Not sure if this has ever happened before – maybe ever – that the Cincinnati Reds will open their baseball season before the Ninth Region boys’ basketball champs open their play in the NCAA-Tournament-delayed Sweet 16 state tournament.
But that’s the deal Thursday when the Reds “play ball” at 4:10 p.m. while the Cooper Jaguars don’t tip off in the first round at Rupp Arena against Henderson County until 8:30 p.m.
Of course, there’s no surprise in the Ninth Region playing the last game in the bottom bracket with the shortest rest time of all but one team in the state tournament. It happens more often than not. Maybe we’re just bad bracket drawers up here.
As for Tim Sullivan’s Jaguars, on a mission that’s seen them win 18 of the last 19 games for their school, their community and their embattled coach, there may be a way to make this work much the way it did for Simon Kenton back in 1981 when the Pioneers ended a 64-year drought for the Ninth Region, coming out of the last game in the bottom bracket every day. That Simon Kenton team got on a roll and got better as they won each game with its confidence mattering more than the fact that a team in their position would have more than a day’s less rest than a team in the top bracket.
In handicapping the field for Cooper, should the Jags get past a similarly defense-minded but maybe not as talented Henderson County team, they almost certainly will face the homecourt favorite, Great Crossing out of Georgetown. With UK signee Malachi Moreno, a 7-foot-1 post player the Rupp Arena fans will get behind the way they did for last year’s UK signee, Travis Perry of state champ Lyon County and make it a tough spot for a Northern Kentucky team. Cooper isn’t Covington Catholic, which comes in with three strikes for the Rupp crowd – a private all-boys school from Northern Kentucky. But hardly a crowd favorite.
Should a Cooper team that probably should have been ranked No. 3 going into this Sweet 16, survive there and the Saturday semifinals, they’re going to be looking at someone no one expected to be there as top-ranked Louisville St. Xavier somehow lost its first game Wednesday to Jeffersontown, 64-59, and whatever matchup Cooper would get in the finals, they’d be just as much the pick as anyone on the top half of the bracket.
Who knows, they might even root for Cooper and Coach Sullivan.
Transfer-portaling aplenty for NKY basketballers
Lots of action the first day of the NCAA’s transfer portal for basketball this week when more than 750 athletes entered it, including nine conference players of the year with NKU’s Horizon League losing its Player of the Year, 6-foot-9 Alvaro Folgueiras of league champ Robert Morris, among that group.
And lots of it impacting Northern Kentucky college basketball. Start with the biggest player in the nation entering the portal, Gabe Dynes out of Simon Kenton High School and Independence by way of two years at Youngstown State. The 7-foot-3, 225-pound Dynes is being pursued by a number of major programs — Virginia Tech, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, USC, Butler, UCF, Loyola Marymount, Charleston, East Carolina and Charlotte. But maybe none more so than Notre Dame, where a fan web site for the Irish characterizes their interest as strong in acquiring “the Horizon League’s ‘top shot-blocker’ (3.1 blocks a game) to play in the ACC next year.” Dynes scored 6.8 points with 5.8 rebounds per game while shooting 70 percent from the floor a year ago.
Meyer moving on? After a season each at Coastal Carolina and DePaul, where he averaged 15.7 and 8.9 points a game respectively, Holy Cross alum Jacob Meyer is on the move again. After a high school career scoring 3,345 points for a Holy Cross record that saw him lead the nation’s high schools in scoring in 2022-23, the dynamic 6-2 lefty will be available for next season.
NKU sees 3 in the portal: One program that could use Meyer might well be right here with three NKU players this season including one starter – big man Keeyan Itejere — and two top subs for the Norse, guards Randall Pettus Jr. and Jeremiah Israel, a Lloyd Memorial alum. For the 6-3 Israel, his second NKU season found his playing time down, from 23 games to 15, and an average of 2.1 points a game.
Pettus was the go-to guy for NKU to get things moving with his instant-offense quickness in his 54 NKU career games averaging 6.2 points and 1.2 steals.
How to sign up for NKSHOF Golf Outing: For those interested in securing a spot in the Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame’s major fundraiser, Saturday, July 19, at the Kenton County Golf Course, here’s how to do it online, the quickest, easiest way to do so: Golf Outing Sat. July 19 Kenton Co. Golf Course – Northern Kentucky Sports Hall of Fame.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.