What We Learned: Mack, Miller and Lofton Tournament
The Kentucky Basketball Commission held the first ever Mack, Miller and Lofton tournament this weekend in Lexington. Teams from several regions made their way to Lexington for some good games and high level competition. Here’s a look at my biggest…
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Continue ReadingThe Kentucky Basketball Commission held the first ever Mack, Miller and Lofton tournament this weekend in Lexington. Teams from several regions made their way to Lexington for some good games and high level competition. Here’s a look at my biggest takeaways from the event. They are presented in no particular order.
Bourbon County won, but Male was the best team. This is in no way to discredit Bourbon County. They are good and very well coached but if Male had played Sunday or Ben Johnson hadn’t sprained his ankle Saturday, Bourbon is likely not making the tournament finals. But injuries are a part of the game. I’m not sure that any team there was going to knock off Male if the Bulldogs had their entire team on the weekend. They were missing players and still playing at a high level.
Bourbon County deserves more respect as a threat in the 10th region. I’m not saying they’re going to cut the nets at Rupp but they can definitely make the region and make some noise when they get there. The 10th should be way down this season and after some timely transfers into the school, they have some nice players. Amirion Joyce is a top player in the 10th and the Colonels could be a real threat to get to Rupp in March.
Henry Clay is a post player away from being a state title threat. Coach Brown’s team can really score the ball and are a fun team to watch but they are going to run into issues with rim protection and rebounding. When I watched them play Dunbar, I was wishing teams could make trades. I wanted to see Dunbar trade one of their many bigs for a guard from Clay. Both teams would be markedly better.
Fern Creek has serious depth. The Tigers were the only team that put two teams into the varsity competition and they had a solid weekend overall. The Junior class at Creek is very good and the Sophomore class has some really nice players in it. The only concern with Creek is that they play hard in spurts and not all the time. If they hadn’t waited to play hard against Lexington Catholic, they would have won that game and would have been in competition for a trophy on Sunday.
A few teams surprised me this weekend. Harlan County, Pulaski County, Tates Creek and Marion County were all teams I wasn’t expecting a lot from but all had good weekends and looked like teams who can surprise some people or compete for regional titles. Pulaski and Tates Creek were playing on Championship Sunday while Harlan County won the Gold Championship and Marion County played well all weekend but fell to a good Chapmanville (WV) team.
Lexington high schools had a good weekend. Henry Clay were the Championship Runners-Up. Bryan Station made the championship bracket and narrowly lost to Fern Creek’s A Team. Dunbar made the quarterfinals before losing to Henry Clay. Lafayette made the championship bracket. Lexington Catholic made the quarterfinals before losing to the eventual champions and Tates Creek made the Championship Final 4. Every Lexington team made the Championship bracket. Should be a good season ahead for Lexington schools.
It’s annoying that teams forfeit on Sunday. While the tournament was good overall, it’s aggravating at the best team (Male) didn’t come back on Sunday. Additionally, Owsley County didn’t show for their first tournament game and Scott High didn’t come back on Sunday to keep playing in the gold bracket. I’m not sure why a school would sign up and play then not finish out the weekend. Other than that, it was a good weekend of basketball in Lexington.