Great City

Redtiger..........you are not bashing. Just telling the truth.

I think if we GC fans are honest, we have just not had the talent on the team the last few years. Hope that does not ruffle feathers of anyone who has had a kid play recently. As someone who played on the team in the late 80s, who did not have a kid competing for playing time the last few years, and who has watched GC football for many years....the talent has just not been there. We used to consistently have a good sized line, and have a couple of kids on defense who could hit. The last few years we have not. I am also not a huge fan of running that press coverage the entire game. It can be useful, but not all game. Plus, we have just not had the athletes to play that coverage. A new coaching staff will hopefully energize the kids in the hall and get more of them to come out and play. The key to us getting back to our "normal" is getting more kids on the team early. I'm not sure about this, but I would GUESS that the coaching staff we had a couple of years ago was fairly close to the same staff we had in 2010 when we were state champions. I would also guess that we are the last AA team from FAR SW to win a state championship. Actually, we were state champs in 2003 & 2010. I'm not sure how many other FAR SW teams have won two state championships the last 13 years. I would assume that number could be counted on one hand. It is easy to blame the coaching staff, but our problems have been deeper than that. Like a lot of schools, we are dealing with kids specializing in one sport and not playing a bunch of different sports. When I was in school, sports had a season. The sport ended and you did something else. Now kids play the same sport year round. Take McClung as an example. I believe he played football his freshman year.......and l believe led the district/conference (it changes so much is hard to keep it straight) in TD catches or yardage. Can't remember which. He also displayed great quickness and above average speed. He just needed to learn to follow blocks, and I believe he would have been a heck of a football player. He decided to focus on basketball (which made sense for him) and the team has not had that talent since. 1-2 players can make a huge difference in A or AA football. Take Jake Houseright off the GC team, and that team is much weaker. Take the Jones brothers off of the PV teams for 8 years and they would not have been nearly as good. (Not saying Mac would have compared to Jake or the Jones brothers. Just using it as an example.) The Barnes kid who played basketball at GC was a heck of tennis player. He started tennis his freshman year, and decided to quit and focus on basketball. Not sure that was the best decision for him...........but it was not up to me. He decided to play tennis his senior year and ended up in the state finals match. We are losing a lot of good athletes because they want to focus on one sport. Sometimes it makes sense, but most of the time (to me) it does not.

As a GC fan, I would hate to see him go. Think we have the chance to have a very special team next year if he stays. Last night against Lee, we had 3 freshman, 1 sophomore, and 1 junior on the floor together a few different times. Would love to see those kids all play together next year. I can see how Oak Hill would allow Mac to practice/play against some of the very best kids in high school ball. Should help him improve his game, and give him even more exposure. Wait! Just hit me. I thought GC benefited from all these TN students coming to GC to play sports? Not a chance in Hell Mac would leave. Is just not how things work at GC. We have all these TN kids coming. GC players do not leave. :)

Proud of the GC team's effort last night. Just needed a couple more shots to fall. Lee shot 57% in the second half, and were impressive on the boards. That is a winning combination. Had two Lee fans stop and talk to me as they were walking up the aisle. Both complimented our effort, said they were happy to get out of there with a win, and mentioned there being no quit in GC.

Something else to keep in mind. I do not believe anyone on this board knows what it feels like to have the athletic ability MM has. He is also a gym rat. Kid is constantly working to improve his game. What appears "flashy" to most of us, is really just normal for him. Just because none of us can dribble like him, or has the vertical leap he has, that does not mean that he should not dribble or elevate. If a kid works on his long range shot and is constantly able to knock down 3s as soon as he crosses half court, is he showing off when he shoots from that far out? I would argue that the kid is just using the talents that he has worked very hard to acquire. Just like MM. If you were the head coach of a high school team, would you take MM on your team right now......as is?

Spent a weekend at UVA one night. They are pretty quick to tow your vehicle if you park in front of a trash dumpster. It was dark. Was a long trip from Radford. Adult beverages might have been involved.

I have heard the prep school rumors also. Not for basketball, but to get his grades up. Mac gets a lot of exposure from his traveling team. He does not need to go to a prep school for exposure. I do not think he will leave GC, but I am wrong a lot.

Having watched Mac play for years, it is hard to argue that he does not have a "swagger" about himself on the court. If you are not wearing GC blue, you no doubt will come up with a different word than "swagger". A lot of the great ones have that swagger/confidence about them. We have discussed, in this thread, how another of GC's players seems to have lost his confidence and is not playing great ball right now. Confidence is important. However, I think he is trending in the opposite direction. He has tremendously cut down on his "show boat turnovers" from last year to this year. Last year it was very common for him to pick up a cheap foul right after making a bad play. Those have been close to nonexistent this year. He leads the team in points, assists, and steals. Got to be close in rebounding. His game is much more mature this year. If he improves next year as much as he has improved from last year, we are going to see some special basketball at GC next year. He does cherry pick. Once or twice a game I am OK with. He is trying to get a breakaway dunk which should ignite the fans and GC players. Not the worst thing in the world. He can play some great defense. He just does not do it all game. Not sure if it is by design trying to keep him out of foul trouble. Last year he picked up a lot of cheap fouls on defense. This year those have gone way down. Obviously we are a much different team with him on the court. Part of it is no doubt boredom. He can literally take the ball to the hoop and get off a high percentage shot on every possession. There might be a player in AA that can guard him, and we might see him at JMU on Friday, but so far this year nobody has been able to slow him down. I was there when he did the hot sauce dribbling off the foot thing. Not sure why you expect a coach to bench a player for a turnover. Players turn the ball over all game. Part of Mac's game IS the hot sauce dribbling. Is no different than a player driving to the goal and turning the ball over.

River...............I agree. Dean is playing nowhere near the level of basketball he played the first few games of the year. Truly seems to be an issue with his confidence. Not sure if it is because of the wrist injury, sickness, personal issues, or a combination. He did play with more confidence against Chatham. Of course we were up big. Is easier to have confidence if your team is up 20 points. Dan River played lights out against us. Their coach, in an article in their local paper, said it was their best game of the year. They played great defense, seemed like they could not miss, and absolutely wore us out on the boards. Early in the game only Mac and Zac could get shots off. Zac had to really work for his points. It is just my opinion, but I think that at some point Mac realized that if we were going to score, he was going to have to score. Were there times in the game where we had a player open and Mac still drove to the basket and took the shot, without a doubt. I am sure it happened several times. Could he have kicked the ball back out for someone to knock down an open 3? He could have kicked it back out, but with the way we had been playing, not sure anyone could have hit the shot. I think the game he played was the game he had to play to give us the best chance to win. Even with DR playing what I believe was the best game they could possibly play, the game was tied with 5 minutes to play. If we could have grabbed some rebounds, the game would have ended differently.

River.....no idea. Lots of kids played and scored. No comparison between the DR we saw last night, and the Chatham we saw today. Different class of teams. Do not think it is possible DR can play lights out again today. Would love to see Richlands get the win, but it is going to be difficult.

Ryan....think I am below you. I have in a blue GC shirt.

Halftime. GC 41-19.

End of first. GC 24-3

GC 11-0 3:50 left in the first.

DR played their best game of the year against GC (according to their coach). Do not see how they can repeat that performance today. Lots of GC and Richlands fans here. Other side of the gym is close to empty.

End of first. Richlands 9-8

River.....I can assure you DR did not let Mac have his points. They were all over him. Mac just went off. Took over the game and carried us. He was exhausted during the last few minutes, missed a few shots, and DR took advantage of them. Our defensive intensity was not there. Plus, they killed us on the boards. No telling how many second chance points they got. I would say easily 25. We collapsed in the fourth and gave up 35 points. Give up 61 through three, and then 35 in the fourth. Amazing. Besides Zac, rest of team was very timid. Some sloppy passes. Oh well, it is what it is. Got to rebound (pun intended) and get a win on Saturday Going to watch at least a quarter of the Richlands game.

Final. DR 96 GC 84 Mac with 64 points. We could not rebound.

End of third. GC 66-61 Mac with 52 points. We r not playing defense or rebounding like we did against Graham. DR is good.

Halftime. GC 40-37. Mac with 28 first half points. DR can't guard him.

I was seated behind two current basketball coaches at GC. They both thought both calls were bad calls. I thought it was obvious that both players had already established position in the front court (by getting their feet on the floor before touching the ball). In the grand scheme of things, those calls do not matter. Just using them to show how hard it can be to make the correct call. Seems like those of us who were at the game have about a 50/50 split on whether the correct calls were made. You could not pay me enough money to ref a high school game. Refs being "consistent" is one of my pet peeves. Well, not that the refs need to be consistent, but that it seems like a lot of people just want the refs to be consistent. An umpire's strike zone is the one that gets me the most. You always hear about a batter needing to adjust the umpire's strike zone. A batter has a nanosecond to decide to swing or not. Hitters spend countless hours in batting cages, and learn to swing at strikes without thinking about it. It becomes automatic. At the plate they do not have time to think about an umpire's strike zone. It is the umpire's job to consistently, correctly call balls/strikes based on what the strike zone actually is. Of course I did not complain very much when Maddux was consistently given the outside corner. :) Similar in basketball. Kids (hopefully) learn to play by the rules of the game. It is the ref's job to call the game according to those rules. A walk is a walk. That call is not open to interpretation. Same with the block/charge stuff we talked about earlier. If something is a foul in the first quarter, it is a foul in the fourth. But....it should be/not be a foul based on the rules of the game, not on a ref's interpretation or his/her mood that night. Sometimes refs allow a game to initially be more physical than it should be. They do not call fouls according to the rules of the game. As the game progresses, tempers flare and things are about to get out of hand. So, the refs then start calling the game "tighter" (meaning by the rules). Now everyone is pissed. Players, fans, and coaches. You start hearing things like, "Those #$%% @&^* refs let Wise Central get away with that in the first quarter, now if GC looks at someone a foul is called." Would be so much simpler if games were called correctly initially. Refs obviously need to be consistent. Just that they need to consistently call the games according to the rules. Oh well............I will get off my soap box. Seems my carafe of coffee is working this morning.

7 fouls for the entire game? Impressive. GC was called for 7 fouls during the first 10 minutes of the game............at home. Refs must not have gotten the memo.

I thought Carlock lost it on the second one. My lip reading skills are not good, but believe he described the call as f'ing terrible. hahahahaha At the end of the day, does not matter. Again....just shows how hard it is to ref a game.

All the GC fans around me thought both back court calls were terrible. I thought it was obvious that both Graham players had clearly established their position in the front court before touching the ball. Guess that just goes to show how hard the job is for the refs. We can't agree on the call after having 23 hours to think about it. :)

Generally those balls that go over the backboard hit something.......other than the front of the backboard. Hitting something would cause the ball to be called out. Not sure what happens if the ball just goes straight up over the backboard, does not hit anything, and lands in play. Will have to pay more attention. I have always thought it had to hit something to be called out, but I am wrong a lot.