JimThorpe

Yea, wow. They'd have a lead against the Tigers too. I can just see us getting frustrated. It's called peaking at the right moment.

Madison did everything right. Just about textbook.

15 of the 19 from 3 point land. That is some shooting.

Yates is a good team but they are here because Silsbee self destructed in the second half last Saturday. Oak Cliff is a tested team and have played a much tougher schedule and a postseason that's arguably tougher as well. The middle is not going to be porous like it was against the Tigers so outside shooting will be critical. If they are shooting well it's still no guarantee but if they aren't they won't win. It's a "career" magnet school (please, I may have been born at night, but not last night!) against a "charter" school. I tend to go with the lesser of two evils which is Yates. But then I'll be pulling for the winner of the Decatur - Liberty Hill game in the final because those schools are from towns. And 4A schools should be from towns. One high school districts. You know? Like Sour Lake or Bridge City or Lumberton or even Silsbee.

And no Tigers. Devon's half court shot at the first half buzzer was the high water mark of this playoff season. Just one lousy half away and it was one half too many. It's hard now, watching these other teams play, not to think of the whole thing as somehow.... incomplete. 26 straight playoff appearances - 25 wins (and one moral victory) over 4 years. It's a remarkable success, a huge accomplishment. As time passes the good will crowd out the bitterness of the moment, but right now it seems like a thing that is left unfinished. Forever unfinished.

It's a state supported charter school. TEA allows them to draw from about 16 surrounding districts in Dallas and Ellis county. But it's not like it's an area of 3 million people or something. In fact it's probably not much more than 2.8 million.

I remember last year. The Tigers beat Connelly by only 9. I was wondering how they could possibly beat that powerful Yates team playing the way they were. And then the next day they beat Yates by 17 scoring 120 points. And I think most would agree that that Yates team was a little better than this one. It was the greatest effort I'd ever seen in 4A basketball or maybe at any level. We'll see.

I'm more confident about this one that the Silsbee Yates game which is a true toss up. The Bucs are not going to be stopped. In fact, they could give the Tiges a very good game. Crockett is good but not that good. Depending on ceding we'll see Brock and EC on Saturday. So, Thursday and Saturday of next week will be days of interest to area basketball fans. I hope Friday will be too.

I hope I'm wrong too! I like yours better!

Silsbee by 3 in overtime. The Tigers just aren't firing on all cylinders right now. They still have the individual talent but they are a little out of kilter. So nothing will be easy. They are going to struggle tomorrow, and Yates 3pt shooting will be decisive. Silsbee will be behind by 10 or 12 going into the 4th quarter. They will make a superhuman effort and tie it. Yates will be kicking themselves for letting Silsbee come back and will be emotionally drained. The Tigers, elated to still be alive, will take an early lead in overtime and hold on.

It was a good matchup for Wax and they are a good team. They hadn’t lost a game since early in Jan. And they had a 4 point loss to Kennedale and a 4 pt OT loss to Argyle at tournaments. Their big was much more athletic than I imagined. Wax was a bit stronger than Connelly because of him. The Tigers were out of sync for much of the game. Even tentative at times.

I suppose it makes sense to have your run with less than 3 min. No time left for the opponent to regain the momentum. But it’s rough on the older fans who are on meds.

Game is tied at 53

And the officials are stinking up the joint. This is getting weird.

Tigers are not clicking. Lots of mistakes.

All these teams are good. No more easy stuff. We will see if the Tigers can get a run in the third or if it will be a hard slog.

Only one foul. So he will be a factor for the rest of the game probably

Yates didn’t shoot the three quite as well as the did against HJ.

Waxahachie has had its moments. They seem to have had China Springs' number this year. Wax beat CS 65 - 47 in a tournament. They lost to Kennedale by only 4 and lost to Argyle by 4 in overtime, I think in that same tournament. They went undefeated in their district. Their last loss was to Crandell 57 -51 on Jan. 8. Crandell is another 4A team in Region II. Crandell was a pretty good team, undefeated in district and made it to the third round. They are on a roll. On paper it's not a bad matchup for them. But I doubt if they've seen anything like the explosiveness of the Tigers. They could be cruising along, doing pretty well, only a few points behind and BAM! the game's over. That's what happened to Huffman. They're like, "Hey! We're doing okay! We really can play with these guys! ......wait.... what just happened? What do you mean we just lost the game? It's only half way through the third quarter. What? 22 points behind? No way!" Um, yes way. And don't go blaming yourselves cause it's nobody's fault. It's just the way things are right now.

That's why they were 3rd in district. But something must have happened to them since then. They are young, starting only 1 senior, so maybe they are coming of age. You never know with a young team. Sometimes they don't have enough experience to realize that they should have been eliminated before this.

Oh yea, I agree completely. The Yates game (if there is one - don't want to count chickens) will be a barn burner. Overtime is a strong likelihood. This was just a math game for fun. I will say this though. Having seen him play twice, that No. 22 for Huff is as good or better than anybody on Yates team this year. The Falcons should have handled Furr with relative ease last week but they struggled. You saw how solid the point guard No. 10 was against the Tigers. He was making mistakes in the Furr game. It was weird. But No. 22 wasn't having it. His solid play all game long kept them going. His 30 points against the Tigers speaks for itself. Look at that half time score of 43 - 37 and compare it to the halftime score of 43 - 18 the last time Silsbee played HJ. Okay, Silsbee wasn't having the best night defensively. Well? Why is that? Maybe it was because the Falcons were making us look bad. The buzzer beating 3 by Jordyn at the end of the first quarter and the fabulous grab and shoot buzzer beating 2 by Bush at the half were basically the difference. Without those two shots we go into the locker room only 1 point up.

Connelly beat Lorena by ten after Lorena beat No. 12 Palestine by 12. That's something anyway. But I doubt very much at they will be able to hold up when the Lions start raining 3's in the 3rd qtr. I predict a 20 point margin.

They don't look super good do they? I guess it could be argued that if Silsbee and Yates meet again, Silsbee may have had the easier road. Yates faced the 15th ranked team in HJ. A team which came within 3 of the short handed Tigers. And Yates semi opponent Connally beat the 23rd ranked team that had previously beaten the 12th ranked team. Silsbee on the other hand has faced two unranked opponents and the 24th ranked Huffman Falcons. And Wax does looks a little less than spectacular in this vid. By extrapolation however it can be shown that Huffman is just as good as Yates. Yates' margin over HJ was 11. Silsbee's margin over HJ in the second meeting was 26. 26 - 11 is 15. Silsbee's projected spread over Yates is 15. Reinforced by the fact that this is in keeping with our 17 pt. margin in last year's final. Silsbee's margin over Huff was 15. Therefore we can draw the conclusion that Huff and Yates are equal. And a second conclusion we can draw from the above is that the old adage, statistics don't lie but statisticians do, has some credence.

I hope Bush can play Friday night. Selfishly, just because it's something of a drive and he's so much fun to watch. But I'm not that greedy. If they need to put him on an as needed basis I can I'll live with my disappointment for the greater good. But dang, the kid is a one man highlight reel. He makes an acrobatic layup, falls, gets up, runs down the ball handler on the other end who thinks he's headed for a layup, steals the ball from behind without breaking stride, makes a big loop all the way down to the opponents baseline, and dribbles back the other way. He's making a drive but gets turned around in the lane. Not to worry, we'll just go ahead and make this layup with our back to the goal. You can understand why you frequently hear the word "blessed" when you see Coach being interviewed.

I guess you could call Silsbee a dynasty like the Patriots. Except Coach Sig is a much better dresser than Belichick.