sophomore and you have a freshman that is one of the most athletic players, and you're a contender then I believe you're in pretty good shape. After watching the Tigers in their first scrimmage, I have no doubt that they will be in the running this year, and could be the favorite before long.

[EKYBubbaWatson]

Right now I still think Harlan Co, and maybe even North is above Clay but with McDaniel running the show, Reed and Lyttle back, and some key new additions, Clay could possibly surpass everyone in the region.

[UKCC]

I won't get into the coaching situation at Clay County, but I will say the last two region tournaments were theirs to win or lose. I agree with EKYBubbaWatson, Clay County's number 1 and 4 best players are a sophomore and a freshman. So, to say they don't have a chance under Robert is a little much.

[-_-]

i don't know what game you all watch but i know what game i watch and clay don't look as good as they did last year they are undersize down low and male killed them on the class but they do have some good young guys coming up but i think they will be ok in this region but to say they will win this region would be very hard to say but last two year's the top team has not win this region so i think 5 or 6 teams have a shoot to make a trip to rupp.

[UKCC]

By no means is anyone saying Clay will win it. To me, they're the third best team in the region "right now". And you're right, the 13th region is known for the best team not going to Rupp in the last few years. The Tigers will have to rely heavily on guard play this year. But they've also not had a solid big man inside since Rodney Mitchell in the mid-2000s. In solid, I mean double-double material. A team like North Laurel has to be salivating over the inside match-ups. But I would take McDaniel over any PG in the region, as a sophomore. The end-all-be-all is if it were played today, Harlan County would be loading buses to Lexington. But March is 4 long cold months away.

[Newjacket]

You don't go from 4th in the 50th district to region contender. You have to earn your way there, and to date the Jackets have not. They do possess some nice talent but are lacking in the coaching department since Coach Vernon left. Even he could see it was time to get out, and he was a Jacket.

I absolutely agree. Williamsburg has hands down the worst coach in the state. We were all hoping Vernon would take over, but the administration stayed with Robinson due to his ties with one of the board members. It's sad that politics will keep these very talented boys from achieving the success they could have reached with Vernon in charge.

[Hitters_Count]

Knox Central is not a threat until they get a real coach. KC should have been state bound last year and they were out coached to say the least.

Apparently you didnt watch the game. KC shot a whopping 22% from the floor. Cold shooting beat them. Everything NL shoot went in. Last time I watched a game, neither coach was allowed to take shots.

[jed]

Jed: Marcum might have made some mistakes and yes, he should already have been at Rupp twice in his first two years but you're comments are quite blunt. If Clay County can develop something inside, they are going to be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come. When your team leader/best player is a sophomore and you have a freshman that is one of the most athletic players, and you're a contender then I believe you're in pretty good shape. After watching the Tigers in their first scrimmage, I have no doubt that they will be in the running this year, and could be the favorite before long.

First of all, if you took from the Male scrimmage that Clay could be one of the best in the region, you must not have watched the same game as everyone else there. It was a scrimmage, so I would not take much out of it, but Clay looked terrible.
As far as in inside game, Lyttle is as good in the lane as any player in the region, but is way underutilized. Marcum runs his offense for Mcdaniel and Reed only. I stick by my original statement, Clay will not win the region as long as Marcum is coaching. As far as personell goes, Clay is one of the best in the region, maybe the best , but as proven the last two regional tournaments Marcum cannot handle the pressure or does not understand the game well enough to win. If they have the players that are even close in talent, Brad Sizemore and Tony Petrowski are clearly the best two coaches in the region and will win most of the time although Harlan at home will have to be the favorite this year.

[EKYBubbaWatson]

Jed: Neither Clay or Male looked sharp, but that's called November. Male is ranked 5-6th in the 7th region for a reason. There is no team in the 13th that plays remotely as fast as they do. I'll be the first to agree that Brad Sizemore is a heck of a coach. He was the only coach that could manifest a defense to contain Clay's freshman, McDaniel. As for pressure, Robert Marcum isn't going to be taking the shots or handling the ball this year or any year. His playing career ended in the early 90's. Clay will be there at the end and if a walking, breathing big enters the program they will be unmatched for the next few years.

[HDE]

Jed: Neither Clay or Male looked sharp, but that's called November. Male is ranked 5-6th in the 7th region for a reason. There is no team in the 13th that plays remotely as fast as they do. I'll be the first to agree that Brad Sizemore is a heck of a coach. He was the only coach that could manifest a defense to contain Clay's freshman, McDaniel. As for pressure, Robert Marcum isn't going to be taking the shots or handling the ball this year or any year. His playing career ended in the early 90's. Clay will be there at the end and if a walking, breathing big enters the program they will be unmatched for the next few years.

Unmatched for the next few years?
I understand Clay has a nice freshman class this year, but the junior and sophomore classes aren't very strong. If the frosh were unmatched one or two of them would be starting this year.
I don't think anyone in the region played within 20 points of Harlan County's freshmen last season. Harlan County, Corbin and South all had good JV teams.

[EKYBubbaWatson]

HDE: Clay's junior class is nonexistent. They have 3 sophomores on varsity I believe, McDaniel, Holland, and Mills. Holland could be a real nice player, as he is strong and decent sized. McDaniel is imo, the best player in the region. You could make a case for Brewer and maybe Allen from North but he is definitely the most valuable. Last year he was extremely good offensively but a liability on defense because he was so young. This year, he is bigger, stronger and even quicker. The two freshman, who aren't starting will both be 3 year starters, with Wolfe maybe cracking the lineup. Wolfe has the potential to be a stud, but his skills need tuned. If you can find me 3 guards that can match these for the next 3 years in the 13th region I'd like to see it, because it isn't out there. Yea, Harlan had a nice freshman club, well McDaniel hasn't played a game of freshman or JV since 7th grade. Big boys play varsity, freshman ball is for those who need developing.

[HDE]

So, Clay doesn't have any "big boys" in the freshman class this year?

I guess it depends on what you have in front of them if the freshmen play freshmen basketball. Brewer, Allen and Carson are all ranked in the top five this year and I believe all played freshmen basketball.

[EKYBubbaWatson]

Yep, and they all developed nicely. They are very good players. It takes a special player to bypass the freshman and JV ball. Granted there are some circumstances where that isn't true at smaller, less basketball talented schools. Pretty sure Barger from KC and Baxter from SL didn't play freshman or JV as freshman and I know for a fact McDaniel didn't play as a freshman or 8th grader. These 3 were exceptional players as freshman, which is a rarity regardless of surrounding talent.

[TexasRanger]

The Hill kid from Corbin played varsity only as 8th grader last year and will be playing varsity only this year as a freshman.