JimThorpe

Now we see. The Silsbee game was no fluke. This is a good team. They are a close third to Silsbee and HJ.

To make much noise in the playoffs you’ve got to win the district. The runner up faces Yates in the second round. Honestly it would be better this year to come in 4th than 2nd. 1st and 4th are in the other sub bracket and wouldn’t face Yates till Region.

I guess if you’re going to have a game like this this was the time. I think Bray wasn’t feeling well.

Nope. No blowout. Weird clumsy game.

The Red Bird’s tongues are hanging out.

Tigers are ice cold. If it’s got to happen better tonight.

Cards are a pretty good team. No district wins but scrappy.

Wow! 36? Almost like the old days. They don't have a single district win but the margins haven't been bad, except for the home loss to HJ by 23.

You pity the fool?

The likeliest scenario is that the winner of 21 will meet the winner of 22 in the third round. That will be a very good game. I'm going to miss the first two rounds travelling but I'll be back for that one. La Marque has gone all the way up to No. 4. That's very interesting. By that standard the best game in our Region playoffs will be La Marque vs. Yates in the third round. Wouldn't it be something if Yates got knocked off? Everybody in Region 3 will be looking at that match up. Silsbee lost to Marque by only two early in the season when the Tigers were very very short handed. La Marque was shorthanded also because of football but not as much as the Tigers. That's the game where Bush scored 64.

If you factor in the Silsbee 22 point win at Hamshire Fannett it really muddies the water.

They were tonight. My impression was that Mitchell got just about everything you can get out of his team. He doesn't have a deep bench but the substitutions were timely and appropriate. Timeouts the same. I do have a gripe though. Not so much about him but about the officials. They should have kept him off the court and they didn't. He would be a foot or two on the court when the action was right in front of him. To wander out when the play is at the other end of the gym is one thing. A couple of times he was dodging the play. It was helping the Raiders and hurting the Tigers and the refs shouldn't have allowed it. But again it's not his problem, you're nuts not to push a thing as far as it will go.

Silsbee may not have been totally on cue but they were playing with all the intensity they have. The officiating was what it was. Folks see what they want to see. I don't think it affected the outcome. Lumberton has their moral victory. I'm glad, I like those guys. Now what about Hardin Jefferson?

I certainly enjoyed watching him. Isn't he a junior? He's certainly one of the best in the district and a contender for MVP behind Bush and Wirth. I may be nuts but I have pretty high expectations for this Raider team. But they need every bit of the intensity they showed tonight in the remaining district games.

Silsbee got it up to a 10 point lead in the 4th. At that point it could have gone either way, a close win or a comfortable win. When it reached that point the issue was no longer really in doubt. It was a 50/50 shot that it could have been a 20 point win depending on the bounce of the ball. I was wrong too. But why? How good is Lumberton after all? They are 2 - 4 in district. HJ handled Lumberton without too much trouble, a 22 point win. LCM and WOS beat them. And their two wins against Bridge City and HF were close affairs. Silsbee has beaten all those teams. Our predicts were perfectly reasonable. There are only two possibilities. 1. This team was playing a good bit over their heads tonight. 2. This is an under achieving team. Based on what I saw on the court tonight I can't help thinking it's No. 2. I think nobody in district has seen the real Lumberton team until tonight. This is a good team. A really good team, better than anybody except Hardin Jefferson and really they should challenge them in the next meeting. They can and should win out against BC, HJ, LCM and WOS. I think they should place third in district losing again only to HJ and to Silsbee. In my opinion Brock Mcclure is clearly one of the best players in the district, maybe third behind Bush and Wirth. And the supporting cast is competent. And by the way, the Raiders showed no signs of wearing out. They had legs the whole game despite the fact that Silsbee pushed them pretty hard. Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Silsbee is the only team they really really care about challenging and they really were playing over their heads.

Yep. And it doesn't bode well for the Tigers in the playoffs. Match up problems - we're just too short. It's as simple as that. Your scorer is fairly tall. The scorer at LCM, Doucette is not quite as tall and we held him to about 20. If your scorer was a couple of inches shorter we'd have been able to put our stopper NO 30 on him and that would have been that.

Hey Raiders, how about saving a little of that for the upcoming home game against HJ? What's going to happen then? They are just about as good as the Tigers.

Okay it's a stretch but we'll count it.

I'm kind of proud of it. But hey, the Longhorns just gave HJ a scare on Tuesday. You never know.

Game time? Too late to ask? With no freshman game you never know what the plans are. Broadcast starts at 7:15. I assume that's safe?

What I like is it’s an away game that’s almost as close as a home game. Stop by Burger King on the way home and have an impossible burger. Which is kinda like what the Raiders will be chewing on.

A competitive game is better for everybody but it doesn't seem likely. They lost by 5 at home to a team that lost at home to Silsbee by 30. It's really almost mathematical. You have to have a height and inside muscle advantage over Silsbee. The Tigers are about the best small team I've seen. The way it plays out is that Lumberton will be able to hang in there in the first half, may go in down by as little as 6. After the break the Tigers will slowly and methodically inch away. The lead will be 25 or so when they call it off with 3 or 4 minutes left. And after that the lead could even increase because the Tiger cubs are pretty good in their own right. If you're looking for predictions that's mine. But if I'm wrong and the Raiders put up a real fight that's great. It won't hurt my feelings at all. There is a joker in the deck. Progress reports come out today.

It was Raymond Baltrip #30. He hounded Doucette for the last minutes of the first and most of the second. Pretty much shut him down mostly by denying him the ball. 0# wasn't much of a factor in the second half. Super job. Baltrip is fast and quick and a good leaper at 5'11. He was tenacious and very focused. Will he be the one Silsbee brings in and puts on the shooter? The most interesting thing about this game for me was that the Tigers scored 90 and Bush scored 26 of those. I'll say it, only 26. It really was a team effort.

I've been wondering about that BC game. BC scored 71. Hmmm.

For District 22 this year the goal is to make it to Huntsville. Making it to the Regional final or beyond is gravy, we'll talk about it if it happens. A look at the brackets reveals that winning the district makes that goal a lot more attainable. The runner up will likely face Yates in the second round and then La Marque in the third. A tough proposition. The winner of 22 will have have a much easier road. W22 will have to contend with W17, W18 and W21 in it's sub bracket on the road to Huntsville. Likely candidates are Huffman from 21, either Connolly or China Spring from 18 and either Waxahachie Life or Alvarado from 17. Baring upsets W22 will face W21 in the third round. W21 will be the weakest district winner in the sub bracket. Then in round four W22 faces the survivor of W17 vs. W18. So if favorites prevail throughout the sub bracket it will be Connolly verses our winner in the fourth round. Connolly is very good, better than either Silsbee or HJ, but that game is winnable by either. Actually they didn't play the preseason schedule that Silsbee faced. As far as ranked opponents go they lost to Liberty Hill by 15 and to Seminole by 11.