Season Underway!

The Good Mongrel's belly is full, my blood vessels are pumping pure turkey gravy and all is right in the universe with hoops popping up all around us and December tournaments coming up soon! Lets take a quick look around, I'll try to throw together a bunch of links to games going on all around us and give some quick notes when I get to see some action myself. Hopefully I can do a couple of updates a week with more during holiday tournament season.

In Indiana the season kicked off with a bang. 4A #1 and defending state champion Bloomington South hosted #2 New Albany whose only loss last year was to the Panthers. Dee Davis (seen in this HT photo) and Matt Carlino had big games as the Panthers held on in the fourth quarter against a New Albany come back attempt. The link provided is to Hugh Kellenberger's excellent local sports blog "Quickhits" which has links to the Bloomington South/New Albany game, Bloomington North's (Julian Boatner etc) victory against Bedford North Lawrence (Alex Pritchet and company), 3A power Edgewood's (Alex Narey 23 pts 10 boards, Levi Garner) victory against South Putnam, and others including North Knox, Eastern Greene, White River Valley, and Brown County. http://blogs.heraldtimesonline.com/quickhits/?p=3392#more-3392

Fishers defeated an excellent Hamilton Southeastern squad. Superstar Hamilton Southeastern guard Gary Harris was extremely impressive in the low scoring game coming up with 13 points and at least five steals. He was 1 of 7 from the line and his outside shot did was not falling and he was a bit wild with the ball at times. Hamilton Southeastern had a couple of solid 6'5 forwards who showed good range as well as a more physical inside presence in 6'6 power forward Brian Gregory. Fishers has an outstanding squad with several very quick undersized guards to go with a heady point guard and a few intriguing college prospects at forward. The brightest future might be 6'9 sophomore forward John Alderman. He is still a work in progress but showed very good shot blocking instincts and solid footwork for a youngster. 6'7 European import whose name escaped me but might have been Illia (#23) is one to watch as well. He's a senior but showed really nice shooting form and solid Euro fundamentals. 6'5 wing forward (#22) Slaughter showed very impressive versatility and surprising athleticism but was in foul trouble. I'll have to catch him again as soon as possible as well as many of the guards for Fishers most notably #3 Stewart who looked great at point with a quick first step, he had at least 13 points.

Kegan Clark went for 21 for Jeffersonville as they rolled to a blowout over Evansville Bosse even without injured star Evan Maschmeyer. http://www.newsandtribune.com/sports/local_story_332235537.html

Joe Hendrickson's Hoopsreport blog in the Sun-Times had the goods on Chicago area hoops during Thanksgiving break. The St Charles East Thanksgiving Tournament was home to some great hoops including a classic between East Arora and Hales Franciscan who won 98-97 in an overtime thriller with 26 ties and lead changes. Former USC commit Ryan Boatright had a big game for East Arora while Hales Franciscan was led by Tennessee State commitment Patrick Miller. Miller was aided by 20+ point games from 6'3 Aaron Armstead (2011) and his brother 6'4 Aaric Armstead (2012). In another barn burner Iowa commitment and Mundelein star Ben Brust scored 50 head to head against Evanston's 5'11 Garret Jones who scored 51 making it the first time two players went for 50 against each other in ISA history. http://blogs.suntimes.com/hoopsreport/2009/11/thanksgiving_leftovers.html

The big effort from Jones was well timed as he picked up offers from Loyola and UW Green Bay who were in the gym to see his heroics. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/jonesuwgb.html

Notre Dame signee and 2010 star Alex Dragecevich was named MVP of the Billy Schnurr tournament at Niles West. http://www.chicagohoops.com/articles1/dragicevich5.html

Buckeye Prep Report came through with some great recaps from the All-Ohio Slam N Jam Hoop Preview with great reads on Sullinger, Aaron Thomas, Adolphus Washington and others. http://buckeyeprep.blogspot.com/