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2015-16 season-view from my seat

Started by Oldref, March 26, 2016, 12:03:36 am

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Oldref

March 26, 2016, 12:03:36 am Last Edit: March 26, 2016, 12:29:11 am by Oldref
Unbelievable season and state tournament performance. Bay once again played a very strong schedule and finished strong playing their best basketball of the season in the state tournament.

Last year there were unbelievable expectations  even talk of going unbeaten before the team ever played a game. This year lots of people believed that Bay was a team to watch but Guy Perkins and Emerson both had such great regular seasons Bay was probably a little less of a favorite to repeat.

The NEA tournament is a great place to get ready for the post season. No other tournament has that kind of atmosphere and crowd and if you can go deep in the NEA it helps to get ready for post season. There are so many good teams in the northeast corner of the state and so much competition. It helps to  play as many good teams as you can get on your schedule regardless of classification.

Last year Bay had a move in that was a great player. Fact is Bay already had great players and kids that have played together since grade school. Colton Watson would have made any team better but add him to what Bay already had and it was a special group.

Now to put that in perspective Bay won this year with the same group that lost in the famous ICC upset in the regional's 2014 at ICC. Those guys were Freshmen and Sophomores that year and just got beat after having a great  regular season winning over 30 games. I think they have now finally shook that loss off after beating ICC the next four times they have met and have won 5 out of 6 games with them the past three years.

This year they just kept working and all along they thought they were the team to beat and whoever won would have to beat them to win it all. In my opinion the state tournament this year was a tougher field to beat plus the first three rounds were at ICC where Bay had lost twice in the past three years. So the trick was to convince the players  there was no real Izard County hex and just go play........coach Brannen took care of that and had them ready and playing their best.

Everyone from Bay still felt like ICC was a tough place but the kids took it as an additional challenge and how great it would be to celebrate on the Cougar Den floor.......well it really was great!!! I know it was difficult for some of the locals to watch but I understand that.  In the Semifinals against Guy the place was electric and was one of the best high school games I  have ever seen. After the Guy Perkins win some of the Bay kids renamed the place the Jacket Nest west!!!

I remember a undefeated team made it to the finals in 1993 and lost to BIC. There may have been others since then that I just don't remember or  know about but I am almost sure no team has ever won a state championship by beating two undefeated teams back to back to win it all.  Want to congratulate Emerson, Guy Perkins and County Line for great seasons and making the final four!!

Jonathan Crain, Tyler Pritchett, Taylor Layne, and Dustin Utley have basically all been on the floor together for the past 5 years in Jr or Sr High. They have won a huge number of games in those five years. Going to miss Jonathan and Tyler along with Matthew Willard.  They  have Layne, Utley, McFadden, Smith plus several other good players coming back and a good group of freshmen moving up. I expect Bay to be in the conversation again next year!!!
Hope everyone has a great summer and we are all around to watch the games next year!!!

NEA Razorback olfan


Batman44

Congratulations to Bay, and well said!! The

Central Ark

I think the best thing for Bay was getting to play Guy early. It is difficult to beat a good Guy team the first time you play them. The second time, they knew what to expect and took advantage of the experience.

Silky Johnson

They actually prepped for them this time around but I think they would've been ready and expected as much as they got after seeing them play Calico rock and Kirby. You're right though, playing against them and getting beat the way they did made Bay respect them when they played the second time. That deep into the postseason no team is usually just hype. You can't take any team in the postseason lightly if you want to win.

Oldref

Quote from: Central Ark on March 27, 2016, 02:57:11 pm
I think the best thing for Bay was getting to play Guy early. It is difficult to beat a good Guy team the first time you play them. The second time, they knew what to expect and took advantage of the experience.

I sure do agree Guy opened some eyes in the first meeting with Bay. There was so much time between the two games both teams were a lot different. Think Guy had even added a player at semester. Guy Perkins was extremely talented and so was Bay. No excuses or disgrace in losing that first game to GP. The difference the second time is Bay game planned on how to play against Guy and had spent some time getting ready for that possible match up for weeks. That plus Bays big game and state tournament experience made the difference late in that game. Unbelievable scoring runs by both teams during the game.  Great game to watch!!!

BoxNOne

Good recap Oldref. The part about the NEA tourney and the competition Bay plays up here were really on point.

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