We’re in one of those interesting crossover weeks in Northern Kentucky sports. College basketball is beginning and high school football is in the second week of the playoffs when matchups matter.
The interesting part of all this is that most of the playoff football games, thanks to the solid Week 1 play of Northern Kentucky teams, will be here.
College basketball is another story. Head to the airport if you want to follow the NKU men. They are outta’ here. As we type this, the NKU men, after Monday’s opening 74-57 road loss at Middle Tennessee, are flying all the way across the country from Nashville to Seattle to face the University of Washington Thursday.
And the NKU women, after opening with an 85-82 home loss to Indiana State, are off to Richmond for a Saturday matchup with Eastern Kentucky. Then after a home game against Marshall, they’re off again to Daytona Beach for games against Pitt and Chattanooga and then Illinois in the next couple of weeks. The men get a home game against DePauw before heading across the river to Cincinnati for a Sunday, Nov. 19 game. But that one, you can drive to from Highland Heights.
These games are another step up in class for the Horizon League defending champs picked to repeat this season who were hoping to challenge themselves. As they did with a Truist Arena win over UC last December.
But that challenge was accepted by Middle Tennessee’s Blue Raiders and then the UW Huskies. And then a revenge-minded UC and while the Norse will host their own NKU Thanksgiving Classic tournament with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and LIU, Nov. 22, 25, they’ll head back to the West Coast for a Christmas week game at always tough Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Calif.
How tough is it to play on the road? This tough. Only veterans Marques Warrick, with 18 points, and Sam Vinson, with 13, managed to reach double figures Monday as the Norse shot just 43.8 percent (22 of 51) with the players not named Warrick and Vinson hit on just 10 of 24 shots as the other nine Norse who played contributed a mere 26 points.
But the Norse aren’t alone this week. Thomas More will be playing the Saints’ first-ever NCAA Division II games as a part of the Great Midwest Athletic Conference.
Like NKU hoops, however, they’re on the road. Justin Ray’s TMU men are at the Southwest Baptist University Classic in Bolivar, Mo., Friday and Saturday against two teams from NKU’s old Great Lakes Valley Conference. Just take old Route 66 (I-44 now) to Springfield, Mo., and head north of Route 13 and you’re there.
Jeff Hans’ TMU women, NAIA championship game finalists the last three years with three NCAA Division III and NAIA national titles to their credit, are heading north, to Kenosha, Wisc., starting with Wisconsin-Parkside and Minnesota-Duluth Friday and Saturday. About the same drive as the one to Bolivar. Take I-74 to Indianapolis then I-65 to Chicago and then I-94 through to Wisconsin with Route 50 taking you into Kenosha on Lake Michigan.
But the good news about going on the road early in college basketball is that you get to play at home someday soon.
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL HOME HERE
Lots of interesting ways to look for the football playoffs Friday. Here are some of them.
Class 1A — Newport (8-3) at Ludlow (7-4), 7 p.m.: If you haven’t checked out the new bright red turf at Ludlow’s Rigney Stadium, this may be the time to do so. The district champion Panthers and the coming-on-strong Wildcats will probably put on a heck of a show. When they played in the regular season, Newport walked away a 16-14 winner in this cross-district showdown. Look for more points in this one although Ludlow’s pass defense has helped carry the Panthers.
Class 4A — Ashland Blazer (10-1) at Covington Catholic (11-0), 7:30 p.m.: For the Colonels, this is the re-opening of a series begun more than a half-century ago when CovCath was just starting football and Ashland was willing to play a team most in Northern Kentucky would not. Looks like a good one as unbeaten and top-ranked CovCath greets a Blazer team that scored 49 points on Simon Kenton (CovCath scored 50) and beat a Harrison County team 56-14 that CovCath beat 56-6. Should be fun.
Class 5A — Dixie Heights (5-6) at Highlands (10-1), 7:30 p.m.: We said last week to look out for Dixie Heights at favored Woodford County but no one could have had any inkling the tough-luck Colonels would pull off a 60-14 romp the way they did. So this rematch in Fort Thomas might not exactly follow the script from this Highlands team’s 51-21 regular-season romp over Dixie. Again, should be an interesting one. Not easy to beat a good team twice.
Class 6A — Bullitt East (9-2) at Ryle (7-4), 7 p.m.: While Bullitt East has the better record, Ryle has the RPI ratings edge and home field in Union and we like the Raiders’ chances here. Although if you go by comparative scores against Campbell County (Ryle won by one, Bullitt East by three), this one could go down to the wire.
• But those aren’t all the games in Northern Kentucky. There’s Class 1A district champ Newport Central Catholic, winner of a forfeit over Trimble County, hosting fellow district mate Dayton at Dixie Heights (7 p.m.) after the Greendevils’ win over Bishop Brossart although the 49-8 NewCath romp in the regular season doesn’t bode well for Dayton.
• In Class 2A, a 10-1 three-time defending state champ Beechwood has been quietly moving on as it hosts a 6-5 Breathitt County team, marking the second straight year the Bobcats have had to make the trip from Jackson to Northern Kentucky. Last year they lost a bad-weather game at Lloyd Memorial. Here’s hoping for better weather this weekend.
• Speaking of Lloyd Memorial, the 10-1 Juggernauts are on the road to Grayson where they’ll face an 8-2 East Carter team on a six-game win streak that’s ranked below Lloyd in the RPI but allowed to play at home as a district winner while the Juggs were runner-up to Lexington Catholic in a much stronger Class 3A district.
• And finally, Cooper’s Jaguars head to Georgetown for a matchup of 9-2 teams against a favored Scott County program but maybe by not as much as it would have been in years past. Keep your eyes on this one. If there’s another Northern Kentucky team that could pull off the kind of upset that Dixie Heights did last week at Woodford County, it would be a team with quick-armed quarterback Cam O’Hara, receivers Isaiah Johnson and Austin Alexander and running back Keegan Maher.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly twitter) @dweber3440.