Gryphons Down Northern

The Gryphon boys basketball team beat Northern Nash in what for them was an opening round  and by winning advance to the Championship game Wednesday night at around 7.30.  The Boys win 71-47 over the Knights.  The boys are now 7-1.

The Lady Gryphon girls play the 3rd place game tonight and beat Southern Nash by a 70-41 score.  The Lady Gryphons rebound after losing their second game of the year last night to Northern.  Their two losses so far have come at the hands of once beaten Millbrook and undefeated Northern.

I like this new format being used for the tournament.  Three games opening day including the home team playing in  two games.  The second night featuring  the loser of the girls  games and the boys game from the set of teams not playing the home team on Monday.  In this case that put Rocky Mount having both teams playing on the second night.  Wednesday will start with the third place boys game and then the two championship games.  I think this three day deals has potential to have great crowds every night

Tarboro High School's Todd Gurley was named NCPrep.Com high School Football player of the year today.  The Associated Press also named their all state team and Gurley made that team too.  Gurley is expected to make his intentions known  on January 3rd.  Rumor Mill says it is down to Georgia and North Carolina.  Why Georgia you ask, Keith Marshall the highly recruited back from Millbrook who chose Georgia and Gurley are good friends and the story goes they made a pact to go to college together.  North Carolina remains in the picture due to Tarboro native and resident Kelvin Bryant.  Bryant has been a mentor  for Gurley the past few years and I think you know why he wants him to go to Carolina.

If you keep up with the goings on in the NFL you know one week a team looks like world beaters and the next they are worse than a jv squad.  I think if you look at the blocking stats most any NFL game and it will tell you why teams win and lose.  I told you yesterday about my man Philip Rivers.  During the six game losing streak of the Chargers he had a quarterback rating of 76 and in those six games sacked 20 times.  During the Chargers three game winning streak he has been sacked only once and a QB rating of 132.  If you saw the Packers Sunday Aaron Rogers stay on his back more than both feet planted and he had his worse rating of the year.

The quarterbacks get all the glory for winning and all the blame for losing but football is a team game and those guys in the trenches open the holes for the running backs and keep the quarterbacks upright.  If you look at all the teams that have clinched playoffs spots what do they all have in common? A good line!