No ticket for me and no gold for CCHS on a frantic Friday

From Keith Groller

First of all, we have Whitehall coach Jeff Jones and Liberty coach Chad Landis joining us on "The Calling All Sports" radio show this morning on AM 1470, The Fox.

Both will be on in the first hour of the show that runs from 9-11.

We may have jinxed Joe Stellato last week. He was on with us in the morning and his Freedom team got beat by 30 that night by Pocono Mountain East. Don't want to be accused of jinxing anybody again, so we're having both Jones and Landis on the show this morning talking about Saturday night's 4A championship game.

As for my Friday, I had no winners in Atlantic City. But on the plus side, no speeding tickets either trying to get from AC to Orwigsburg while going through Philly during a Friday rush hour. And unlike my last trip from Orwigsburg, no speeding tickets coming home either.

I did enjoy my time at the Maxwell Club affair at Harrah's. Got to go one-on-one, at least for a few minutes with former Texas star Colt McCoy, Nebraska standout Ndamukong Suh, Villanova coach Andy Talley, ABC's Brent Musburger and even Scott Paterno, Joe's son, talking about the new Maxwell Club Award that will be given in JoePa's honor beginning next year.

Classy move by the Maxwell Club, which is a first-class organization, because this coach of the year award will salute more than just wins and will recongize citizenship, academics and all of the things that coaches should be doing while also winning football games.

More on all of that stuff in the coming days.

Now, as for what happened in Orwigsburg Friday night, I still have trouble believing how Central let a 15-point lead with 4:42 lead in the third quarter get away from them.

I know this is not a great Central team. Good, but not great. It is a team with a lot of outstanding athletes, but not outstanding basketball players. And I don't want to hear about the coaching, past or present. This one was not Kyle Kern's fault. It wasn't Jim Rodgers' fault. I am tired of people pointing fingers at others and not being realistic about things, like their own kid's ability.



This was a team just not getting it done when it had a great opportunity to do so, plain and simple.

Nothing has changed since I first saw Central in December. They miss too many easy shots -- layups, short-range shots etc. No one shoots the ball consistently well. It's a good thing second chances are allowed because they have guys who can go and get it off the glass in David McFadden and Shane McNeely in particular, but they never shoot very well -- inside or outside -- and without transition baskets off turnovers and offensive rebounds -- they struggle to score. And note I haven't even gotten to the foul shooting again, which was, frankly, dismal and costly. Even the writer I was sitting with from Pottsville couldn't believe it.

Still, I thought they had this one tonight up 44-29 approaching the mid-point of the third quarter.

As much as they have struggled at times this year, I never thought they would only score six points over 10 minutes and allow a 15-point lead to turn into an eight-point deficit before six quick points by Brendan Nosovitch gave them a little life.



Look, as Rodgers and others from Central pointed out repeatedly after the game -- these are good kids, hard-working kids. It's not easy mentally or physically to go from a long football season into a long basketball season. I understand all of that.

I have little doubt that many of these same kids will lead Central to a great football season next fall, maybe to a state title.

But this one was disappointing because you saw a team that, for whatever reason, just stopped executing and doing all of the things that got them a 15-point lead.

Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was fouls, as Rodgers talked about after the game and maybe it was too much Nick Schlitzer and too litle Central depth. Even Rodgers admitted that he went with the same five guys for much of the night.

But I rank this one up there with some of the more disappointing losses in Central boys history. Not nearly as devastating as the losses to Lehighton and Bangor in district finals back in the 80s or the 1989 state finals, of course, but very disappointing nonetheless for a team that seemed to have turned the corner.

It will be interesting to see how they respond in the first round of states next week.

They earned themselves quite a road trip into District 4 country.

Keith Groller