The ‘Tour de Kentucky’ proved rugged. Yet EKU hoops found a way to come out smiling.
Before the first basketball bounced in 2019-20, Coach A.W. Hamilton and Eastern Kentucky were guaranteed to make college hoops history in the commonwealth.
For the initial time in Kentucky men’s college basketball, EKU scheduled every other in-state, NCAA Division I school in the regular season.
That proved a rugged assignment, as Eastern went 2-5 on its “Tour de Kentucky.”
The Colonels lost at Kentucky 91-49; fell to Western Kentucky 79-71; lost at Northern Kentucky 76-57; lost at Louisville 99-67; fell at Murray State 74-62; and swept archrival Morehead State, winning 78-71 on the road and 80-76 at home.
“Obviously, I would have liked to have won more of those games,” Hamilton said Friday via the phone. “Maybe there’s a reason other coaches have not tried (playing all the other in-state teams in the regular season). But I do feel like our early-season schedule played a big role in what we went on to do in the conference.”
In the annals of men’s NCAA hoops, it seems unlikely there’s ever been a more “successful” 16-17 record than the one Eastern just recorded in Hamilton’s second season as head coach.
After going 3-10 against its non-league schedule, the Colonels put things together and went 12-6 in Ohio Valley Conference regular-season play. Hamilton, the former Scott County High School star, earned OVC Coach of the Year honors.
Had the coronavirus pandemic and the efforts to contain it not intervened, Eastern had accepted a bid to the CollegeInsiders.com Postseason Tournament.
“That would have been big for our program to play postseason tournament games,” Hamilton says.
In conversation, Hamilton smoothly runs through a checklist of Eastern Kentucky basketball breakthroughs in 2019-20:
▪ The Colonels won five OVC road games, the most for Eastern since EKU’s 2006-07 NCAA Tournament team also won five.
▪ From Jan. 18 through Feb. 6, Eastern Kentucky won six straight OVC games. It was the longest regular-season, conference win streak for EKU since the ‘06-07 team also won six in a row.
▪ Eastern’s 12 league wins tied the 1978-79 Colonels — another NCAA tourney team — for second-most in school history.
▪ As the No. 4 seed, Eastern Kentucky qualified for the OVC Tournament for the first time since 2015.
▪ EKU’s 58-48 win over Tennessee State in the OVC tourney quarterfinals was the Colonels’ first victory in the league tournament since 2014.
“We’d post these videos (on social media) of our guys jumping around in the locker room (celebrating victories), and some people were like, ‘Why do you guys keep celebrating like that after wins?’” Hamilton says. “I told them, ‘We keep celebrating because we keep doing things that they hadn’t done here in awhile.’”
Looking forward, the good news for EKU is that its ascension in the second half of the season was fueled by young players.
Sophomore guard Jomaru Brown (18.4 ppg, 3.9 rpg) is one of the more explosive players (he hung 41 points on Western Kentucky) in the OVC. Lexington product Tre King (11.3 ppg, 5.1 rpg), a 6-8, 225-pound sophomore, emerged as a reliable interior player.
Former Scott County star Michael Moreno (8.6 ppg, team-high 6.1 rpg) shook off the lingering impact of injuries to become Eastern Kentucky’s “glue guy” as a freshman.
“When we were winning those OVC games, we’d go back and look at the video, and over and over it was Michael making the play that clinched wins,” Hamilton says. “Whether it was an assist, a ‘hockey assist,’ or getting the rebound that ended things, he is a player that knows how to win games.”
For Hamilton’s preferred, frenetic-paced style of play to continue to improve, the Colonels need better ball security. Three of Eastern’s five starters ended 2019-20 with more turnovers than assists.
In incoming freshman point guard Wendell Green Jr., a reliable ball distributor may be on the way to Richmond. A 5-10 Detroit product, Green turned down scholarship offers from DePaul (Big East) and TCU (Big 12).
He will come to EKU from La Lumiere School, the high-profile Indiana prep school that also produced current Kentucky Wildcats forward Keion Brooks.
It does not sound like there will be another “Tour de Kentucky” in Eastern’s future.
(To play every in-state Division I program again in the future would mean adding another team. Bellarmine will start the transition from NCAA Division II to D-I next season).
Eastern obviously plays OVC rivals Morehead State and Murray State every year.
Out of conference, Hamilton says EKU and NKU have agreed to continue playing. Eastern and its ancient rival, Western, have been expected to play in Bowling Green next season, but Hamilton said there had been some pre-coronavirus talk about delaying that game for a year.
“But playing Kentucky and Louisville in the same year, that is taking a real big bite,” Hamilton says. “You never say never, but I’m not sure that’s something we’ll want to try again.”
