Dan Weber’s Just Sayin’: Time for NKU to get women’s hoops right, and the answer’s right here

Time for women’s college basketball in Northern Kentucky – NKU specifically — to get with the times of a sport that has never been hotter as this season’s TV numbers make clear.

Not that we should have to make that point here. History is on Northern Kentucky’s side, even if it’s faded some. Fifty years ago, NKU was out front in the women’s college hoops parade, hitting the floor with smart, tough, competitive and mostly local teams with local coaches and terrific institutional support – far ahead of much of the rest of the world of college women.

Credit Dr. James Claypool for that. The Beechwood High alum and NKU’s first dean of students decreed that NKU would treat the women’s game as close to the men’s as possible.
And it worked. Then.

And now, NKU has another shot to get this right now that Coach Camryn Whitaker Volz, after eight years as head coach, and NKU “amicably agreed” that she will be departing in what has been described as a mutual decision after a second separate investigation over the years into anonymous complaints of abusive language and treatment of players that were not substantiated as violations by the University.

But things had clearly changed. The program that beat Louisville that first year and didn’t lose until it faced UK, the program that produced two national champions in the NCAA’s Division II, the program that did so with Northern Kentucky coaches like Boone County’s Marilyn Scroggins, Notre Dame Academy’s Jane Meier and St. Thomas High’s Nancy Winstel and players mostly within commuting distance could fire up the folks in Highland Heights – and much of Greater Cincinnati – almost every year was no longer on the top of its game.

As someone who was present for that first women’s game in 1974 against Kentucky State at Regents Hall, I can attest to that. We didn’t exactly know what to expect because it was all so brand new. But when we saw it, we liked it. Those kids could play. And play hard. And knew the game. Even though maybe we didn’t know about them.

Still can recall the first time NKU played Xavier, at Xavier and the Cincinnati Enquirer had assigned its Xavier beat writer to do the story – the first-ever women’s basketball game covered hereabouts. And as the NKU sports information director – but also a Xavier alum – I could make the case legitimately that NKU would be – and should be – the story. The romp over Xavier made that clear and NKU was – as so often in the years that followed – the story.

Until the most recent coaching hire, NKU had been on a women’s basketball roll with 33 straight winning seasons and a 70.9 winning percentage over the first 42 seasons. And those two national titles in 2000 and 2008 under Newport’s own NKU alum Winstel, a member of those early NKU teams.

Those were the days. And with a new 9,000-seat arena to boot.

But something happened. Five of the last eight seasons have been losers – an 8-11 year, a pair of 9-22 duds, one 11-18 and 11-20 this past season. All the while the men were winning and moving on to the NCAA Tournament. And on top of a pair of controversies and a coaching leave. No postseason success. No tournament wins. Not even mediocrity.

The Norse – fans, players, this community – deserve better.

But that’s the good news. There’s a chance now. Time to get back on track with new VP for Athletics, Christina Roybal, in her second year here from her native California, has a chance to get this right.

And of course, the word out of NKU is that it will be “a national search.” Which is perfectly fine. And unbelievably fortunate when you can make the case that the clear “national” choice is right here in the 859 Area Code. Just a quick 10.0-mile, eight-minute trip across I-275. IRS reimbursement: $5.38 Mapquest tells us.

Where there’s a former NKU assistant with an almost unchallenged “national” resume. With three “national” women’s basketball championships – two NCAA Division III titles and one NAIA championship – with another two NAIA runner-up finishes.

And with something we didn’t know until this season when Thomas More hosted No. 1 NCAA Division II Ashland, a member of TMU’s new Great Midwest Athletic Conference. Thanks to their research documenting that their coach, Kari Pickens, was the No. 2 all-time NCAA women’s basketball coaching leader (160 games minimum) with a .911 winning percentage (149-15) that is now 180-17 after a 31-2 year this past season, we learned who was No. 1 in all of NCAA women’s college basketball.

That would be TMU head coach Jeff Hans, whose brilliant NCAA resume (not counting his NAIA games) showed an almost incomprehensible .938 winning percentage (228-25) before last season’s 18-11 that has Hans at a still-No. 1 .920. And all those championships. And the All-Americans. And a three-time national player of the year in Boone County’s Sydney Moss. Almost all local. And with hardly an unlimited budget.

It was something of a tradition with NKU. The men had great success with Covington Catholic’s Mote Hils, who started the program and beat Xavier twice early on in the four years the teams played. And Ken Shields from Highlands and St. Thomas who took NKU to two NCAA Division II national title games. And John Brannen, the Newport Catholic Central alum, who managed the transition to Division I so well that the University of Cincinnati hired him.

But as much as observers see Hans’ under-sized teams play smart and hard and shoot the ball from distance and pass it and run an offense they believe in and a steals-focused defense they back up with the confidence that they can play it against bigger opponents, there’s another side here that makes you admire the work of the nation’s winningest women’s coach.

It happened the day I was pulling into the TMU parking lot for my first Saints’ football game. And there was Jeff, leading his women’s team, directing patrons to their parking spots. A team player. A TMU guy. No big deal, big-time coach here. Just a guy helping out his school. And another sport.

Still remember that day when TMU played Ashland last fall and we asked Jeff about being the nation’s winningest women’s basketball coach. “I have no clue what you’re asking about,” Hans said. “No idea.”

No, really, you’re the winningest coach in NCAA women’s college basketball, we repeated. “I guess that’s a good thing,” Jeff responded, adding: “We’ve had a lot of good players, some of them here today.”

Against the nation’s No. 1 team beating opponents by an average 28.7 points a game, a young TMU fell, 70-62. “But we’re not in this for moral victories,” Hans said of TMU’s step up this year from the NAIA back to the NCAA with resources that will take a while to catch up. And still Hans’ Saints finished 18-11. And in the GMAC’s top four.

“Thomas More’s a great team,” Pickens said. “I love Jeff Hans.”

We asked Indiana Wesleyan Coach Ethan Whaley why he chose to open last year at TMU for his fast-rising national program. No mystery there, he said. “I love the way Thomas More plays,” he said, “playing a team like this is how you get better.”

And how NKU women’s basketball would get better with this resident of Independence and a 1999 Wilmington College alum, who spent four years coaching at St. Henry and Lexington Catholic from 2004 through 2008 after five seasons as a Division I assistant at Indiana State and three more at Wilmington. And then three seasons as Winstel’s top assistant at NKU.

In addition to all those national accomplishments, NKU would get a coach whose teams have won 30 or more games five times with a pair of 33-0 national champions. A reading of the records in order are almost impossible to process: 25-5, 27-2, 31-1, 33-0, 28-1, 30-2, 33-0, 22-10, 29-2, 32-4, 31-4 and 18-11.

Who does that? Well, no one . . . almost ever.

The worst part of this deal would be how it would take away something so special from what an overachieving Thomas More program has had for the last 14 years.

But it would keep Hans in Northern Kentucky.

And keep women’s basketball on the front burner. Back in the game. Not just for Northern Kentucky but nationally.

That is, if Jeff says yes. He’s put his name and brand on the Thomas More program like no one else in college basketball. We’re thinking he would do the same for NKU, if they ask him. And if he says yes.

But NKU has to ask.

Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.