Post Christmas Basketball

The Lady Gyphons return to the High School OT Holiday Invitational Tournament for the second year in a row.  You may ask why are the Ladies back  and the boys are not.  Two reasons might be true first of all the Lady Gryphons won their bracket played at Cary Academy and of course they have one of the best players in the state in J'Kyra Brown heading to ECU next year. The boys despite being the defending State 3-A Champs were not suppose to be this good this year and do not have a highly recruited player that this tournament likes to high light each year.

The Lady Gryphons begin play at 5pm today against Dudley High School.  The guys are playing in a tournament at Riverside High in Durham.  It is called the Tobacco Road Holiday Invitational Tournament.  They play Northside Christian Academy at 5.30 On Thursday.

Next week when school takes back in the Gryphons have a home game Wednesday  night against Rose High and then begin conference play January 4th against Nash Central at RMHS.  This will be Charles Austin Night and next week I will pass along more details.

I think most folks would tell you at this point Rocky Mount boys being 8-0 is a nice surprise.  They have won seven of their eight games by at least 12 points.  They are averaging 64 points per game while giving up 52.  They have played four games so far this year on the other teams court but they are still averaging winning by over 11 per game.  The entire starting lineup played significant minutes on last year state championship team.  So far they are not as deep on the bench as last season.

Where Are they Now:  Christmas vacation brings many players home for the holiday and had a chance to run into many of them last week during the Nash County Tournament.

Tabais Hilliard: Rocky Mount - Freshman Methodist point guard.  Started first game of season at point guard.  averaging about six points per game.

Terrill Hilliard:  Rocky Mount - Freshman Wingate   Red shirting this year.  You may remember got stress fracture in shin in state championship game in 2010.  Played AAU and High school ball both Junior and senior seasons and never properly healed.  Has had surgery and is resting this season.

Montrezl Harrell :North Edgecombe -Freshman Louisville  Averagering 19 minutes per game for Rick Patino.  Scoring at 6.7 points per game and pulling down 4.5 rebounds for the 11-1 Louisville Cardinals.

Tia Hudgins: Rocky Mount -Freshman Queens College.  Averaging 7 points per game and has started 3 of 7 games.  Was power forward for Pam Gainey but at five feet eight inches having to learn to be a guard in college.

Trey Sumler:  Nash Central - Western Carolina Senior.  He is on the Bob Cousy list as one of the top point guards in the country.  Averaging 16.3 points for the Catamounts and has been leading scorer in six of Cats 12 games.  Averaging 3.9 assist per game.

Dyonna Battle: Rocky Mount -Queens College.  Played center in high school but at 5'8" is a guard at Queens.  Averaging 3.8 points per game.