I just want to say that my post prior to this one was more of an answer to “Mohsbballfan’s” question about Licking. I should’ve posted as a reply to him instead of “Hoopsquad20”, but thanks Hoopsquad20 for the clarification on the games last season. I was told Licking’s lead was much larger than 5 when Holland got hurt in the Newburg game. I guess I assumed Holland didn’t play against Stoutland since Licking only beat them by four. Stoutland was their next game after beating Newburg and Holland getting hurt. Since you pointed out that Holland played, you reinforced the whole point of my post. My point was that any team can lose on any given night. The fact that Stoutland played them to a four point game WITH Holland shows that Licking can be vulnerable.
Not sure what your point is about Plato beating Newburg and Licking beating Plato. Plato also beat Richland last season and, like you said, “Licking beat Plato by 50”. Yet, you believe that Richland might beat Licking. It’s like you stand reason on its head. Using your same reasoning, one should come to the same conclusion about the Richland/Licking game that you came to about Newburg/Licking if you’re basing it off of their performances against Plato. With this reasoning, one could argue that Newburg is the better team when compared to Richland. After all, Stoutland beat Richland twice as did Dixon. Yet Newburg beat both those teams and also beat Richland twice. So using your own logic, wouldn’t Newburg have to be better than Richland? I would guess that most people, myself included, could argue that Richland is the better of the two, but in reality they are two pretty even teams. You also picked both Newburg and Richland to finish ahead of Licking in the conference. So it’s anyone’s guess what your true feelings are about any of these teams. Your opinion seems fickle at times. And I’m not saying that as an insult, although it will probably come across that way. My guess is that you only picked the conference standings to end that way because you were trolling this board to see what kind of reaction you would get.
Justifying your loss to Rolla last year by saying they’re a class 4 final four team (and possibly state champs) this year, sounds like you’re justifying the loss because of Rolla’s size. The implication is that because of Rolla’s size, Rolla “should always”beat Licking. This takes pressure off of you and lowers people’s expectations of you being successful against Rolla. Again, this was a point that I made about pressure and underdogs. But by you saying it has to do with size of school, you’re only demeaning Licking’s success in the Frisco League, as they are much bigger than the other schools, other than Dixon. Therefore, Newburg and Richland’s losses to Licking can be easily justified and expected, right? If you want your team to be recognized as a truly “elite” and “special” thing, then don’t try to justify losses because of school enrollment.
Charley Parker will do a fantastic job at Rolla. With him as coach, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Rolla go all the way. Nancy Ward has large shoes to fill at Richland. And I’m not denigrating Nancy at all, but I see a lot of talent in Charley Parker as a coach and I look for him to bring out Rolla’s full potential. And Rolla has a BUNCH OF TALENT. They were lucky to get him.
Also, am I the only person shocked to see Crocker with the seventh seed in the Frisco Tournament? Rich Mueller is a fantastic coach and I think he will surprise a lot of people this year. Evidently the Frisco coaches must not have very high expectations given that they seeded the Lady Lions seventh. I’ll be very surprised to see them finish that low.
About “have an idea’s” comment about Newburg’s success with a first year coach, they should be pretty successful under her. Even though she’s just in her first year, it wouldn’t take much to be an improvement over what they had the past couple years. But I’m not too sure any coach, first year or not, would be successful coaching Newburg against Licking this year. I totally agree with “Hoopsquad20” when he said the old coach never seemed to want to be there. Therefore, I doubt he poured much heart and soul into the team. If he really wanted to be there and have success, he would’ve stuck around, especially knowing that Newburg had some talent coming up. But he also left a lot of talent behind when he left Mt. View-Liberty to take the job at Newburg. So maybe he just likes to travel and get a change of scenery.
