JimThorpe

Coach Davis was here tonight. Wonderful opportunity to see some entertaining fast paced 4A action and to scout his first round opponent and his third round opponent on the court together. I wonder what his takeaways were for WOS from this game. They are fast and tenacious. Quick hands and feet. They have some size inside. They can be dangerous. And they react predictably when they are thrown into a meat grinder. They become sausage. His takeaway for Silsbee is, same old same old.

What a season for Orangefield! They win Friday at Vidor and they clinch sole possession of 2nd place with a good chance in the first round.

One thing for sure, the Mustangs played their hearts out. They can be proud of that first half. They just ran into a buzz saw.

Okay. Now this makes sense.

Okay. Now this makes sense.

This is completely beyond my understanding. LCM just beat them, Orangefield just beat them and Vidor, with only one district win, came within 4.

What’s the term people like to use? Hot mess? That’s pretty much it.

The National Federation of State High School Associations at its April meeting approved a 35-second shot clock for use beginning in the 2022-23 season. California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Washington already have it. It's time for Texas to begin a pilot program and then proceed with a phased implementation. Start with 40 seconds, which is an eternity really. The cost would be less than $10,000 per gym for very nice systems. Cooperative packages could reduce that cost significantly. If a vendor knows he's got 8 or 15 or 20 gyms to do one after the other, one vehicle operating from a single hotel for several weeks, he's going to give a good price. You need a trained official to run the clock, but he doesn't have to have the skill set of the guys on the court. So you're looking at $75 a game, 15 games max, that's less than $1200 per season for a given school. All the college and arena venues where playoffs and tournaments are held already have the equipment. Being a Tigers fan it's kind of a moot point. They could live with a 10 second shot clock. But I think almost all the kids would love it. It would add a little extra drama to each possession. It's second nature at the college level. The only problem is that it's about to take off nationally and supply chain could become a thing!

I'm in favor of a shot clock for 4A and above. It's not that expensive and it adds a dimension to the game that the kids and the parents and the fans would enjoy. It could be very forgiving, 40 seconds. A quarter is 480 seconds long. That's 12 possessions per period and that's slow enough. Plus it would give officials who aren't physically able to run the court for some reason the opportunity to participate and make a little extra money. The districts can afford it. Basketball is a small fraction of the expense of football. I think it's a win all around. Though I'm not going to condemn what Mitchell did, I hope this episode becomes ammunition for the proponents of a shot clock for Texas.

Whatever the matchups the Tigers need to dominate this game. Looking around the statewide 4A landscape WOS is 2nd tier skill wise and not unusually tall and not unusually athletic. If whatever the Mustangs are is a real problem for Silsbee then the Tigers have no business being ranked No. 2. So my assumption is that the first game was an anomaly that will be corrected tonight. It should be a comfortable win, 25 points.

For the season?

How big are these big guys? Vidor was pretty much a match for them inside last Tuesday and Orangefield was more than a match Friday. Is there something particularly bad about this matchup for Silsbee?

That's kind of subjective. Different people might consider different parts the best. Can you be more specific? And we're the gossipy type so it won't go any further.

You can't leave us hanging like that. What part? Well, I guess you can.

I was hoping for Huffman to finish 4th. It's not because of ill will, may the best team win. It looks like there's not really that much difference between all three. I'd like to see it but because it would set up a rematch with Silsbee which would be fun. It's the only way the two would have of meeting this year. 21's 2nd and 3rd are in the other bracket. On the other hand if Huff finishes 2nd are 3rd it's perfectly fine with me if they make it to the region final. It just doesn't seem likely.

The brackets have them meeting Silsbee in the third round and if they advance they'll likely face either Connolly or La Vega and then it will be Washington. Washington has an easier path to the Region final then any of the other ranked teams in Region 3. The highest ranked opponent they can face up to the final is Austin LBJ ranked No. 18.

That's a fact. They composed themselves and adapted. It was weird at first and they were somewhat at a loss as most of us were. But they solved the ball holding thing making it too costly for Lumberton and they only tried it once or twice in the 3rd. This kind of thing may come up again and the experience gained here will help them be ready for it. So you're not going to score 100. Your not even going to score 80. But when you run up a 31 point lead before the coaches pull the plug it ain't bad.

I bet it did. I'm not going to second guess Mitchell. His job is not to provide happy carefree entrainment for us Tiger fans. His job isn't to make us like him or even to make us "respect" him. His job is to try to find a way to give his kids their best shot at winning against a better, stronger, faster team. Shortening the game is one way to do that.

Lumberton is playing very well. I’m glad it’s more competitive this time.

Lumber ton is running a strange stall. They all gather at the sidelines in a bunch and hold the ball.

Really? Washington is a mystery to me. They don't post highlight videos on MaxPreps. You can see them as the "other" team on their opponents highlights but that's useless because it so unrepresentative. They have no common opponents with Silsbee. I note one thing. They beat 12th ranked Brazosport 82-79 while Silsbee beat No. 11 ranked Hardin Jefferson 77 - 53. On the other hand Booker T seems to be ripping through their district opponents with more ease than Silsbee has. I admit the matchup looks bad for Silsbee on paper simply because of height. If it was just one 6'7 star wing it would be one thing, but two? And it's not just Washington, on paper the Tigers don't match up particularly well against any of the other top 10 teams. But the coaches around the state see something in them and really like them. Silsbee is basically a bunch of guards who are almost interchangeable. They sometimes lose the opening tip to much weaker district opponents. But some of the Tiger guards are pretty strong guys and they don't really get pushed around inside as much as one would suppose. They're a hard team to peg.

Go look at Van Alstyne highlights. They probably match up better against FF than we do. Taller outside shooters. FF will wreck our outside shooting. Not very fast but that’s not as big a deal at the state level. Solid. FF will have to go through VA in the third round to get to Carter at Region. Of course they are more than capable of sweeping right through 4A but you never know. Who would have predicted Silsbee’s solid win over Yates, I mean besides us.

Not a great shooting night for either team.

40 - 23 at the half

Lot of subbing, lots of different configurations.