By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
You have to give it to Conner coach Nate Browning for his honesty. His Cougars had just been punted into next year, 92-41, by Covington Catholic’s 30-2 Colonels, the No. 2 team in Kentucky and unchallenged in Northern Kentucky, in Sunday’s Ninth Region semifinals at NKU’s Truist Arena.
And watching so many of his players leaving the locker room for the last time, tears streaming down their faces, the challenge was to compliment their obvious effort. This is pretty much how that went.
“Your guys went down playing their game, Coach, you didn’t try to slow CovCath up,” we said, praising Nate and his team for being true to themselves, no matter what.
Sorry, but you got that wrong, Nate said. “We tried to slow it down, we just didn’t do it very well.” Or well enough for anyone to notice.
Without the running clock that started with a minute to go in the first half when CovCath got up by 36 –-57-21, this score would have been well into the hundred’s even with CovCath’s underclass second- and third teamers in for the final quarter.
“Our plan was to get it across half-court and run some of our stuff,” Browning said, “we didn’t do a very good job of that.”
Which of course, is the problem. CovCath does not have to have a special game plan for a game like this, especially with less than 24 hours to do so. The press-you-all-over-the-floor, speed-you-up, deflect-and-steal-the-ball- off-your-dribble Colonels just do what they do.
And those “live ball turnovers” as Dixie Heights coach Scott Code calls them, have the Colonels down the court with numbers before you have time to set your defense up. Which is how they hit on 41 of 72-field goal attempts (56.9 percent), as the state’s best shooting and highest-scoring team.
“I go with the flow,” is the game plan for CovCath’s Mr. Basketball candidate Athens McGIllis, he said – for himself and his teammates. The Colonels do not spend a great deal of time – or any –thinking about changing what they do because of what you do. “I just go out and play,” he said after a game-high 24 points in less than 21 minutes.
“It’s why coach Jake Thelen doesn’t bother to call plays. He explains. CovCath’s “defense creates our offense. You want to score, (then) play defense.”
“Just go out and make a play,” McGinnis says is Thelen’s basic message. On this day, CovCath’s playmaking option quarterback Cash Harney, who will be playing football at UK next fall, looks like he’s finally gotten past the bumps and bruises from all the hits from August through November.
Now, hitting one jumper after another on his way to 18 points, with a pair of three’s, guard Harney gives the Colonels a fourth scoring option along with the ever-improving Donovan Bradshaw, the 6-foot-7 former wide receiver whose touch around the basket improves from game to game as he scored 12 points on six-of-seven shooting with an eye-popping 16 rebounds and two blocked shots.
“They have so much length inside,” Browning said, “it looks like you have something and then you don’t.”
And CovCath, after 11 steals, has the ball going the other way. And the Colonels’ long-range scorer, 6-4 junior Braeden Myrick, is either twisting through the lane for a floater or pulling up from 25 feet and hitting one of his three three’s on the way to his 15 points in just over 17 minutes.
“They were really good and we didn’t play our best,” Browning said. “We didn’t finish well around the basket.”
But on this night, like most this season, the Colonels finished well wherever they were.
Especially on this longer college-length 94-foot floor, something the Colonels have played on 14 times in their 32 games.
The win advances CovCath to Tuesday’s 7 p.m. championship game against a Ryle team that beat Lloyd Sunday but lost to CovCath, 88-67, a month ago at CovCath.
SCORING SUMMARY
CovCath 30 32 17 13—92
Conner 12 11 14 4—41
COVCATH (30-2): McGillis 11/18 9/12 2/6 0/1 24, Harney 8/12 6/8 2/4 0/0 18, Gaiser 2/6 2/6 0/0 2/2 6, Bradshaw 6/7 6/7 0/0 0/0 12, Bode 2/3 2/2 0/1 0/0 4, Myrick 6/13 3/4 3/9 0/0 15, Courtney 2/2 2/2 0/0 0/0 4, Myers 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Stava 1/1 1/1 0/0 0/0 2, Wischer 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0, Hoyt 1/3 0/0 1/3 0/0 3, Brecount 2/4 2/4 0/0 0/0 4, Jones 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0, Smith 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Holtzapfel 0/1 0/0 0/1 0/0 0; Totals 41/72 33/48 8/24 2/3–92.
CONNER (15-13): Nipper 0/1 0/1 0/0 1/2 1, Smith 0/1 0/0 0/1 1/2 1, Musehenu 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Bushman 1/4 0/1 1/3 2/2 5 2, Webb 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Bloom 1/2 0/1 1/1 2 2-2 5, Back 3/6 1/3 2/3 0/0 8, Burger 0/1 0/1 0/0 0/0 0, Rondon 0/5 0/3 0/2 0/0 0, Louden 5/15 5/12 0/3 2/2 12, Raider 2/6 2/6 0/0 0/0 4, Tanner 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0, Warner 2/7 2/6 0/1 1/2 5, Estvanko 0/0 0/0 0/0 0/0 0; Totals 14/48 10/34 4/14 9/12—41.