Daring To Dream

Tiny Elliott County takes on the big boys in Kentucky's one-division basketball tourney
By Pat Forde - ESPN

SANDY HOOK, Ky. -- With another 100-point night in the books, the Elliott County Lions have adjourned to the Penny Mart ("Deli-Propane-Lotto" reads the sign). Here, playing rook amid the motor oil and fishing hooks and canned goods, they are rural royalty.

The chicken wings, cheeseburgers and slushies are free for the boys after every game, enthusiastically provided by proprietor Bobbie Howard.

"Nobody really done anything special for them," she said. "A lot of them I've known since they were babies. They make us proud. This is a town a lot of people thought nobody would ever come from."

The Lions have come roaring out of this rugged, remote Appalachian hamlet of roughly 700 people along the Little Sandy River to capture the imagination of a state that cherishes high school basketball. They have rekindled memories of the glory days of mountain ball, when tiny communities like Carr Creek or players like King Kelly Coleman and Richie Farmer wandered out of Eastern Kentucky to become folk heroes memorialized in books.

The two-time defending regional champion Lions are 25-2 and ranked No. 1 in the Lexington Herald-Leader computer ratings, No. 2 in The (Louisville) Courier-Journal computer ratings and No. 4 in the state AP poll.

They have made believers out of esteemed basketball minds like former national championship-winning Kentucky coach Joe B. Hall, who declared on his radio show that the running, pressing Lions are his all-time favorite high school team.

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Salty's Thoughts: Really neat story. Has a true 'Hoosiers' feel to it.