Wild Bill’s Weekly Sports Roundup

Many of you readers have asked if I bought The Chief a pair of those Perfect Polly parakeets with Polly Perches.

Having The Chief sitting around corporate headquarters  while being distracted by a flapping plastic poopless Polly is no way for me to climb the corporate ladder at The Star. I’ll stick to my Pulitzer-like writing to make an impression.

But, keep your eyes peeled next week when we review a product tied indirectly to Harry Houdini,  the great escape artist. I’ve got to scratch around for more info before giving a rating on this late-night offer. Believe me, you’d  be scratching, too.

Hopefully, the snow gives us a break in the next couple weeks for the home stretch of  the high school basketball regular season. At that point we’ll attempt to decipher the new conference playoff format for the road to Richmond. Several coaches have told me there’s still a lot of uncertainty about where things go after conference tournaments.

The Wild Bill ” Big-11 ” Top-5 stays unchanged after a week dominated by bad weather. Things will undoubtedly get jumbled when teams load their schedules with makeup games over the next 10 days. Here’s the current poll.

#1- Lord Botetourt- The Cavs (16-2) will be tested to hold the top spot with games against William Fleming and William Byrd on the horizon. Wins Monday and Tuesday night keep them at the top.

#2- Patrick Henry- PH (13-3) has had its way in the River Ridge, going undefeated in district play to this point. A big game against cross-city  rival Fleming awaits.

#3- William Fleming- The Colonels (13-4) stayed on a roll with their 13th straight win Tuesday night. Upcoming games against #2 PH and #1 Botetourt could pave the way for Fleming to move to the top spot.

#4- William Byrd- The Terriers (13-4) escaped with a 2-point win over Hidden Valley Saturday night and knocked off Rockbridge Tuesday. Now, they set their sights on Blue Ridge foes Botetourt and Fleming..

#5- North Cross- The Raiders  (13-7) are undefeated in VIC Division II play. The Raider game at PH will shed some light on their strength.

Now, we’ll take a look at some individual leaders in the ” Big-11 ” with a number of impressive performances.

Hovering around 20 points per game, Christian Kirchman of PH and Jeremy Williams of Glenvar lead the pack in scoring. Not surprisingly, a pair of big men lead in field goal percentage with Alex Light of Salem and Cave Spring’s Adam Sledd hitting at over 60%. Guard Marvey’o Otey of William Byrd joins the group in third place at over 60%. Topping the 80% mark in free throw efficiency, Justin Goode of Botetourt, Cave Spring’s Brody Hicks and Botetourt’s Dustin Hassell are the leaders from the charity stripe. Hicks and Hassell likewise are the ” Big-11 ” leaders in 3-point percentage with both connecting on over 45% from behind the arc.

Salem’s Light tops the rebound department, averaging over 10 per game. Assists leaders are Keith Oddo of North Cross, PH’s Cortez Ogden and William Byrd’s Zac Hill.

The Roy Stanley Memorial Shootout plays out Saturday at the Salem Civic Center with 6 games throughout the day involving 12 top programs. The noon tipoff between Salem and Floyd County offers a chance to see Floyd’s Caleb Tanner, who continues his run to become the VHSL all-time career points scorer. Entering this week, Tanner was averaging just under 40 points per game and was only 172 points shy of overtaking the mark of 2,687 career points held by Stacy Ervin since 1997,.