By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
LEXINGTON – There was little debate going into the Boys Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena about the fact that the two best teams in the tournament – Louisville St. Xavier and Covington Catholic – might just settle the whole thing after their opening game matchup.
Who would get control of the game and play it the way they wanted to play it – the way they had to play it — Wednesday morning? That was the question in this “battle of heavyweights,” as St. X coach Kevin Klein called it.
No question now about which team is No. 1 in this contest between a pair of big city, all boys parochial powers.
St. Xavier, after getting run a bit ragged in a first quarter when CovCath’s Colonels played the game exactly the way they wanted to play it – open court, run-and-gun, defend and take the ball away – turned things completely in their favor by doing some very basic things to the Colonels.
They took away CovCath’s explosive offense that scored 24 points in a first quarter when it “looked like they were going to score 100 points,” said St. X guard Connor Klein, the coach’s son. First, they hit nine of their first 12 three-pointers led by a lefty off the bench, Bryce Johnson, who was averaging four points a game.
Johnson hit his first four three’s in the second quarter, helping turn a 28-17 CovCath lead into a 41-35 St. X halftime advantage on a 22-5 run as the long range scores forced CovCath to take the ball out and limited their runouts on misses and turnovers.
“It’s impossible,” CovCath coach Jake Thelen said for his Colonels, who finish the season 31-3, to play their pressing, running game when that happens and get slowed down into a halfcourt game because they have to take the ball out every possession.
Then it becomes a game of strength and athleticism. And that played in St. X’s favor as they shut down CovCath senior guards Athens McGillis and Cash Harney just enough (11 points for McGillis on five-of-15 shooting and Harney, who may have suffered from back spasms, Thelen said, on one of four for three points).
But there was no shutting down St. X as the Colonels were forced to take chances after falling behind by 15, 56-41, midway through the third quarter. CovCath junior Braeden Myrick led the Colonels back with his 19 points, pulling them within six, 61-55, with just under three minutes left. But a debatable touch foul call on a CovCath steal led to a pair of monster St. X dunks.
Those were their sixth and seventh of the day as 6-6 sophomore Jordan Jackson and 6-foot Josh Lindsay, also just a sophomore, showed off their high-flying games with Lindsay’s 21 points and Jackson’s 10 with seven rebounds leading the way for the 27-7 Tigers, who benefited, their coach said, from having played “a monster (national) schedule.”
“We knew it would be a game of runs,” St. X’s Klein said but once the Tigers got theirs going, “We didn’t really relinquish it.”
“We wanted to speed up the game and limit their energy plays,” Thelen said. But that didn’t happen. Not against a St. X team that was shooting like this. A team hat hit on just 37.3 percent of their threes for the season –about 7.5 a game. In this one, the Tigers knocked down 12 of 18.
As for Johnson, averaging just 4.4 points a game, he made just 31 of 70 three-pointers on the season, less than one a game. On this day, he hit four in his first eight minutes on the floor.
“I was not surprised,” Klein said, “Josh makes those shots.” In practice, maybe, certainly not in games,
CovCath senior Donovan Bradshaw mixed it up well inside for the four-guard Colonels with a game-high 11 rebounds and two blocks to go with his eight points. But it wasn’t enough.
St. X was able to crowd the CovCath shooters into an eight-for-22 (36.3 percent) day from long range while hitting 66.7 percent themselves.
“Sometimes teams are just better on some nights,” Thelen said. And while this wasn’t a “night” game, it was true: St. X was just better.
One big difference here against a CovCath team averaging 79.3 points a game, second-highest in the state – in holding them 18 points below their its season average, was this stat. While St. X scored 25 points off turnovers, CovCath scored just 13. That accounted for almost the entire difference in the score.
Take away the incredible three-point shooting for St. X and this is a game. But CovCath could not manage that with their “help-gap defense,” which was “outstanding,” Klein called it, by preventing drives to the basket. So the Tigers used their “reads” to just kept kicking the ball out. And hitting the open looks like they weren’t playing in Rupp Arena.
SCORNG SUMMARY
Louisville St. Xavier 17 24 18 16—75
Covington Catholic 24 11 15 11—61
St. Xavier (27-7): Cameron 6-11 0-0 2-3 14, Klein 5-9 2-5 0-012, Jor. Jackson 5-7 0-10-0 10, Lindsay 8-12 5-60-0 21, Jer. Jackson 1-3 0-1 0-0 2, Johnson 4-5 4-4 0-0 12, Garr 0-0 0-0 1-2 1, Webber 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Potter 1-1 1-1 0-0 3, Jarrett 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Milliner 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Yates 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; Totals: 30-48 12-18 3-5 75.
CovCath (31-3): McGillis 5-15 1-6 0-0 11, Harney 1-4 1-3 0-0 3, Bradshaw 4-6 0-10-0 8, Myrick 6-16 4-10 3-3 19, Stava 4-6 2-2 0-0 10, Gaiser 5-6 0-0 0-0 10, Courtney 0-0 0-0 0-0 0; Totals: 25-53 8-22 3-3 –61.
