Haeco Invitational Tournament Begins TODAY and we will have Haeco Radio/GreensboroSports Radio

We will have all four men’s game on GreensboroSports Radio on Friday, plus the men’s and women’s semifinals on Saturday and the Consolation and Championship Games on Monday for the men and women….

Friday’ Games for the Men:
#3 Smith(6-5) vs. #6 Northern Guilford(4-6) at 3pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court One
#2 Northwest Guilford(9-0) vs. #7 Mortheast Guilford(4-5) at 4:30pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court One
#1 Greensboro Day School(16-0) vs. #8 Ragsdale(8-2) at 6:30pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court One
#4 Page(4-4) vs. #5 Grimsley(6-2) at 8pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court One

Friday’s Game for the Women:
#4 Greensboro Day School(14-2) vs. #5 Northeast Guilford(3-6) at 1:30pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court Two
#1 Northwest Guilford(9-0) vs. #8 Ragsdale(2-7) at 3pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court Two
#2 Northern Guilford(8-2) vs. #7 Grimsley(4-5) at 5pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court Two
#3 Page(4-5) vs. #6 Smith(4-4) at 6:30pm Greensboro Coliseum Special Events Center Court Two

*****Some of our speculating and analyzing prior to the tournament*****
Day One you might just see a very good game in Game One with #3 Smith vs. #6 Northern Guilford….Northern just recently added Tre Marsh and Max Maynard from their State Championship football team and Marsh started at times last year and he saw major minutes for Dudley in basketball two years ago….Smith started out at (5-1), went to (6-2) and now sit at (6-4)….Smith can play and their big man, Kendrick Lowe will have to be a force since NG has big men to go around all night long…Aaron Simpson has been the force for Smith in scoring early in the season and Myles White can fill it up too…..

In the men’s nightcap, you’ll find #4 Page vs. #5 Grimsley and Page just got the X-Man, Xavier Hill-Mais, back and he can be a force if he has all of his emotions tied down and he is ready to help the Pirates in a positive way…Page needs Hill-Mais to be in that game at least 20-25 minutes and he can fill up the lane and be a real force….Hill-Mais might be the strongest kid out there, but Tre Marsh has that football strength too and that is a different type of strength that most people don’t understand….That football strength can blow people off of the blocks and out of the lane too…

Games 1 and 4 for the men probably are your top games set up for now on Day One…

If the seeds hold up, the Women’s semifinals should be outstanding and believe me, the last team standing will be the Winner….In NWG vs. GDS, you ask yourself if you are NWG, “what type of defense do we play on Tamera Thorpe?”…..Do we set up in a box-and-one and let our top defender go after Thorpe and dare the other Bengal girls to shoot and beat us….If you are NWG I don’t think you can play them/GDS straight up unless you are of the theory that we will give Thorpe hers and let the other Bengals beat us and you feel like they would not…Give Thorpe her 25 to 30 and keep the others out of the books and you probably win the win game, 52-37 or something in that neighborhood….

All speculation, but that is always “What is Up” going into the tourney before the first ball goes up in the air….(Major Speculation)….

If seeds hold up the #2 girls with NG vs. the #3 Page will draw a crowd…If Paris Kea is in town and I am the Page coach and I am not Coach Jones, she knows the game much better than I do, but if I am the Page girls coach and Paris is in town, I bring her on to my team bench….That ought to be worth 7-10 extra points right there just having her among her old teammates and the new kids too…Have her sit on my bench, she was Three-Time MVP and the team(Page) won three in a-row with her at the helm….You would be surprised what those old/former connections can do for you….Have her on the team bench and have her get into the game sort of like a “team motivator”….Former talent can help motivate current talent, right????? Why not?

If I were Page and Jaylin Gavin or James Summers were in town, I would give them a seat on my bench, but if Anthony Eaves or Ty Graves were in town, I couldn’t do it….You know how it works, you know the drill and you still love the former players, but you need to finish with me to stick on the bench with me….

Northwest Guilford is the team that wants to carry the Double-Banner this year…Vikings looking to get both the boys and the girls in the finals and if they don’t, they will have come up a bit short….Got to get both in there to prove what the seeds said was right….NWG expected to be there on Monday in both finals and if the GDS boys did not get there, it would also upset the apple cart and the pecking order….

But do you remember a couple of years ago, when the #1 seed GDS boys and the #2 seed Northeast Guilford boys both went down on opening night…GDS was upset by Northwest Guilford and Northeast was sent home packing that night by Northern Guilford….

It can happen and you may see Northern Guilford upset the Smith boys and Grimsley has a good chance to knock off Page….If Hill-Mais is not ready to play Page could be in trouble, because he is a BIG part of what the Pirates want/need to do…If Page is still trying to fit Hill-Mais back into the lineup and work him back to full strength you may have problems…Against a team like/such as Grimsley, you don’t have time for the X-Man to re-locate his game, he has to have it with him when he sets foot/feet on the floor, if not, trouble….

The Ragsdale boys have showed much progress since back in Week One in the regular season and now sit right at (7-2)…Ragsdale won’t him time to show off it’s new-found skills against GDS….GDS has way too many lineup combinations that they can choose from and if someone from GDS shows up and is not ready to play, they will sit, because they/GDS have plenty of other kids that will be ready in an instant to get in there and take on a lead role….Darius Moore is the glue and Peter Agba is the rock for Greensboro Day…

The best backcourt in the entire tournament might just be the guard combo of Jalen Spicer and Jalen Gore from Northwest Guilford…..They have sliced through so many defenses already this year that you might see them stocking a first-aide kit over by their team bench….Kevin Henry, Tre Turner, Sam Covington and post man Reggie Davis lend solid suppor to that backcourt…Sam Covington might just be the surprise player in Guilford County this season…His outside shooting, to begin the year, has been off of the charts and that right there my friends is an understatment…..