POOL A — Beardstown, Midwest Central, PORTA, Concord Triopia. POOL B — Pittsfield, Havana, Camp Point Central, South Fulton. Monday’s games PORTA vs. Concord Triopia, 5 p.m. Pittsfield vs. Havana, 6:30 p.m. Midwest Central vs. Beardstown, 8 p.m. Tuesday’s games Havana vs. South Fulton, 5 p.m. Pittsfield vs. Camp Point Central, 6:30 p.m. Beardstown vs. [...]

The IHSA signed a contract with Baden as the supplier for footballs, basketballs, volleyballs, baseballs, softballs and soccer balls for the IHSA. It is a 5-Year Contract. Wilson was the official ball for years and the IHSA said it was because they were an Illinois company based in Chicago and the $$$$ signs seemed to [...]

Teams are doing more tournament hopping at Christmas than ever before. Why? It seems that a team will move to a Christmas tourney because they play one or none of the teams to get more new games on their schedule. Other teams get out and it creeps to two or four. Time to move on [...]

Something is burning in Henderson County, and it’s the play of the Biggsville West Central girl’s basketball team. The newly consolidated school that consists of the former Biggsville Union and Stronghurst Southern high schools has been burning up basketball courts in western Illinois. Headed up by former Alwood coach Brad Jackson, the Heat have been [...]

Apologies for a late start to the new year! Hopefully everyone is still rolling along on their New Year’s Resolution….or better yet if you didn’t resolute anything….is resolute even a word? Anyways… The holiday tourney’s are all wrapped up and we begin to see a clearer picture of the contenders and pretenders in the high [...]

Day one at the Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament is in the books. Many blowouts during the first round this season. Here are some notes from Western Hall… First Session Abingdon over Hamilton. Low scoring game, despite 18 & 16 points from Nick Andersen and Ryan Thompson, respectively. I expected Hamilton to play Abingdon well, this Cardinal [...]

Just wanted to throw my two cents on what players to watch for over the next three days at Western Hall for the Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament. Here are players to watch for from each team in the field… Abingdon (Ryan Thompson & Nick Andersen) Brown County (Quinton Bradbury & Caleb Taylor) B-PC/A (Skylar Van Tine [...]

For the first time in over five years, I was able to take in another holiday tournament not held at Western Hall. While I don’t mind living at the Macomb-Western Holiday Tournament for three days, it’s nice to hit the roads and see other action. My Wednesday took me to the 26th annual Lady Tiger [...]

Ok. I saw 7 games today. 7- and in each one the referees did not cheat. They were consistent. BUT. I don’t like it. In every game all day long the officials did not blow the whistle. they let’em play. And they held, they grabbed, the swatted, tons of loose ball pile-ups and rolling on [...]

Hope everyone is enjoying the slowing down of the holidays….and the speeding up for the holiday tournaments. My apologies for a weekend of no posting! Enjoyed some good basketball last week before the holiday tournament trail begins! It’s a few minutes after midnight and the living room is a cluttered mess of Christmas presents, tooooo [...]