▪ The 11th Region and 12th Region will meet in the first round of this year’s Whitaker Bank/KHSAA Boys’ Sweet Sixteen. It will be the fourth time in the last four years and the third consecutive year that those regions will have been paired against one another.
Scott County, the No. 2 team in the Cantrall Ratings, and Southwestern, the No. 11 team in the rankings, are the current favorites to meet in that first-round game. Those teams will play one another at 6:15 p.m. Saturday as part of the Jock Sutherland Classic at Lafayette. The host Generals will play Scott, which features 2,000-point scorer and possible Mr. Basketball candidate Jake Ohmer (who committed to the University of the Cumberlands on Thursday), in the second game at 8 p.m.
▪ After scoring 33 points in an 80-63 win over Taylor County on Wednesday, Paul Laurence Dunbar star Taveion Hollingsworth needs only 137 points to break the all-time city scoring record. The Western Kentucky signee, who broke the Dunbar scoring record last week, is averaging 27.3 points entering Friday’s home game versus Tates Creek. Keeping at that pace, he would most likely break the record at West Jessamine on Feb. 14.
▪ Lexington Catholic standout Luke Johnson reached 1,000 points for his career in LexCath’s 53-52 win over Dunbar on Jan. 19. He’s up to 1,114 for his career with at least six games left to play, meaning soon he’ll likely pass his father, Danny, on LexCath’s all-time scoring list. Danny Johnson is 19th all time with 1,230 points. Luke’s brother, Tanner, scoed 1,735 points nd is seventh all-time at the school. The Johnsons aren’t done, either; Ben, Luke and Tanner’s younger brother, is getting varsity time as an eighth grader this season.
▪ Clinton County senior Brett Gibson made 11 three-pointers in an 86-54 win at Jackson County on Saturday, breaking his own previous school record of 10 makes. The Bulldogs made 18 threes as a team, tying them with three other schools for the seventh most in state history.
▪ Johnson Central fans wanting to see senior scoring sensation Mason Blair will have to travel the rest of the season to do so. After Thursday’s home game versus Magoffin County, the Golden Eagles were scheduled to play their final six games on the road, finishing the regular season up with a recently-added game at Tates Creek on Feb. 17.
Blair broke the school’s single-game scoring mark with 58 points in a 97-64 win over Lawrence County on Jan. 23. It was his second 50-point game against Lawrence County this season. He crossed 2,000 points for his career when Johnson Central hosted Sheldon Clark in an 81-76 win last Friday.
▪ Sheldon Clark star Dylan James, who spent part of his career at Mercer County, crossed the 2,500-point barrier in an 83-73 win over Johnson Central on Jan. 17.
▪ West Carter senior Dalton Brown reached 1,000 points for his career in a 62-57 win over Rowan County on Jan. 23.
▪ As of Thursday afternoon the KHSAA had not yet revealed the start times for the boys’ and girls’ Sweet Sixteen first-round games. The quarterfinals for each tournament will be played over two sessions beginning at noon and 6:30 p.m. The semifinals of each will be played at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. with the finals of each tournament set for 2 p.m.
▪ Cole VonHandorf, a Covington Catholic star and likely Mr. Basketball candidate, became the school’s all-time leading scorer in a 77-46 win over Ryle on Jan. 21. Two days later he became the first player in school history to reach 2,000 points, scoring 23 in a 72-53 win over Campbell County.
Comments