Summer basketball news ...

NASCAR calls it the "silly season," when drivers and crew chiefs hop around from team to team. Basketball has its own, too, and the latest rider on the merry-go-round is former Hickman County coach Billie Prince.

Out of coaching last year after being relieved of his duties as the Falcons' boys' coach, Prince will return to coaching next season as the top assistant to Ballard Memorial girls' coach Kevin Estes. Prince replaces Lisa McClain, who left to take a coaching position at Fulton City, closer to her home in Fulton, said Ballard principal Donald Shively.

Prince's son Tye, who will be a sophomore, may be coming with him to Ballard. Tye Prince plays basketball and baseball, and he could give a boost to the Bombers' baseball team, which looks to be a top regional contender next season. Of course, his eligibility still has to be determined by the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, but the case looks to be nearly identical to that of former Ballard boys' coach Rob Anderson, who left last summer to become the top boys' assistant at Graves County.

Anderson's daughter, Whitney, was a starter for the Ballard girls' team and was eventually granted eligibility at Graves.

• Marshall County gets the nod as the First Region boys' favorite, but Paducah Tilghman showed it will be a threat to make a run at its third consecutive regional title. Tilghman was the runner-up at the Mid-America Summer Hoops Classic tournament last week, losing 45-43 to Second Region power Christian County in the championship game, and won Graves County's summer event in June.

Tilghman knocked off a couple of solid Missouri teams earlier in the tournament in California and Scott County Central, the latter a Class A semifinalist last season. Guard Josh Forrest, who is starting to gain some attention as one of the state's top sophomores, will be an impact player in the region next year. He's bigger and stronger and, as Tilghman's new point guard, is willing to assert himself on the offensive end.

• All indications are that Kaylin Goins, Graves County's starting center last season, will transfer to Marshall County for family reasons. Goins would give Marshall another post player, freeing Murray State commitment Jessica Holder to spend more time on the wing, where she is most comfortable.

Goins was one of four returning starters for the Lady Eagles, who have a new coach in James Forthman (formerly of Massac County) and lost guard Brittany Young, who led the state in scoring with a 34-point average.

• Massac County may be close to hiring a new girls' coach, and it appears the top two choices are former girls' coach Jim Prevallet and former boys' assistant Keith Shelton.

Prevallet led Massac to back-to-back state runner-up finishes in 1986 and 1987 and had kept the Lady Patriots among southern Illinois' elite programs until he stepped down a few years ago after a dispute with the school's administration. He has coached the junior high school's boys' team the last couple of years.

Shelton was an assistant under Joe Hosman in the 1990s and the early part of this decade.