High Five: Notes and thoughts from around the state, week of Dec. 19
This being the week leading up to Christmas, the high school basketball schedule is a little dry, but there’s still some news to be made throughout the state this week. That being the case, here’s a primer of five random…
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Continue ReadingThis being the week leading up to Christmas, the high school basketball schedule is a little dry, but there’s still some news to be made throughout the state this week. That being the case, here’s a primer of five random thoughts/things to look forward to for this week.
- Did we get a 2A Top 28 preview last weekend?
When I wrote a scouting report on Rayville earlier this year, I said this is probably as close as 2A is going to produce to a team that can challenge Madison Prep for the state championship. As it turns out, Rayville coach Damon West had the same idea back in the preseason and wanted to get a look at what he was up against; so, according to The Advocate, he asked for a spot in Madison Prep’s tournament.
He got it, and his Hornets made it to the finals to face Madison Prep. The Chargers beat West’s Rayville squad 70-52. I’m pretty impressed with Madison Prep’s defense to hold Rayville to 52, tying the season low set in its season opener. If you look at the power points from last week, Madison Prep is No. 1 and Rayville is No. 3, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit to see that game played again in March.
- Carencro simply won’t stop playing really good teams.
I’m sure there’s one out there, but I bet it isn’t easy to find a better five-loss team out there than Carencro. Two of those five losses came at the hands of an 11-2 Lafayette team, and the other three were to Acadiana, undefeated University Lab and a Lafayette Christian team that already has quality wins like Carroll and Landry-Walker to its credit.
As if that weren’t enough, Carencro goes to Natchitoches Central this week, one of the favorites for the 5A state championship. This schedule is nothing sort of amazing, considering most of these brutal games were straight-up scheduled and not luck of tournament draws.
- The curious case of New Living Word.
Those of you that have grown accustomed to seeing NLW in the Top 28, since it has been there in each of the last five seasons, will be shocked at this: the Lions are 4-13. You may think those losses are due to playing up against bigger schools, and they are (more on that later), but the catch is NLW normally wins some of those games. Look at their recent records: 26-19, 28-9, 30-7, 30-7. Dropping 13 games before Christmas is, at the very least, curious.
What’s especially curious is that some of these losses have been non-competitive: 84-43 to Gibsland-Coleman, 101-70 to Jehovah-Jireh, 101-45 to Richwood, 83-46 to Lincoln Prep. It’s worth noting that none of those teams are bad – in fact, I expect all of them to win at least one playoff game and one or two Top 28 bids out of that group wouldn’t surprise me – but being blown out by those teams is definitely strange for New Living Word.
NLW did lose a stud big man Rashaan Proctor from last year’s team and could be figuring things out slower than usual, but it remains a situation to monitor: if it doesn’t change, that’s a presumed Top 28 spot up for the taking.
- Underrated game of the week: Ruston at Parkway.
Parkway got a pretty impressive win in its home tournament, beating Woodlawn (Shreve.) 60-50; that’s a Woodlawn team that Parkway coach Mike Guess told The Shreveport Times after the game that he thinks has Top 28 potential. Terrance Marshall scored 21 in that game.
Meanwhile, Ruston has a new head coach but seems just as competitive, despite the loss of a couple of key seniors. Beating New Iberia in Wossman’s tournament and playing closely with that aforementioned Woodlawn team early in the season proves the Bearcats are legitimate, plus coming within 10 points of Bossier in that loss is just as well as Ouachita fared in its loss to Bossier, and that Ouachita team is held in much higher regard than Ruston.
Neither Parkway nor Ruston is expected to play a serious factor in the 5A state championship game, but we’ve got two of the better 5A teams from two different regions meeting up for a one-time affair. This should be fun.
- Several nice tournaments throughout the state.
Metairie Park Country Day, Jonesboro-Hodge, Jennings and Rayville are all playing host to tournaments with loaded fields this week before teams part ways for Christmas. Here’s the highlights of each field.
Metairie Park Country Day: Country Day is a tough beat as the hosts, but they clearly brought in teams good enough to do it: St. Thomas More, Riverside, Scotlandville, Catholic (BR) East St. John and De La Salle are just a few of the blockbuster teams showing up for this one.
Jonesboro-Hodge: Simsboro just might be the best team in this field, but they should have good competition with the hosting J-Hodge plus Neville, Winnfield and Union, among others.
Jennings: Kaplan and Iowa are two top 10 teams in 3A right now according to the power points, and they’ll be here alongside Acadiana, LaGrange and others.
Rayville: The highlight matchup here is Ouachita vs. Rayville, but there’s a lot more than that worth the price of admission.