Douglass running back hits stride on basketball court in win at Bryan Station
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- Dakari Talbert scored 15, hit three 3s and helped lead a 50-41 road win.
- Douglass improved to 12-6, swept the season series and gained a district seeding edge
- Douglass held Bryan Station to 30.8% shooting and all but Owens to under double digits.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story had an incorrect points total and placement for Bryan Station guard Amari Owen’s rank among Lexington boys basketball’s all-time scorers. The numbers have been corrected to reflect his totals according to Bryan Station and KHSAA records as of Feb. 6.
There’s no confusion about which sport Frederick Douglass point guard Dakari Talbert excels at the most.
The 5-10 junior has led the football Broncos in rushing each of the last two seasons and had his best production yet at tailback last fall with 1,423 yards on the ground and 19 touchdowns. His college offers include Southern Miss, Marshall and Miami (Ohio).
But on the basketball court, Talbert can be just as impactful.
In a must-win game at No. 15 Bryan Station on Thursday, Talbert scored 15 points with four assists to match senior teammate DeMarcus Surratt in both of those categories. He also knocked down three timely 3-pointers to help No. 10 Douglass secure a 50-41 win.
“The shot felt good,” Talbert said. “I was in a position to help my team, and I just delivered, that’s all.”
Frozen out practices and games for most of the last week-and-a-half due to the recent winter storm, both Douglass and Bryan Station struggled to make shots early. The Broncos got the better of an often halting first half, leading 21-16 the break.
“I knew it was going to be ugly, but I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty loss any day,” Douglass coach Murray Garvin said. “To come into Bryan Station and get a win, one of the toughest home courts in the region, for the second year in a row — I couldn’t be more proud of our guys.
Bryan Station’s gym filled to near capacity yet again for this battle of 42nd District rivals. With the win, Douglass (12-6, 4-1) swept its season series with Station and has an edge on the rest of the district for its No. 1 tournament seed with games against Henry Clay, Sayre and Scott County left. All of those are at home on The Farm.
Swinging around for a wide-open 3-pointer on the left wing, Talbert started a 9-1 run in the second quarter that saw the Broncos expand a 16-15 lead with 2:03 left until halftime to a 25-17 lead two minutes into the third quarter.
When Bryan Station cut the Broncos’ lead to 25-21 moments later, Talbert hit another 3-pointer to extend the lead back to seven with 3:01 left in the third. His third 3-pointer for a 39-29 lead early in the fourth quarter prompted a Bryan Station timeout. The Defenders never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Owens moves up to sixth on city scoring list
Although senior standout Amari Owens scored 21 points for The Defenders (14-6, 3-2) to help him overtake Lafayette’s Jackson Davis for sixth place on the city’s all-time scoring list, Douglass held every other Bryan Station player under double digits. Senior forward Taeshawn Adams ranked next best with seven points as the Defenders shot 30.8 percent from the field, which included an eye-gouging 1-for-17 from 3-point range.
Garvin wouldn’t reveal the secrets to his team’s defensive game plan afterward.
“I can’t tell you, because we’re going to play them again,” said Garvin, whose team beat Bryan Station three times last season only to lose to the Defenders in the 42nd District championship game. “We just played good D tonight.”
Owens now has 2,348 career points, 60 behind Bryan Station record-holder Mike Allen, 147 behind Paul Laurence Dunbar’s 2017 Mr. Basketball Taveion Hollingsworth and 169 behind Lexington Christian’s Kyle Rode — the next three spots on the city scoring chart behind old Dunbar hall-of-famer Julius Berry’s 3,000 points.
A friendly rivalry between Talbert and Owens
Off the court, Talbert and Owens are best friends. The relationship changes inside the lines.
“When it’s head-to-head time, I don’t even know that man,” Talbert said, smiling. “I’m trying to go straight at his face.”
Talbert admits it takes time to get his basketball game going. He didn’t begin starting until a couple of weeks ago.
“It takes me until about mid-January, but it’s full-blast go from there,” he said.
Garvin praised his two-sport standout’s contributions Thursday.
“We’re a dynamic team, and Dakari Talbert is a dynamic athlete and he’s getting into basketball mode,” Garvin said. “Tonight, I thought he controlled the game, did a good job defensively, hit big shots and went to the free throw line at the end and made both of his free throws.”
Four of the Broncos’ in-state losses have come to teams inside the Kentucky Media Elite 16 poll’s top 10 — a 62-59 loss to No. 6 Male, a pair of losses to No. 4 Madison Central, and a 63-53 loss to No. 5 George Rogers Clark.
Talbert chalks those setbacks up to lessons learned, especially the last loss at Madison Central on Jan. 23.
“We’ve got to do the little things right. I feel like we let up on a lot of rebounds that game,” Talbert said. “We just have to learn from the loss and turn it into a win. That’s what we did today.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2026 at 1:02 AM.
