Well, Week 1 is behind us and the season has already offered its share of excitement.
Opening night featured buzzer-beaters (Silver Creek over Henryville), two overtime contests (wins by Clarksville over Rock Creek and Pekin Eastern over Borden). The weekend gave us a showdown of Class 4A’s top two teams (where New Albany proved that its standing among the state’s best is safe even as it lost to defending Class 4A state champion Bloomington South) and Jeffersonville just opened up and got nasty on Evansville Bosse in its season opener (displaying the type of depth and athleticism that has had Red Devil fans salivating about this season’s prospects).
This week we’ll get acquainted with some new teams as Christian Academy of Indiana and Floyd Central open up on Tuesday and Saturday, respectively.
We also get our post-holiday hangover hoops fix with this week’s season debut of “The Dish”.
A legion of fans who have anxiously awaited this moment — this year’s list of fans includes my mom, my fiancee and some guy named Fin in Sellersburg — so I hope you all enjoy.
As always, on to the picks:
TUESDAY’S GAMES
• Henryville 66, Christian Academy of Indiana 59: Henryville has started the season 1-2. A win here makes them all square through four.
• Clarksville 65, South Central 49: The Generals could be sneaky good this season. Not a lot of hype about them early, but there is talent there.
FRIDAY’S GAMES
• Providence 45, Austin 39: After a nice win for the Pioneers in their second game, head coach Lou Lefevre explains to the world he personally is to blame for high unemployment, global warming, the green lighting of “Old Dogs” by a Hollywood studio, Indiana’s struggles with obesity and the demise of the Oakland Raiders franchise.
• Lanesville 51, Borden 40: Rumors from Harrison County have alleged that Eagles coach Mikel Miller has locked his team in a conference room, pried their eyes open with toothpicks and shown a continuous loop of last year’s 60-40 loss to the Braves in the Class A Henryville Sectional.
• Rock Creek 59, New Washington 51: Dontale Mayes has a field day against the Mustangs’ undersized interior.
• New Albany 77, Columbus East 59: The Dogs show the Olympians that things are a little tougher in the Hoosier Hills Conference when basketball season tips off.
• Silver Creek 60, Clarksville 55: The Dragons will use the experience edge in the backcourt to grab an early-season Mid-Southern Conference win.
SATURDAY’S GAMES
• Jeffersonville 71, Ballard 70: True story — someone told me this summer that “they’re gonna start playing Jeff-Ballard again this year.” My response: “Who’s Jeff Ballard?”
• New Washington 60, Christian Academy 51: The Mustangs hold the experience edge at the guard position, which is very key this early in the season.
• Silver Creek 67, Floyd Central 61: The Dragons have the benefit of this being their fourth game, while the Highlanders are just getting the season tipped off.
• Crothersville 59, Rock Creek 50: The Tigers are the sleeper pick in the Southern Athletic Conference.
• Providence 49, Madison 45: The Pioneers move to 3-0 and Lefevre continues to claim this is all despite the best efforts of his coaching. He then accepts full blame for the demise of Communist Russia.
• North Harrison 56, Henryville 52: On opening night, the MSC-SAC challenge was dominated by the MSC, who went 4-0 in head-to-head inter-conference matchups. We’ll stick with that trend.
Contact Mike Hutsell at mike.hutsell@newsandtribune.com.
