LOOKING BACK

My love of the game of basketball may be exceeded only by the way Charley Craig feels about the game.

Paul Jones, Don Estep and I visited with Charley at St. Joseph’s Hospital Saturday and found him in very good spirits in spite of taking a bad fall earlier in the week.

For the first time in over seventy years, Charley will probably not attend the state high school basketball tournament.

Charley said he thought a Louisville school would win the tournament this year thus nixing my pick of Perry County Central.

This column is being written prior to the Corbin-Williamsburg 50^th District match-up, but as of Friday’s game with Harlan, Zach Farley has been playing lights out over the last three games, scoring 21, 29 and 21 points.

Farley is very quick and totally fearless as he drives to the basket and has an excellent shooting touch from the perimeter. On defense, Travis Smith and Kaleb Maguet continue to steal the ball and Hunter Grubb seems to come up with loose balls.

Victor Berezutchi has become very aggressive at a good time and Trevor Hill is very active and is playing hard.

Robbie Igo and Kyle West really worked well together around the basket against Harlan.

Gilliam Gym said good-bye to four seniors Friday night.

Travis Smith had an outstanding four-year career as a scorer, rebounder, defender and leader. Travis was always at his best in clutch situations.

Kyle West is a very physical player and an outstanding teammate who has always been a team first player.

Victor Berezutchi had great physical ability as he was the team’s best leaper and could run the floor. Victor was at Corbin for only one year, but made a strong contribution,

Eric Jones was an excellent ball handler, defender and shooter, but was hampered by an injury his senior season.

Wide open

This 50^th District and 13^th Region Tournament are the widest open that I have ever seen.

My friend Donnie “Burr” Haynes brought by a program from the 1964 50^th District Tournament, which was hosted by Barbourville High School.

There were six teams in the district in ’64, Lynn Camp, Knox Central, Corbin, Williamsburg, Barbourville and Whitley County.

Donnie’s brother Paul Haynes along with J.W. Carman and Eddy Teague were named all-tournament selections from the Whitley County team.

It was the following year, 1965 that I felt the Corbin Redhounds put the best team that I had seen on the court for Corbin High School.

That team featured Gary Frederick at point guard with Charles “Curly” Selvy at a shooting guard with Myrv Grigsby at strong forward, Marvin Selvy at shooting forward and Harold Davis at center, Other strong contributors that year of ’65 were Neil Wilcox, Terry Gregory and Bob Cowan. This team lost to Knox Central in the region.

Wildcats

The Kentucky Wildcats continue their roll through the SEC and what may be interesting to Cat fans is what will they do next year when the cupboard could be nearly bare? Well, here are some possibilities.

Ryan Harrow, the NC State transfer, will likely be the point guard. Kyle Wiltjer should still be available with Jon Hood returning. Archie Goodwin is going to be a good shooting guard. Alex Poythress and the (Willie) Cauley kid from Kansas is a 6’11’ big man.

The key to the 2013 season will depend on how Coach Cal can finish his recruiting. If you see where he is about to sign the following three players, Nerlens Noel, Shabazz Muhammad and Anthony Bennett, look out!

It will likely be April before these three commit, Noel was in attendance at the UK-Ole Miss game and sat behind the Kentucky bench.