By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Great job by NKU to add a couple of years to basketball coach Darrin Horn’s contract – and to make him the highest-paid coach in the Horizon League.
As he should be. The former Western Kentucky player and head coach and South Carolina head coach has the best resume and did the best job in the league this season. And NKU should think of itself as the best place to play basketball in the Horizon.
Talked to a former coach from NKU’s former conference, who went on to coach in the ACC and the Pac-12, who said without a doubt, “NKU has the best place to play in the league” and a place – in Truist Arena – that can compete with half the programs in the big conferences.
All they have to do is take themselves seriously, which Horn and his players clearly do. Only Wright State competes with NKU in terms of attendance and a place to play so now it’s time to build on that. There seems to be a solid community fan base in the area of 2,500 or so a game. Now NKU must figure out a way to attract the largely commuter student body to the games. The new band director helps. That’s a big school attraction the Norse have there now.
But they do seem to be working at it. And with an interim president in Bonita Brown and a first-year AD in Christina Roybal – and well-documented funding shortfalls – they got it done.
Horn is now signed through June 30, 2027. Plenty of time to keep teaching that difficult-to-learn and even more difficult-to-play-against matchup zone defense that made life tough for anybody NKU played in the second half of last year’s 22-13 season that earned all sorts of praise from the likes of top-seeded Houston’s Coach Kelvin Sampson.
In the press release announcing the contract, NKU rightly called it “not just a commitment,” but “an investment.”
“There is great tradition here and I am excited about the shared vision with administration to continue to grow our program together as we serve our student-athletes and the NKU and Northern Kentucky communities,” Horn responded in the press release.
Horn is 79-45 overall (.637) with two Horizon League tournament titles and two NCAA Tournament trips and a 52-24 (.684) Horizon mark with three trips to league championship game in his four seasons.
“Coach Horn . . . and his staff have lifted the program back to national prominence and the exposure the men’s basketball program brings is not only important for our department, but also for the University and the entire region,” Roybal said.
Horn is 250-156 overall as a head coach (111-48 at Western Kentucky with a Sweet 16 appearance and 60-63 at South Carolina).
• KENTUCKY-OHIO ALL-STARS HERE WITH A BIG NORTHERN KENTUCKY PRESENCE:
It’s all-star basketball time again for our soon-to-be-in-college seniors. And the Ohio-Kentucky Games – Girls and Boys – at Thomas More Saturday (5 and 7 p.m.) will have an impressive number of local kids on both teams.
We’ll go into much more detail on the matchups and full rosters later in the week as the players arrive and practice begins but also on the schedule is the “Slam Jam Night of Stars” Friday at 7 also at Thomas More.
But here is some of the noteworthy info: For the Kentucky boys, who will feature the guard duo of the state’s leading scorer in Holy Cross’ Jacob Meyer and Covington Catholic’s dynamic Evan Ipsaro, there will also be Newport’s 6-foot-5 Marquez Miller, Mason County’s 6-4 Terrell Henry and Simon Kenton’s 7-3 Gabe Dynes.
Which gets us to what seems a most notable fact: Too often Kentucky’s postseason all-star teams give up height in the Oho and later in June, the Indiana, matchups. Not this group. While Ohio has a trio of 6-8 players, Kentucky will have four that tall but three of them are 6-9 or better, taller than any Ohio player. There’s the 7-3 Dynes, 6-10 Cyr Malonga of Evangel Christian, 6-9 John McCrear of Woodford County and 6-8 Trent Edwards of George Rogers Clark.
For the Kentucky girls, Cooper’s 6-2 Whitney Lind and Ryle’s 6-0 Abby Holtman have the highest profiles and they’re joined by Notre Dame’s 5-11 Noelle Hubert and Walton-Verona’s 5-10 Grace Brewer.
No Northern Kentucky coaches however. Leading the girls will be Franklin County’s Joey Thacker assisted by Danville’s Judie Mason. For the boys, it’s Pleasure Ridge Park’s Larry Kihnley assisted by George Rogers Clark’s Josh Cook.
• YES, THAT WAS ADAM KUNKEL ON THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW
In a segment last week that the show billed as the “Snack Bracket” matching up two regional foods against one another, there was Xavier’s Adam Kunkel, the Cooper alum, pitching Skyline Chili (three-way) against a Creighton team pitching their runza (a rolled-up beef, cabbage and cheese sandwich) that’s a Nebraska thing. Going solo, Adam got double-teamed by a pair of female Blue Jays who got the nod from Clarkson after sampling both, although she liked Cincinnati chili as well.
Catch the video link on YouTube at “Creighton vs. Xavier: Kelly Clarkson Show Snack Bracket.”
• LOTS HAPPENING IN SAINTS SPRING:
And now for some quick hits on TMU spring sports: The Saints softball team dropped a pair to Mid-South Conference opponent Cumberlands Saturday as the NAIA No. 3 Patriots won 15-2 and 4-3, falling to 14-11 overall and 58 in the MSC . . . Men’s volleyball finished its 2023 season Saturday at the MSC Tournament, beating Midway in the quarterfinals, 3-0 (25-23, 25-15, 25-21), before losing to Campbellsville, 3-1 (24-26, 25-22, 25-20, 25-23), in the semis to complete a 13-13 season, the most overall wins in program history with six MSC wins, also the most in history . . . Women’s tennis lost to NAIA No. 13 Lindsey Wilson Thursday to fall to 4-8 overall and 1-5 in the MSC . . . the men’s tennis team lost to No.15 Lindsey Wilson also on Thursday 6-1 to drop to 1-10 overall and 07 in the MSC . . . TMU baseball kept to its winning ways on the road last weekend, taking a pair at Georgetown, 5-4 and 3-1, while improving to 23-11 (11-5 in the MSC) as Gavin Vogelsang went four for eight in the two games.