By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
At another time, maybe in another place, another year, Rod Snapp and Tim Sullivan would not be here. Not facing one another like this in Friday’s Ninth Region All “A” Classic semifinals at Holy Cross.
Sullivan, the first-year St. Henry High coach would be doing what he’s always done since he created the Cooper program in 2008, coaching up his Jaguars for another state tournament run, the way he did a year ago for his Ninth Region champs who were on their way to Rupp Arena . . . again.
And Snapp. The Indiana native in his 16th season at Newport High, would be coaching a veteran Wildcat team that would have had a chance to take a run as one of the handful of all-time best teams in Kentucky high school hoops history. Like ever. Before, of course, he lost what easily could be a record three players from one team – “Certainly in Kentucky it is,” he says of the three ex-Wildcat players who could have been on the court on this night – to the national high school basketball academies that have popped up all over the country in recent years.
“I said to Rod earlier this week could people wonder what world is this,” Sullivan said of this matchup after his young guys couldn’t keep up at the end to a tough-defending, physically superior Newport team, 55-39, thanks to a late 18-5 run the final 6:35.
Snapp still has a player, slick junior guard Amontae Lowe, averaging 22.0 points a game who led the now 10-4 Wildcats with 19 points. And who would have wonderfully filled out the starting five with the likes of the nation’s No. 1 point guard prospect Kinney, headed to Kansas next year after his second season at Atlanta’s Overtime Elite program where the minimum salary for a player is $100,000 a year, more than any Northern Kentucky high school coach is making.
“Absolutely, 100 percent,” Snapp said of that 100K salary. As to what might have been. “I’ve gotten that out of me,” Snapp says, with much thanks to his assistant coaches – and his players.
And while it may look like he’s coaching harder, “Not really,” he says. This group deserves nothing but his best, Snapp says. They may not make it back to the Sweet 16 but he’s been here 16 years now.
“I’m really glad I’m at Newport,” he says. And coaching and caring as hard as ever.
Now if you’ve lost track a bit of Kinney, no problem. He’s listed in Wikipedia in multiple entries with more than 1.5 million followers on Tik Tok and Instagram, with his own bottled water, named “6-7” for his early adoption of that viral meme while averaging more than 20 points a game against Overtime Elite’s challenging national schedule.
And he would have been complemented by a pair of 6-foot-7 inside players – senior James Turner at Phoenix’ Arizona Compass program and junior Griffin Starks, at Orlando’s Southeastern Prep. Between them, the pair have attracted offers from the likes of UC, Florida State, Penn State, Charleston and Kent State.
Northern Kentucky fans can only wonder what this season would be like – with those three at Newport and Sullivan back at Cooper, where they should have named the court for him, not shown him the door for still unspecified reasons.
“God’s got my feet where I need to be,’ Sullivan says. “I get to coach.” And replace one of the legends in high school basketball here, Dave Faust, who retired as Northen Kentucky’s all-time winningest high school basketball coach. it’s something Sullivan has been through once before with a young group not quite ready for prime time.
“And I get to coach my son (Elijah),” among other kids who “have bought in” while “learning what it means to play varsity basketball in the Ninth Region.”
And that is something of a new world where it’s ”a game of strength and physicality,” Sullivan says of the evolution of the game here. Another word for the let-‘em-play style we see now in the Ninth Region, he says, is “football.”
Which is how Snapp wanted this one played.
“That was the game plan,” he said, ‘speed-’em up, go one on one on defense, no helping,” just don’t let them get into their game. “They’re learning how to win,” Snapp said of a St. Henry team that starts just one senior and started 0-5 before winning six of the next nine and four straight coming into this game. Leading St. Henry was senior Trey Fedders with 10 points, the Crusaders’ only double-figure scorer.
“It’s a new challenge for me,” Sullivan says. “It’s one of those things where you coach one place and you have a lot of success and now you get a chance to kind of re-invent yourself. I didn’t want to become a dinosaur. The game is changing. I’m having fun with it.”
As is Snapp, who coached for a decade at legendary Milan, Ind., the small school whose state championship in Indiana was the basis for the film “Hoosiers,” and loved every minute there as well, he says.
But no more than now, even now, at Newport.
SCORING SUMMARY
St. Henry 8 10 13 6–39
Newport 10 12 15 18—55
St. Henry (6-9): Krenner 0-0-0-0, Holden 1-0-0-2, Ravenscraft 1-0-1-5, Lutz 2-1-0-5, Detzel 1-1-0-3, McIntire 1-1-0-2, Lewis 1-0-1-3, Sullivan 0-0-0-0, Summers 0-0-0-0, Duckworth 0-0-0-0-0, Lavender 0-0-0-0, Fedders 4-2-2-10, Kunstek 2-0-1-5, Williams 0-0-0-0; TOTALS 15-44 7-18 2-5 39.
Newport (10-4): Woods 0-0-0-0, Holder 1-0-0-2, Andrews-Glover 3-1-0-7, Jackson 4-0-1-9, L. Petty 0-0-2-2, A. Petty 1-0-0-2, Nichols 0-0-0-0, Hurry 0-0-0-0, Lowe 6-1-6-19, Klink0-0-0-0, Farrell 5-1-1-14; Totals: 21-38 3-6 10-17 55.