SPORTS HEADLINES 11/20/12

High School Basketball: The bracket has been announced for the King of the Bluegrass basketball tournament to be played December 19-23 at Louisville’s Fairdale High School.  The Hopkinsville Tigers will face Collins High School in its first game at 3:30 Hopkinsville time on December 19th.

Nine teams in the Courier Journal pre season top 25 are in the tournament including top ranked Ballard, number two Bullitt East, third ranked Trinity, fourth ranked Madison Central, and sixth ranked Pleasure Ridge Park. Hopkinsville is ranked 8th in the CJ pre season poll. Bowling Green is also playing in the tournament.

College Basketball:   Western Kentucky’s Lady Toppers opened Sun Belt Conference play with a 62-56 win over Florida International last night. The win moves the Lady Toppers to 3-0 on the season and 1-0 in the SBC.

Tonight’s action: Austin Peay and Western Kentucky’s men both play in the Triple Crown Cancun Challenge in Cancun. Austin Peay has an afternoon game with Western Carolina, while the Hilltoppers take on Iowa.

Indiana and Louisville remain the top two in both the Associated Press and USA Today coaches polls this week, with Kentucky falling to 8th in the AP poll and 7th in the USA Today coaches poll where Oklahoma State is number 20 this week after winning the Puerto Rico Tip Off Classic.

Kentucky's Alex Poythress has been named the SEC Freshman of the Week.  The Clarksville native averaged 21 points and 6 1/2 rebounds in two games last week.  Poythress had 20 points against Duke and a career high 22 points in Friday night's win over Lafayette.

Austin Peay’s Chris Horton was named the Ohio Valley Conference Freshman of the Week Monday. Horton opened his Governors career with a double-double against Western Kentucky with 12 points and 10 rebounds in the 74-54 loss in the opening round of the Cancun Challenge last week.

Austin Peay’s women’s program announced Monday the signing of 5-7 guard Emily Fox of McKinney, Kentucky. Fox, who plays for Lincoln County High School, is one of the top 25 girls players in the state ranked by USA Today’s High School Coaches panel.

 College Football: Kentucky coach Joker Phillips had his final media luncheon Monday and talked about a number of topics. One of those was if Kentucky were to defeat Tennessee in Knoxville Saturday, it would be the first time UK won in back to back years since the 1976 and 77 seasons.

Phillips said it would mean a lot to the seniors to accomplish that feat. Kentucky defeated Tennessee last year. Coverage of the game begins at 9:30 am on Lite 98.7.

Kentucky junior defensive tackle Donte Rumph has been named the SEC defensive player of the week.  Rumph had five tackles and a quarterback sack which produced a fumble that Tristian Johnson returned for a touchdown in last Saturday's win over Samford.

Western Kentucky will be without defensive end Quanterus Smith when the Hilltoppers host North Texas Saturday. Smith will miss the remainder of the season after suffering a torn ACL in the 4th quarter of last week’s loss at Louisiana.