Greenwood 55 - Bowling Green 30

Greenwood High School, Bowling Green, Kentucky, 01-11-08

The 14th District is a bear. I've heard people use another word starting with "b" to describe it. With teams like Greenwood, Bowling Green, Warren East, and Warren Central all stacked in one little district it could very well drive fans, coaches, and players to use swear words. Every game played between those four teams is important, and every winter time match up sets the stage for the important games in late February and March. That's when teams live to play another night and other pack up the sneakers, zip-up their gym bags, fold the uniforms and start counting the days until practice starts up in October.

District and Regional tournaments are closer than anyone thinks.

Maybe its good that the Bowling Green Purples got a bad game -- no, an atrocious game -- out of their system in the middle of January. It was awful. I've seen 11 year olds with their first rifle make better shot selections. The Purples made more bad, sloppy passes than a drunk salesman at a Las Vegas showgirl convention. If Coach D.G. Sherrill lined his Bowling Green squad at the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, they couldn't have thrown a basketball into it if they were standing ankle deep in the gulf's emerald waters.

The two teams matched up pretty well in the first quarter. Bowling Green played an active, man-to-man defense and a full court press that frustrated Greenwood. On the offensive end, however, the Purples were tight and played a little scared.

In the first few minutes of the contest, I thought that D.L. Moore had come to play. He seemed to fade throughout the game. At the end of the first quarter, the score was tied at 8 a piece. I thought I was going to be treated to a classic Bowling Green-Greenwood tilt.

Greenwood started attacking the basket in the second quarter. Dee Anderson, Mark Lacy, and Austin Reed sliced through Bowling Green's defense and found ways to get the ball in the basket. I was a little surprised because I thought Blane Embry might rely on perimeter play to shoot over the Purples size advantage. He chose, instead, to attack them.

The Purples' woes started in the second frame. They through up one clunky shot after another. Their interior players couldn't get open, and the perimeter players bounded into the lane with very little control over their shots or even themselves. Bowling Green managed only 4 points in the second quarter, while Greenwood exploded for 19.

Jerron Nixon picked up his second foul with 6:02 left in the second. I noticed that Bowling Green needs Nixon. But they didn't have him to kick the ball around to, and the rest of the squad looked a little lost. Greenwood's tenacious defense got after them and was largely responsible for BG's dismal performance. The score at the half was 27-12.

I don't know what happened near the end of the quarter, but D.G. Sherrill seemed to take issue with something in the scorekeepers' books. The referees must've given Coach Sherrill a technical foul because Greenwood got to shoot four foul shots with just a little bit of time on the clock. Between Nixon getting into trouble (thankfully for the Purples there wasn't an 18 minute gap in his play) and the stealth technical foul, Bowling Green had landed in a deep, deep hole.

This was my first trip to "The Swamp" for a basketball game. I've been in the gym before when the school is shut down for the summer, but I've been there for work and had no time to look around the place. I see why it is a tough place to play ball. There is no room at either end of the court, and there are a lot of bleachers crammed into what is actually a small building. There were a lot of fans at the game, too, and it was loud until every one recognized that the Purples left their game over on Westen Drive.

I have to say, that the gator painted at mid-court is some of the worst basketball court art I've ever seen. The thing looks like a middle-aged Godzilla after he has spent about 20 years downing Pabst Blue Ribbons and eating ham cracklins.

I wish that Greenwood would call their gym "Alligator Alley." I guess a generation, maybe two, of basketball fans have passed since the Florida Gators played in "Alligator Alley" in Gainesville. I remember listening to Joe B. Hall moan and whine about what a dump that place was. It wasn't so much a dump as it was a place where good SEC teams went to die.

The Gator at mid-court was almost as ugly as Bowling Green's second half performance.

When Greenwood's Bret Barrick nailed a three pointer, making the score 32-12 early in the third, I could see the fight leave the Purples. If anyone told me that the score would be 43-21 at the end of the third quarter, I would've sworn that they were talking about a Bowling Green-Greenwood football game with the Purples winning. That wasn't the case. That was the score at the end of three of Friday's basketball game with the Gators on top.

The fourth quarter was a formality. Nothing notable happened, except that the game mercifully ended. Greenwood won 55-30. Bowling Green never scored double digits in any of the four quarters. Their line looked like this: 8, 4, 9, 9. I've seen baseball teams put up better number through four innings.

Bowling Green drops to 1-2 in the district and 6-3 in the region, while Greenwood moves to 2-2 and 3-5. It's going to be a dogfight come the last week of February.

OBSERVATIONS

It Takes A Village People: Despite all the taunts back-and-forth between the Greenwood and Bowling Green students, when they played "YMCA" everyone in the gym stopped what they were doing and made the letters in sync with the song. For a moment, there was peace in Alligator Alley, everyone united by one of the most bizarre gimmick bands of the 1970s.

He Is DEE Man!: Dee Anderson looked good out on the court in Friday's game. He still sports a knee brace, but he's more mobile every time I see him play. He banged his knee in the first half and left the game and the gym. He was back in the second half as if nothing happened. He's still one of the top players in the Fourth Region. I really enjoy watching him play. Remember, he's just a sophomore.

Texas or Florida?: Greenwood has a player named Austin Disney. I guess this kid is kind of torn between listening to Texas style blues, offbeat college students, and wholesome family entertainment and animatronics. Maybe he's an animatron.

Tell Me Your Name, Son: Guess, sir. I wonder how many times Greenwood's Logan Guess has people trying to guess his name. I wonder if he's a fan of the The Guess Who.