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Monday, January 14, 2008
National rankings overemphasized?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wesleyan forward Trey Thompkins spent last season traveling around the country with powerhouse Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. Thompkins, who has signed with Georgia, played with and against some of the best players in the nation last season as Oak Hill won a national championship.
Now Thompkins is having a solid season for the Wolves, ranked No. 2 in the state and a serious contender for the Class AA championship. But he believes winning a state title in Georgia will be a lot harder than what Oak Hill accomplished last season.
“The competition is Georgia is fierce,” he said Sunday night. “You got some top quality teams. On the national scale, some of those teams had one main guy and they got ranked nationally. There are some good teams here, and it is a different talent level.”
The big lesson is not to get too caught up in what national team your school has beaten, because it won’t matter next month, when the state playoffs begin.
South Atlanta coach Michael Reddick said he is preaching that lesson to his team. The Hornets are idle this week, before flying to Los Angeles Friday to take on Campbell Hall of California. When they return, South Atlanta will finish its region schedule before fighting through what should be an interesting Region 5-AAA tournament.
“Georgia is definitely one of the top states with loads of talent,” Reddick said. “We are trying to stay focused and let none of this go to our head. We respect all our opponents.”
• Post up: Is too much emphasis being put on getting nationally ranked? Do fans value a victory against a supposedly nationally-ranked team better than beating a local team? Should teams just stay home and play each other?
Permalink | Comments (52) | Post your comment | Categories: Fastbreak
Political football: Gold Dome 1, GHSA 0
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The AJC’s Todd Holcomb discusses important issues in Georgia prep sports and takes your comments.
If you don’t like the rules of the Georgia High School Association, should you call your legislator?
It wouldn’t hurt.
Sen. Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg) deserves the credit for the GHSA’s decision last week to drop seating requirements for the quarterfinals of the state football playoffs.
The GHSA would’ve been better to study the issue and make a more thought-out decision in the spring, but executive director Ralph Swearngin pushed for a quick resolution.
“If we don’t make a decision today, it will be made under the Golden Dome in a matter of weeks,” he said. “I do not like to be threatened, but there comes a time when we’ve got to take some steps to make as informed a decision as we can make right now.”
Later, Skip Yow, the GHSA’s legislative liaison, was equally blunt: “Our problems in the legislature are not going away. It’s typical of how laws are made. One person has a problem, and there’s a new law. That’s called politics.” Yow was talking about Seabaugh, who had sponsored a bill that questioned the GHSA’s authority to require schools to build facilities to a certain level in order to have a home football game.
The General Assembly has influenced several GHSA rules this decade, some for the better, others not.
In the case of Newnan, the GHSA rule didn’t work. Newnan’s stadium could have accommodated the crowd that ended up going 35 miles to Jonesboro to see Newnan play North Gwinnett.
But that doesn’t mean seating requirements are inappropriate in most cases. Lincoln County’s Larry Campbell told horror stories of road playoff games where fans sat on the ground and couldn’t see or didn’t go at all because the visitors side had fewer than 1,000 seats, sometimes as few as 300.
So here are my questions:
• Does a school have a right to host a playoff game, even if all it has is 100 yards of grass and a dozen folding chairs on the sidelines?
• Did the GHSA really care about seating problems? Or were the adjusted stadium seating requirements - which forced the 2006 Class AAAAA championship game to move to a neutral site - simply an end-around to get the state finals moved to the Georgia Dome?
• Should the GHSA give in to the legislature when it would make a better decision on its own?
• If you were a legislator, which GHSA rules would you threaten?
• And why is Ed Pilcher going to Bainbridge? I know that doesn’t have anything to do with the legislature, but I thought I’d ask.
Kick off the debate: Talk issues with Todd right here.
Permalink | Comments (40) | Post your comment | Categories: Extra Point
Dacula boys could be the next to join state’s elite
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
What if I told you that Gwinnett County plays the best basketball in the state? Is that something that would surprise you?
All over Georgia, however begrudgingly, people acknowledge the power of football here. Folks from Middle and South Georgia have made their case for gridiron superiority, but it is not debatable what county has achieved more in recent years.
Evidence: Since 2000, Gwinnett County has claimed eight state championships in the eight football seasons — three by Parkview (2000, ‘01, ‘02), four by Buford (‘01, ‘02, ‘03, ‘07) and one shared by Peachtree Ridge and Roswell (‘06).
No county can claim similar success in football.
But here’s the thing: The same can be said about basketball. Some history: Since 2000, basketball teams, boys and girls, in Gwinnett County have captured — get this — 18 state titles. It’s a phenomenal total, one that is unmatched in the state.
Check out the breakdown:
In boys, Berkmar (2000, ‘01), South Gwinnett (‘04) and Norcross (‘06 and ‘07) took championships. In girls, Collins Hill has five (‘01, ‘02, ‘05, ‘06, ‘07), Parkview (‘03) and Central (‘01) one apiece, Greater Atlanta Christian three (‘01, ‘02, ‘07) and Wesleyan three (‘04, ‘05, ‘06).
Eighteen in eight seasons.
And here’s another thing: The next boys AAAA just might be a first-timer, for Dacula has the look of a champion.
At 17-1 and with the top six players returning from last year, the Falcons have impressed even coach Justin Grant. And not just by the record, although he did not anticipate such a stellar ledger.
More meaningful to Grant is that his players have functioned as a team. They share the basketball without hesitation and play with an energy that a coach craves.
“You want your scorers to score, but to not be selfish. It’s one of the toughest things,” said Grant, in his sixth year at Dacula. “We mark down what I consider selfish plays and point them out.
“But this group has been good about being unselfish. And it has worked harder and wanted it more than any group I’ve ever had. We don’t really have a key player. We have depth, kids who can put the ball in the hole and kids who just worry about doing the dirty work — rebounding, taking charges.”
Storm Richardson and Trent Krammerer lead the team in floor burns and hustle plays. Six-foot-9 Brian Cole, averaging close to 20 points, nine rebounds and three blocks, has a big inside presence on both ends of the floor. Team him with the 6-foot-7 Krammerer and they represent a frontline that is the focal point of the offense.
And then there are Justin Rush and Clay Wages, who shoot it from the perimeter with accuracy.
More than anything, however, Dacula has experience and talent. “It’s the first time I’ve had a nice nucleus of players returning,” Grant said. “And they play so hard because they know if they don’t, they’re coming out.”
With success has come confidence — and the potential for overconfidence. That’s why Grant spends a fair amount of time working on his players’ psyche.
“Every day I humble them,” he said. “I stay on them as hard as I can. We watch a tremendous amount of film to show them their mistakes. … Then before we play again, I build them back up, let them know how good they are.”
And the Falcons are really good, another Gwinnett team with championship potential.
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