Halfway home – let’s look at some rankings
With both teams back home from their Florida post-Christmas tournament trips, and both capturing second place tourney titles, we’ll start this week’s column by handing out congratulations to both our Lady Dawgs and Bulldogs on successful trips down south.
Now that we’ve put up new 2024 calendars this week, we also reached (roughly) the half-way mark of these 2023-24 high school basketball campaigns.
That said, it’s the time of the year when I start to seriously look at some rankings in order to begin getting ready for what lies ahead, match-ups with opponents that are also beginning to reach full potential on the hardwood and what might lie ahead for the fast approaching post-season tournament run.
Dave Cantrell’s ratings came out this week and looking at the girls’ first, in our 4th Region, it’s Franklin Simpson’s Lady Wildcats who are holding down the top spot amongst the 17 teams in our region, with a perfect (as of Monday) 12-0 record.
The Lady Wildcats are also the ONLY 4th Region girls’ team that holds a spot in the state’s Top 25 overall rankings with a 80.9 rating to secure a No. 12 position.
Looking down the 4th Region rankings, behind FS, it’s Bowling Green, Barren County, Warren East and Greenwood rounding out the Top 5.
The Lady Lakers of Russell County, and one of our 16th District opponents, is atop the district rankings and sits at Number 6 in the region, with the Lady Panthers of Cumberland County close behind, second in the district and Number 7 in the region.  Metcalfe County holds the third spot, followed by Monroe County and our Lady Bulldogs in district rankings.
The Lady Dawgs, with a points ranking in the Cantrell system of 48.9, still have a few out-of region games coming up before the regular season play comes to an end, and comparing our ranking number against some of those upcoming opponents looks like this: Edmonson County (57.0), Green County (62.4), Campbellsville (40.0), Wayne County (59.7), Casey County (46.2) and Somerset (44.7).
Overall, it’s George Rogers Clark, with a 12-1 season record and a ranking points of 87.2 that holds down the state’s top spot in the Top 25.
Over at the boys’ Cantrell Rankings, the Lyon County Lyons, with all-time leading scorer and U.K. recruit Travis Perry, has a firm hold on the state’s Number 1 ranking with a ranking number of 84.5 and a 12-1 season record, coming off a championship title in last week’s prestigious Lexington Catholic tournament.
The only 4th Region team to crack the Top 25 as the new year starts is 9-3 Bowling Green (78.6).
The Fourth Region shows Warren East (65.6) following Bowling Green with Barren County (63.8), South Warren (62.1) and Warren Central (61.7) rounding out the top five, in that order.
The 16th District’s Russell County Lakers (61.3) leads district rankings, in sixth place across the region, followed by ninth place Monroe County (56.7), 11th place Clinton County (53.9) 14th place Cumberland County (48.4) and finally Metcalfe County (46.2) in the 16th spot among the 18 teams competing in the 4th Region.
The close grouping of 16th District teams is a clear indication of just how tight the level of competition is among out five schools this season, at this point of the year, something that I’ve heard repeated over and over from fans as well as game officials in the past few weeks.
There’s still plenty of action to be enjoyed this season, so get out to The Castle and get behind our blue and white teams as they move full speed ahead through the second half of this 2023-24 roundball campaign.