Kountzer

Like I've hinted at before Wheatley is now a soccer school.

Yep. "Morale" is the word I was aiming for.

I haven't kept up with LaMarque. Last time I recall the school district was shut down. Something like that will affect the moral of a school, including the athletic department.

So much for the idea of showing up to see this one. Hopefully Texan Live will stream the game.

I am wondering that too.

Bridge City? Okay.

They didn't repeat the lie about how Trump was so helpful to the black community.

This is as good a place as any. Lemme (attempt to) drop this in your spirit:

These rappers, the really successful ones, like Lil Wayne, they're a mess. They make all this dusty money singing about exploiting women, and black on black drive by shootings, and purple stuff, and who knows what else. They get filthy rich off that stuff. They buy all this bling bling: 3 & 4 mansions, half dozen, or more, million dollar cars, two & three families, baby mamas getting $ paid. Then Trump comes along with the "platinum plan" (how patronizing can you get?) and all of a sudden they are saying the opposing party hasn't done anything for them. Negroes please! You could take that dusty money and set up banks and credit unions. You could develop modest income housing, in the inner city. You could create jobs. You don't need Trump, or Biden for that matter. Just do it yourself. r

Some hacker from Asia, or pretending to be from Asia,does not like this forum.

Silsbee was 3A then, along with all the classifications, 3A moved up a notch and became 4A. There is lots of good basketball teams in the current classification 3A.

I'm wondering what's going on. The usual squawking from usually quiet places at the beginning of the season. Once the Ws and or Ls start rolling in things quiet down. But, this is an unusual season and year, to say the least. No tournaments, no showcases. Harder to shake out the wannas from the gonnas. No one really knows how the pandemic will help or hinder one team or another. Have to wait & see how this plays out.

Sigler has been around awhile. He's taken his lumps, in Silsbee and I guess in Livingston. You keep bringing that up. I'll take your word on it. I don't keep up with Livingston sports. I remember 10 years or so ago they had soon good height and some ranked teams. Haven't heard from them since, whoever the coaches were. I never said Sigler was the greatest high school coach ever. I respect that he has hung in there. He retired once, then came back. He went up against some great teams, like PA Lincoln. Some of his star players are the sons of players he had 25 years before. A coach doesn't get 760 wins, 2 championships, uil 4A coach of the year, etc, by just being lucky to coach stud players. Schools, communities that have historically good basketball programs go out and hire or try to hire good basketball coaches. Any good coach knows what kind of talent a school puts out year in year out. Nothing wrong with that. It's kinda smart. If I am considered a good baseball coach and I want to keep my reputation going, or maybe improve it I am not gonna take a head coaching position at Yates or BT Washington to coach baseball. I am going to choose Bridge City, or PNG, or LCM. If I am a JUCO basketball recruiter I would include checking out Silsbee way before I would Bridge City. That's just common sense. And if you want basketball fans to stop bringing up coach Wise, then beat him at his game. Do it 2 or 3 times or seasons. Raise up up a team in Lumberton, or bridge city or LCM that can do that. I don't see it happening soon, but what do I know? It is within the realm of possible.

I am sure there are good coaches in Orange County and in SE Texas in general. Maybe some of them don't get their due. Personally I think it is not good to besmirch a coaches accomplishment just because he doesn't sit in your Sunday school class or belong to the country club. I think it is the prevailing zeitgeist. The commander is a loud mouth buffoon, so the young high school trolls in training do the same.

Same holds true for Carthage in football, and Argyle in football, basketball, girls basketball & everything else. Is it coaching? Dude is a helluva coach at Carthage. He has D-1 players just popping up every year, out of nowhere. And Argyle. Is it the soil? They got stud athletes just showing up on campus year in, decade in and out. What kind of buzz do the coaches put in their ears to make them so good year in and year out?

I beg to differ. I went to see Silsbee in a tournament the year they were was ranked #1 and went into the playoffs undefeated. That's another story. Around the holidays they played in a tournament at the now gone Smiley Hi School. Channel View was there, and so was Yates. I alluded to having seen talented teams with no coaching. That Yates team was one I had in mind. They had height, guards everything. They ran like the wind. They built up a big lead in a game, then fizzled out and lost. This was before they hired Wise. The difference between that team and the teams coached by Wise was like night and day. He put Yates back on the map. That negative stereotype that the all successful black high school coaches just win because they have teams with a lot of talent is a myth. All successful coaches win with talented teams. You have watched too many re runs of the movie Hoosier. It is based on a real team, but they used all kinds of cinema verite, and poetic justice to make that movie. That same mentality is the reason why both the Houston Texans and the Dallas Cowboys are jacked up.

Never count Yates & coach Wise out.

Those rankings are a blessing or a curse, depending on how a team uses them. The playoffs are the real test.

Perhaps so. I was shocked. Usually those Dallas & Dallas area teams in that district handle those East Texas teams like Paris, and Center. Every dog has his day. (just a figure of speech Paris fans).

Maybe not directly, but it factors into the subjective.

TABC is right close by in Sugar Land. They heard about the city wide tournament. They get feed back from the AAU coaches. Some of them may be AAU coaches. They also know Silsbee should have been in the final rankings from last season. All of that factors in. Silsbee is a name that always shows up year in, year out. Deccade in Decade out. Besides this is just the first rankings. It will all straighten itself out. Having said that I am surprised Silsbee is ranked ahead of H-J myself. I was expecting Carter to make noise in the playoffs last season. Then they lost to Paris early. I think it was in the first round.

So what is the procedures in regards to crowd size in the gymnasiums, social distance, etc? It would be ashamed to drive somewhere to see a game then get turned away.

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Good basketball communities go out and hire coaches they hope are good and will lead their team to success. If the coaches record lives up to it good. If it doesn't the school / community will go get someone else. Communite that want to compete with the good basketball schools, they go out and hire good coaches as well. If a young ball player doesn't start early his or her chances of becoming proficient at basketball is almost non existent. By the time a player gets to the varsity coach if he hasn't been playing basketball for years it is not going to work. The youngsters in certain ares don't have enough positive role models. So they focus in on people like LeBron James, or the high school all American on last years championship team. Some 9 year old sitting in the stands at SA at the state tournament he wants that positive acclaim. So basketball becomes a vital part of their life. Another youngster in another area has more positive role models everywhere. Maybe his parents are engineers, Doctors, etc. Maybe that kid develops a passion for a particular sport. Or maybe they play so that the resume they present to Baylor or some other prestigious school shows they participated. And that is all they want or need from playing that sport. Hope that makes sense. Going to bed.

My friend and classmate Jay Hinkie was a class guy. I'll leave it at that.