Do not call them a dark horse. Sure, they start two freshmen, a sophomore, a junior and a senior. And they may have won just one All “A” Basketball Tournament in Coach Rod Snapp’s 13 years at Newport. But that was then.
Now the reality is this is a mature, athletic, patient, high-basketball-IQ team that plays together, can run you off the court if you let them but will spread you out in a methodical half-court offense when the time calls for it. Oh, and they may be young but they don’t take any bad shots – very few anyway – because they move the ball until they find the open man. They’re also one of the state’s Top 10 defensive teams, holding high-scoring Highlands and host Beechwood to 50 points each in their last two games.
So which number did they like better out of Tuesday’s 81-50 romp over Beechwood, sending them on to Friday’s semifinals against St. Henry. Not a difficult answer, 6-foot-6 freshman James Turner and his coach, Indiana born and bred Snapp, said in unison as they called out “81.”
“Definitely,” Snapp said. Their defensive goal they didn’t quite hit in this one. They were shooting for 44, the lowest a 5-10 Beechwood team had scored this season.
And that’s against a Beechwood team with one of the state’s best pure shooters in Cameron Boyd, averaging 21.7 points a game with 91.2 percent free throw shooting, best in the state.
One way to handle that, well, just don’t let Boyd, who scored 23 points on 10 of 17 shooting, go to the line. And he didn’t. The disciplined Wildcat defenders committed just 10 fouls.
But it’s their offense that was eye-popping as the Wildcats hit on 30 of 46 (65.2 percent) from the field including 16 of 27 (59.3 percent) for the first half that saw Newport spring out to a 21-7 first quarter edge and 39-18 at halftime.
“We all get along, we all talk to each other, we know how to hang,” said the freshman Turner, who agreed that this is a team that takes very few bad shots and there’s a reason why. “Probably our coach,” he said with a nod to Snapp. Not to mention his teammates, who got the ball to him four times for dunks as he finished five of six for 12 points, falling short of his season high of five dunks in a game because he was fouled on a reverse one-hander that would have equaled that total.
Another freshman who doesn’t play like a freshman is point guard Taylen Kinney, who hit on seven of nine from the field for 18 points with six assists.
“These guys seem like they’re more unselfish,” when compared to Snapp’s best team at Newport, he said. “They’re skilled . . . and they work on their game.”
They’ve come a long way since losing two of their first four to Bishop Brossart and Campbell County to their current 13-3 record – second-best to Covington Catholic’s 12-2 after the Colonels’ loss to Conner – with 11 wins in their last 12.
But don’t downplay the difficulty of this All “A” challenge. Right now, according to the KHSAA’s RPI rankings, seven of the top 12 teams in the Ninth Region are All “A” schools.
That lone most recent loss – on the road to a physical Corbin team that displayed its state football title ways in that 65-52 loss – helped the Wildcats turn things around and realize they have to be physical too.
Senior 6-4 strong man Marquez Miller helps. He had a team-high 18 points on eight of 11 shooting, mostly down low across from Turner.
“We need to gang rebound,” Snapp said of a team that’s learning to go all out without bodying people up with the guards pitching in. One thing they don’t have to be taught: They’re smart decision-makers with good instincts,” Snapp said, the thing “that makes you a better coach.”
And they listen.
Here are the goals Snapp has set for them: “We want 50 percent (from the field), 70 percent from the foul line, and when we get up 14, spread it out” and hit ‘em with the half-court offense to take time off the clock.
Beechwood Coach Erik Goetz acknowledged Newport’s talent. “They’re good,” Goetz said, “they’ll be a tough out.”
It’s not like Beechwood doesn’t have anything going for it. Boyd led the state’s baseball players in home runs last spring, now he leads the state’s free throw shooters
“He’s a very gifted athlete, a pure shooter,” Goetz said. “We just need more help for him. Freshman Cash Harney, who stepped in so ably at quarterback as a starter for the state champion Tigers when needed for the injured Clay Hayden last fall, is one. He had 10 points and three assists.
But that wasn’t enough.
“We’re young, too,” Goetz said, “but their young guys played better than ours did.”
BOX SCORE
NEWPORT 21 18 30 12—81
BEECHWOOD 7 11 20 12—50
NEWPORT (13-3): Kinney 7-1-3-18, Anderson 1-1-2-5, Covington 5-1-3-14, Turner 5-0-2-12, Miller 8-0-2-18, Lowe 0-0-3-3, Silverton 1-0-0-2, Lowe 3-0-2-8, Thompson 0-0-0-0, Lee 0-0-0-0, Farrell 0-0-1-1, TOTALS: 30-3-18-81.
BEECHWOOD: (5-10): Harney 4-0-2-10, Boyd 10-3-0-23, Logue 1-0-0-2, Sullivan 1-1-0-3, Kelly 0-0-0-0, Blackburn 1-0-0-2, Eviston 0-0-0-0, Way 0-0-0-0, Goodwin 0-0-0-0, Wermuth 3-0-0-6, Trejo 0-0-0-0, Murphy 1-0-0-2, Navin 1-0-0-2, TOTALS: 22-4-2-50.
Photos by Dale Dawn