Sixteen facts to get you ready for the 2019 Kentucky boys’ state basketball tournament
Talk about a quick turnaround: The 2019 Whitaker Bank/KHSAA Boys’ Sweet Sixteen gets underway at noon Wednesday, less than 72 hours after the final regional buzzer sounded to usher in the last challenger for the 102nd state title.
Fans preparing for their teams’ excursions to Rupp Arena need to be informed as quickly and efficiently as possible. Here are 16 fast facts about this year’s state tournament.
1. Streak-busters: Walton-Verona is in the field for the first time since 1942, when it was known only as “Walton” and was a member of the 9th Region. Its only other two appearances were out of the 6th Region in 1928 and the 10th Region in 1933. The Bearcats’ opponent, Knox Central, ended the second-longest gap between appearances among this year’s contestants; the Panthers’ most recent visit was in 1970. This is Knox Central’s fifth appearance overall, all as a 13th Region member (1938, 1965, 1966). The stay will be short for one of them — they open the tournament’s first day.
2. Stat leaders: Reid Jolly (Campbell County) enters as the only player averaging 20 or more points at 22.7 points per game. Owensboro’s Darrion Wimsatt (19.0) and Perry County Central’s Noah Back (18.0) are the next closest. Noah Caudill, Back’s teammate, leads Sweet Sixteen rebounders with 10.9 per game; only Alex Matthews (John Hardin, 10.8) and Jolly (10.0) averaging double-figure rebounds along with him. Covington Catholic senior Nick Thelen is the most reliable shooter, connecting on 70.9 percent of his field-goal tries this year (minimum 200). Johnson Central’s Gabe Ferrell is the sharpest three-point shooter; he’s hit 63 of his 138 attempts, a 45.7-percent clip (minimum 100). Scott County’s Glenn Covington leads Sweet Sixteen teams with an 87.5-percent mark at the free throw line (minimum 50 attempts) while Back takes the edge (82.4 percent) when the minimum is raised to 100.
3. Unbeaten Bulldogs: 5th Region champion John Hardin comes to Rupp Arena with a 35-0 record, making it the first state-tournament visitor without a loss since Clay County in 1989. The Tigers were 33-0 coming to Lexington but were defeated in the first round by Marshall County, 64-60. The Bulldogs, who were upset by Pikeville in triple-overtime in last year’s first round, will look to avoid a repeat of that against 10th Region champ Campbell County. Brewers — which consolidated into what is now Marshall County — was the last boys’ team to go undefeated, doing so in 1948 to join Henderson (1916) and Ashland (1928) as the state’s only unbeaten champs.
4. Old hats: Owensboro and Ashland Blazer, paired against each other in round one, have combined for 77 state tournament appearances — Owensboro has the all-time lead with 44 trips while Blazer ranks second with 33. The rest of the teams in this year’s field have combined for 122 appearances; this is trip No. 17 for Scott County and visit No. 15 for Madisonville and Warren Central. Covington Catholic (12) and Johnson Central (10) are the only other teams with double-digit appearances.
5. Louisville lags: After Walton-Verona, Butler (five) and Trinity (six) have made the fewest state-tournament trips among teams participating this season. All of Trinity’s have come since 2004, and four have been in this decade — including 2012, when the Shamrocks won their only state title.
6. Metro vs. Mountains: 14th Region champion Perry County Central and 15th Region champion Johnson Central each open against an opponent from Louisville — PCC drew Butler (6th Region) and the Golden Eagles got Trinity (7th Region). Eastern Kentucky teams this decade are 0-5 in Sweet Sixteen contests against Louisville opponents; the last such win for a team from regions 13-16 came in 2010, when Shelby Valley defeated Ballard for the state championship. Rowan County this decade is the only team from those regions to have reached the finals, doing so in 2011.
7. Hicks’ town: Scott County Coach Billy Hicks in late January became the first Kentucky basketball coach to reach 1,000 wins; he enters with 1,010 overall victories. Hicks also is the state’s all-time leader in Sweet Sixteen victories with 30, which is 10 more than second-place Dale Mabrey (Pleasure Ridge Park). The only other active coach in the record books is Ballard’s Chris Renner, who has 19 state tournament wins.
8. Maroon swoon: Outside of John Hardin no team enters on a better streak than Madisonville, winner of 22 straight prior to its bout with Lincoln County to start the Thursday night session. The Maroons upset defending 2nd Region champion and reigning All “A” Classic state titlist University Heights Academy, 81-68, in the final of that tournament to secure their first bid to state since 2001. Junior center Ksuan Casey leads Madisonville in scoring (15.4 ppg), rebounds (9.5) and field-goal percentage (57.3).
9. Patriot way: Think Lincoln County wanted a 12th Region championship more than its brethren? The Patriots survived a quintuple overtime affair with Wayne County, 67-64, in the region semifinals before the next day knocking off region favorite Danville in a convincing 63-45 decision. That was Lincoln’s second win over Danville in as many weeks — it eked out a 46-45 victory in the 45th District championship — after the Admirals twice defeated it in the regular season.
10. Back-to-back: No program has repeated as Sweet Sixteen champion since Fairdale in 1990 and 1991, and a team hasn’t made consecutive finals since Holmes followed up its 2008 title-game loss with a victory in the 2009 championship. Covington Catholic hopes to end both those streaks despite graduating its top three scorers from a year ago. CovCath has a first-round date with Scott County, which brought back several key players from a squad the Colonels defeated for the 2018 crown.
11. Off the DL: One of those significant returnees for Scott County is Michael Moreno, a Mr. Basketball finalist who missed more than half the season with a foot injury but returned for the postseason. He’s slowly rounded back into form for the Cardinals after a sluggish start, and is tied for the team lead in scoring (15.1 points per game, matching senior Diablo Stewart) and in only 17 games is third on the team with 146 total rebounds — he’s nabbed 54 since returning (10.8 per game).
12. Retirement party: Mayfield Coach Chris Guhy earlier this season announced that it would be his last after 31 years of coaching, all in Mayfield in some capacity and the last 16 as the boys’ head coach. This is the first time that Guhy will get in the state tournament, which the Cardinals qualified for by knocking off defending 1st Region champ McCracken County, 56-44. It is Mayfield’s first appearance since 1992.
13. Loss leaders: Meade County set the record for most losses coming into the Sweet Sixteen when it entered with 21 losses just two years ago. Ashland Blazer’s 16 losses this season are tied with four other programs — Scott County (1984), Rowan County (1987), Oldham County (1989) and Buckhorn (2016) — for the third-most entering the event. Shelby Valley (2011) and Mercer County (2000) entered with 17 each. Of all those teams, only Scott County got out of the first round (it lost in the quarterfinals).
14. Title count: As with the number of total Sweet Sixteen appearances, Ashland and Owensboro lead the way with four titles apiece. Covington Catholic and Scott County have won twice each while Trinity and Warren Central are one-time champs.
15. Championship trend: Kentucky’s biggest cities have fared greatly at the Sweet Sixteen this decade. Since 2011 only one champion — Christian County, in 2011 — hailed from outside of Kentucky’s six most-populated cities: Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green, Owensboro, Covington and Richmond. Only three of the 16 finalists in that time — Christian County and Rowan County in 2011, Cooper in 2017 — have originated from outside those cities (Cooper is in Boone County, the state’s fourth-most populated county after Jefferson, Fayette and Kenton).
16. 1-2 rematch: Scott County and Trinity, the state’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams for the majority of this season, could meet in the state championship game. The two met once this season — a 56-53 Scott County win as part of the Raymond Reed Classic at South Laurel — but both teams were without their top players (Moreno for Scott County, Louisville signee David Johnson for Trinity). A meeting this season would also serve as a rematch of last year’s first-round classic, which Scott County won on a decisive three-pointer with 5.8 seconds left.
This story was originally published March 5, 2019 at 12:59 AM.
