Gryphons And The Big East Tournament: Short

The #1 seeded Gryphons of Rocky Mount High School vision of a regular season and tournament sweep in basketball lasted until they took the court last night at Hunt. Nash Central tired of losing three times this season to the Gryphons would not become a four time loser as the Bulldogs upset Rocky Mount 73-67.

The Bulldogs will play for the conference tournament championship at 7.30 Friday night at Hunt High. The Gryphon girls put their #1 seed on the line tonight as they meet Nash Centrals girls in the 6.00pm game tonight.

I found out for sure yesterday from Mike Gainey that sectional play for the boys and girls begins Monday night at home. Get there early because Morgan Doughtie sings the National Anthem right about 6.00pm.

Morgan is spending the spring as manager/scorekeeper for softball and practice is well under way for spring sports. It is hard to practice with a winter coat on whether it soccer or baseball.

Duke down by 12 at the half at Miami last night charged back to win. I think Duke's biggest problem is their team speed is slow. During the NCAA they will run into some one quick and they will also probably not shoot well on three pointers and exit NCAA's.

N C State lead by nine with ten minutes to go only to make one three pointer with a minute to go and missed 14 other shots. Only two of those 14 missed shots were inside.

Tiger Woods will speak on Friday. I truly believe Tiger doesn't have to apologize to me. Yes he at some point must face the world but the only people he needs to apologize to is his wife and family.

I figure Tiger will tell us he is truly sorry for his actions and mistakes. You know a mistake is something you do one time and didn't mean to do it. Like a bank robber who has robbed twenty banks, cheating on your wife is a habit and the mistake is getting caught. I am sure he is truly sorry for getting caught.

Big East Tournament Begins

The Big East tournament begins tonight at least from the Rocky Mount perspective. It is of course the semi finals before the Gryphons step into action and they have drawn cross town rival Nash Central who won by ten Monday over Sourthern Nash. The Gryphon have already beaten the Bulldogs three times this year and there is an old saying about being able to beat a team three times in a season. I wonder what the saying is about beating a team four times. Regardless, the Gryphons had better be ready to play.

The Lady Gryphons know who they draw on Thursday as the Nash Central girls handled Northern Nash last night in the opening round of girls action. The girls are faced with the same problem as the boys in sweeping Nash Central three times during the regular season. I would suspect that the Lady Gryphons understand about the need to be ready to play after losing at Northern Friday night in a game that they did not need to win to be conference regular season champs.

I hear through the grapevine that there is a good chance that both the boys and girls will open sectional play next Monday night at home in a double header. Both as #1 seeds. Who they would play is up in the air but as soon as we know more we will pass it along.

Our world today we live in is a cut cost world. Can you imagine what the heating bill is at any high school and it surely does make sense to play both teams on the same night and get a larger crowd to both than the boys play a single game Monday and the girls play a single game on Tuesday.

Those of you Carolina fans that were hoping for a season ending rally and a bid to the NCAA can just about forget the NIT after last night. Carolina has looked awful asgainst everybody but N C State.

I don't know how to judge the basketball world we live in. I thought Wake Forest was the best team in the ACC and they blew a 11 point lead in the last ten minutes at Virginia Tech Last night.

I am not one of these fans that will not pull for your team if you are the last team on earth. When the playoffs are on going I will pull for any ACC team to win to make the conference look good and of course any Big Four team. Growing up I use to shoot free throws just like Larry Miller who use to put one foot at the foul line and the other about six inches behind the line.

Former Carolina player George Karl yesterday found out that he has throat cancer. A couple of years ago he had Prostate cancer. In making his announcement yesterday that he was going to step aside from coaching the Denver Nuggetts until he had finished his treatments, you could hear in his voice the trauma that people go through any time the word cancer enters their life. I'll be praying for George Karl to win his battle and hope you do too. You can also join the battle and sign up for a Relay for Life team if you haven't already. This years Relay is April 23rd and 24th at the Rocky Mount Athletic Complex. To join a team go to Nash County's Relay for Life website. Just goggle Nash County relay and it will pop up.

Year Round School

Wake County is going through a mess right now with the controversy over year round schools. If you have ever had a child in it, you probably like it. Like most government projects it is very hard to make a good decision on it when most people have more than one child. Then that means you have a child in traditional and one in year round and totally chaos ensues.

We found in our house when Morgan went to year round at Winstead Elementary you could hardly tell any difference in time in and out of school. They had three weeks out in March and September and all of June. We enjoyed our year round experience.

Looking at high school sports year round would be perfect for athletics. Normally the year starts the week after Fourth of July. Fall sports could start practice and begin their games the first week in August. Football state championships would be over by about Thanksgiving just in time for basketball to begin playing on December first.

Football and basketball step all over each other now especially if you have a football team that survives the playoff to the third, fourth or finals. Does anybody remember the day when the first football game didn't occur until September or basketball until December first?

Times change for it use to be that schools didn't open until September to let the farmers have the workers to pick cotton or finish tobacco. Today farmers have macchinery that picks twelve rows at a time so laborers are not needed during school times.

I think year round is coming whether you are for it or not. The only way to find out for sure whether it works or not is all students within the system to go year round. You can't have first through fourth grade on year round and every one else doing traditional. That is of course the way our government works so it seems the right way to them.

Second Season Begins

The Big East Basketball tournament gets underway tonight and Rocky Mount will be in scout mode. The Gryphons as the top seed sits tonight waiting for the semi finals on Wednesday. Mike Gainey's game of interest will be Nash Central and Southern Nash as the winner gets the Gryphons Wednesday.

Pam Gainey's girls basketball team sits during Tuesdays first round for the girls tournament. She will intently be focusing on Nash Central and Northern Nash as the Lady Gryphons draw the winner Thursday night.

If all goes as planned this week the Stretchlon Sports Show will cover both final games Friday night. I will do play by play of the girls game and Wes Bradshaw will colorize the game while when the boys play we will switch.

Spring sports can officially hit the practice field this week. Just about all high school teams play their first games March first. College baseball begins Friday. ECU will find out right off the bat what they have this year playing Virginia this weekend in Greenville and next weekend South Carolina. Both Virginia and South carolina are preseason top twenty teams. Either weekend will be outstanding to watch if you can stand the frostbite.

Pot holes are every where. Yesterday the Daytonia 500 stopped twice to repair a pot hole between turns one and two. it took about two hours for just one. How long will it take to repair the pot holes in front of McDonalds on Sunset Avenue? There is about fifty yards of pot holes one after the other.

108,000 people went to Dallas to watch the NBA all star game. About 70,000 of them had to watch it on the big screen to see it. Kobe and LeBron get all the attention in the NBA but Dwayne Wade is a darn good player.

One And Done Time

If you are not first or second in your conference standings heading into every conference high school basketball tournament this week then you season is on the line. One more loss and your season is over.

This week is not one of those weeks for either Rocky Mount team as the boys and girls are #1 seeds. They will head into the sectionals regardless of what happens this week. They would like however to get on a roll that they can carry into sectional play. There is nothing like adding another trophy to the showcase.

Boys play begins Monday at Hunt and the girls start Tuesday. RM boys don't see action until Wednesday and the Girls wait for their semi's Thursday.

The Winter Olympics are under way and I have not watched any of it as of yet. I still would like to know why basketball is played in the Summer Olympics instead of the winter.

The Carolina Hurricanes head into the Olympic break one of the hottest teams in hockey. The last time I mentioned them they were 11 points out of the playoffs with 27 games to play. There are now 20 games left and they have shrunk the points back to only nine. It is very hard in hockey to gain ground when every team that gets a game into overtime wins a point.

The Bobcats are sixth in the NBA East. If this continues it will be their first playoffs ever. But the NBA regular season still has to mid April to end the regular season.

If you are a Carolina fan there is at least one team that you are better than. That's N C State. I think the Pack has packed it in for this season and played miserable yesterday in Chapel Hill. Finally towards the end Carolina pulled away.

In sports every week there is a new conclusion who is the best and Duke is near the top, but if there is one team in the ACC capable of making the final four to me it looks like Wake Forest. The Deacs have some ball players.

NO Help Needed

Unlike the girls basketball team, going into tonight's action against Northern Nash Rocky Mount knew if they won, they won the conference. If they lost they could lose the top seeding in next week's conference tournament as well as a #1 seeding in the sectionals.

There was no more motivation needed as Rocky Mount pour it to Northern Nash from the git go in downing the Knights 90-63. Doing so the Gryphons wrap up the conference regular season crown and a bye until Wednesday in the Big East tournament to be played at Hunt.

Tashawn Mabrey and Darius McKnight combined for 57 points 32 and 25 to lead the way for the Gryphons. Rocky Mount finishes the regular season 18-2.

I told Morgan Friday afternoon that the girls might lose tonight due in part to a improving Northern girls team but also that with Fike losing twice this week and the conference crown being hand delivered to the Lady Gryphons on a silver platter their motivation might not be there tonight.

Between an ever improving Knights squad loaded with freshmen who now have beaten Fike and Rocky Mount both at the time both were either tied or in first place or no mojo the Knights beat the Lady Gryphons 36-35. The Lady Gryphons still hold the conference crown and the #1 seed and a bye in the Big East tournament until Thursday at Hunt. The Lady Gryphons finish the regular season at 16-4.

Carolina got more bad news today for it's floundering basketball team. Ed Davis broke his wrist Wednesday against Duke and is out at least six week and the way this season is going for Carolina the season might be over by then.

Carolina and State have over the history of the ACC finished first or second many times, but in ACC basketball history neither has ever finished 7th and 8th in the old ACC or 11 and 12th in the expanded ACC.

As I sit in front of this computer on a Saturday morning just after midnight both Carolina and State have a combined four wins between them. They play each other again today in Chapel Hill. Snow is falling and who knows how much we might get before it is over but you can believe if no one shows up to watch the game (for lack of interest) we can blame it on the snow anyway.

Has anyone thought much about this. Carolina has been on a down hill spiral ever since Roy Williams threw that Presbyterian fan out of the Dean Dome.

Dear Roy: Next time you play a religious school be nice YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Champions

The second day in a row the Lady Gryphon basketball team awoke to find out that Fike has lost the night before. In doing so this time after the Lady Gryphons had won over Hunt Wednesday night the Fike lost give Pam Gainey and the Lady Gryphons the first ever Big East 3-A basketball title.

So what do you do to celebrate. The girls basketball team traveled to Durham Thursday night to be in attendance at the N C State-Duke womens basketball game held at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke won 70-39.

The boys can clinch first place tonight but they must beat arch rival Northern Nash at Northern to do it. The big East basketball tournament begins Monday at Hunt and we know for sure the Lady Gryphons will not play until Thursday. To keep from playing Monday a boys victory would put them in the Wednesday Semi's.

I hate to have to say this but Rocky Mount High School got a state champion over last weekend and here it is six days later and just now talking about it.

Hannah McMillan a senior at RMHS won the North Carolina Jr. Miss Scholarship competition which was held last weekend in Greensboro. This is a big deal and there has hardly been any mention of this from any body.

The Jr. Miss main focus is academic excellence,phyical fitness, interview, talent and and self expression.

I use to be in the Ahoskie JC's back in the 80's and we sponsored the Jr Miss there. I for several years worked with the judges and was there during the interview process.

I remember one year a girl who I thought had a real shot at winning was marked down in the interview because on her Jr Miss application UNC was not one of the school she wanted to attend. You might say ,Oh the judge pulled for the Tar Heels but no. This young lady was a finalist for the Morehead Scholarship. Her answer was not very convincing as to why she didn't want to go to UNC but was going through the interviews for the scholarship.

McMillan will now compete for the National Jr. Miss in June in Mobile Alabama. Good going Hannah. I am sorry it took so long to mention it.

Tonight basketball at Northern to finish the regular season in basketball. Thursday Northern Nash hosted the 3rd round of the 3-A wrestling duels. Northern survived as the only Big East team to get out of the first round but lost to Havelock one of the best wrestling teams in the state at any level.