Who'd You Expect

Rocky Mount and Northern Nash girls will meet for the championship of the Nash County Christmas tournament after both won their opening night games and will meet for the first time this season but it probably won't be their last time against each other. The opening game was the best game of the night as once beaten Nash Central girls took on the Lady Gryphons who come in at 4-2. This one found Rocky Mount ahead 36-32 in the third quarter but the Lady Bulldogs scored 11 straight points to lead 43-36. The fourth quarter the Gryphons attacked the basket driving to the basket producing scores rebounds or fouls going to the free throw line and the Lady Gryphons pull out a 60-53 victory. The Lady Gryphons play in the championship game Thursday night at 6:30 while the Lady Bulldogs play again Wednesday night at 6pm against Southern Nash. The home team Northern Nash will play against Rocky Mount Thursday night. Carmen Richardson lead Rocky Mount with 22 followed by Keyanna Spivey 13 and T T Thomas 12. Nash Central was lead by Deztanie Hill 14, Ni'ya Styles 13 and Alexia Jones 12. When you win the rebound game 51-19 you would expect the team to win and that is exactly what happened as the Lady Knights Of Northern dominate Southern Nash 61-39 but at one point it was 50-20 before the subs finished the game. Alexis Hill lead the way with 18 points and she was one of six Knights to get at least four rebounds. Kia Thomas added 12 points and 11 rebounds. Northern's record jumps to 7-1 while Southern drops to 4-6. The lone boys game of the night featured the home standing Knights 3-5 against cross county rival Southern Nash 3-7. From the get go Southern found open shots and they made them leading to a 42-29 lead at the half. Northern's defense tightened up in the second half but they were never able to get closer than eight but the last 90 seconds the game became a romp for Southern winning 79-61. Southern had five players in double digits In scoring lead by Deon Lavendar 15, Tahj Deans 14, Aaron Newkirk 14 Bryan a Vines 13 and Richard Hall 13 . Demonte Johnson lead Northern with 17 followed by Isacc Dupree 16 and Paul Cherry 14. Southern will play in the championship game Thursday at 8pm against the winner Wednesday night between Rocky Mount and Nash Central while Northern will play the loser of Wednesdays game at 5pm. ECU freshman J'Kyra Brown was named Monday as the rookie of the week in Conference-USA after scoring 22points last weekend for the Pirates. So far in her freshman season J is averaging 6.8 points for a one loss Pirate team.

Carolina Basketball Team Chemistry

The big debate in the NFL last week was why did the Chicago Bears want to change quarterbacks Josh McCowen their backup playing as well as he was. The truth being told the Bears had lost 2 out of three games. Quaterbacks are judged by wins not by how well they played. North Carolina basketball knocked off another giant Saturday in Kentucky in a year when Carolina has beaten more good teams early than ever before it seems like. They have done it with out two players sitting on the sidelines for reasons that don't have anything to do with basketball but eligibility. The Roy Williams worry now is when and if those two on the sidelines are allowed back on the team what do you do with them? You sure don't want to mess with the current players MO or chemistry that the players Williams has now on the floor have established. I personally think Haiston will never play again at Carolina but McDonald will return in January. Mack Brown retired under his terms I guess this weekend as the football coach at Texas. Brown hammered reporters who had him in his grave last week when they were all reporting he was out. Isn't it ironic that the day after a meeting with the AD and college president both come out praising Brown and the next day he quits. Sounds to me like it was either you quit or we will fire you to me. Where does Texas go from here. You know with their own TV network that Texas has more money than any program in the country to hire anybody they want. Don't be surprised if they have to resort in dropping down to a top 20 program coach to find a new coach. what does it say about winning at all cost as Brown's record the last four years is 30-20 or 60%. Wouldn't State and Carolina like a 60% winning percentage. All of these long term contracts coaches get these days and the pay off if they leave early the choices Texas will get will be less of a pool than you think. For future reference Carolina and Duke fans had better pay attention to the difficulty Texas has because Duke and Carolina Basketball are probably within five years of having to find new basketball coaches and the same problems will exist for them then.