Ira Combs
UK Coaches have off-season to reflect on past recruiting - game planning for 2008 - 09
The typical off-season calendar for a big-time Div. 1 NCAA football and basketball coach is not filled completely with rest and relaxation or fun and games on the lake and golf course, there are several periods of evaluation-type recruiting, but nothing very demanding physically because they don’t have to worry about practicing or preparing their own team on campus.
However, don’t believe a word about that common phrase many college coaches preach, “we recruit everyday or we get behind.” The NCAA has several (dead periods) in place for all sports throughout the calendar year. This means an NCAA-member scho-ol’s coaching staff can’t bring a prospect on campus or visit their home during these periods and they are sacred and very seldom abused even by the Kelvin Sampsons of the college coaching fraternity. 
Time for coaching carousel & transfer rumor mill to kick in across the Mountains
It’s a natural born right for an Eastern KY sports fan to start the rumor mill each spring as we start closing down the schools for the year and head into the summer off season. The large majority of these never come to fruition; they only pass the time of the lazy hazy days of summer, and then more times than not the same coaches and players return to the same schools.
UK Blue-White Game, Derby Festival Classic this Saturday
This coming Saturday could be the most exciting weekend of the off-season for Big Blue Nation.
Rich Brooks’ gridiron Cats will be wrapping up a successful spring practice (no season or career-ending injuries translates into successful football during the spring in the college coaches’ eye) with the annual Blue - White spring game at 1:00 p.m. in Commonwealth Stadium, and then if that’s not enough you can drive down I-64 to Louisville and catch what could be the newest Wildcat for Billy Gillispie in the annual Adidas Derby Festival All Star game at 7:30 p.m. in Freedom Hall.
Adidas showcases Eastern Kentucky’s top H.S. Basketball players
The 4th annual Adidas Appalachian All Star Classic will take on a new setting this year with a boys’ tripleheader format featuring the best of the best boys’ high school basketball players from KHSAA regions 12 thru 16. This new scheme was derived by co-game directors Ira D. Combs & Harold A. Combs (retired high school coaches themselves) to showcase the area’s many talented younger players in the sophomore & junior classes, as well as the graduating seniors for the college coaches, recruiters, and many basketball fans of the Tri State area.
Cats’ NCAA run starts and ends in Anaheim
(Getting healthy & recruiting important to get back among college hoops’ elite)
Billy Clyde’s boys are done and Kentucky’s 2007-08 rollercoaster hoops season has ended. You won’t see during any interviews on TV or written in any newspaper columns that any player or coach is glad it’s over but they all are, and being an ex-player and coach both on the high school level I can understand and appreciate their emotions as their difficult season (by UK standards) draws to closure.
Big Blue Nation invades Atlanta
It was college basketball at it’s best in Rupp Arena Sunday afternoon.
At the end of the day it was UK - 75 Florida - 70 but during the 40-minute SEC battle several of the more unlikely and inexperienced Cats had their best effort of the season. The Cats razor-thin 6′ 9″ Soph. PF Perry Stevenson was 6 for 6 from the field and 6 for 8 from the line for 18 pts. and 10 reb. by far his best effort to date as a Wildcat, Derrick Jasper still playing basically on one good leg was 5 - 5 from the field and 4 for 4 from threeville with two of them being solid candidates for your typical horse game on the playground.
UK rebounds in Bayou - Set up to make NCAA run with three-game home stand
If the proverbial everyday feline cat has nine lives to live then the 2007- 08 Kentucky Wildcats must of been given a tenth, but that last one was done in an eastern KY chicken neck-ringing fashion down in Nashville last Tuesday by 41 points. Folks, there has never been a dirty rug beat on the back porch of the Combs family home place any harder than Vandy beat on UK last Tuesday. But don’t! On the fire and call the dogs in just yet, cause the hunt isn’t over, sports fans. Thanks to another underachieving effort by LSU or should I say another overachieving effort by UK, the Cats are still alive and in the hunt for an NCAA tourney berth by bouncing back and beating the Bayou Bengals 67 - 63 on the SEC regionally-televised game of the week last Saturday.
Mountain high school basketball postseason play shaping up to be most competitive in years
————————-Whitaker Bank - Mountain Coaches vs. Cancer Classic a success
Mountain high school basketball is back. Yes, that’s right, you can write it down. I’m convinced after watching teams like Paintsville, Shelby Valley, Elliott Co., Hazard, June Buchanan, and Corbin along with several other teams in the 13th Region over the last two months battle some of the Commonwealth’s top schoolboy teams down to the wire and winning a few, that happy days are here again come March Madness this year.
Billy Gillispie’s Kentucky Wildcats are now competing and fighting like cornered junk yard dogs but they’re tremendously undermanned, and therefore lost two tough basketball games last week on the road in the S.E.C. at Starkville, Mississippi 69 - 64 and in Gainseville, Florida 81 - 70 in OT. Both were very much winnable but couldn’t be finished like UK teams traditionally have fin-ished in years past. It’s really starting to hurt to watch this team struggle to compete with good teams and win against mediocre teams.
Mountain high school basketball enters 2nd Half
Even though it seems like we just started the 2007- 08 high school basketball season here in the mountains we actually passed the midway point last week when the WYMT Mountain Classic crowned it’s 21st champion in June Buchanan of the 14th region. The Crusaders beat a talented Knox Central team 73 - 58 in the first round who was lead by the best sophomore (6’ 5 ” Cody Miller) I’ve seen in several years, then embarrassed Pikeville of the 15th region 97 - 51 in the semi finals which set the highly anticipated match up with Hazard in the Championship game. The Hazard - JBS championship did not disappoint anyone. The game was tight for the entire thirty-two minutes with only a 2 to 5 point difference the entire game. The only real difference was that Hazard seemed to play a little more physical type game with more man to man defense and played a rotation of 9 - 10 players while JBS seemed to rely more on a zone defense while trying to get their talented guard duo of Clark Stepp & Tatae Cox in one on one and individual isolation type situations where they could create offense off the dribble for themselves and teammates. These two teams are in my eyes the class of the 14th region and in all likelihood should meet again in two weeks for the 14th region All - A - Classic Championship and unless some upset lightning strikes in their respective districts, should enter the 14th regional tournament as co favorites.
