Three NCAA coaches went to the same Lexington school. One just pulled a huge upset.
Thursday was a heady day for the history of Tates Creek schools.
Three of its former students, two who attended Tates Creek Junior High/Middle School and one at Tates Creek High School in the late 1980s, coached their teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. And one pulled off the biggest upset of the day.
Northern Kentucky’s Darrin Horn and Princeton’s Mitch Henderson attended Tates Creek Middle School. Maryland’s Kevin Willard was a freshman at Tates Creek High School while his father Ralph Willard was an assistant coach on Rick Pitino’s staff at Kentucky. Horn and Kevin’s brother Keith Willard helped the Tates Creek Commodores to a Kentucky Boys’ High School Basketball State Tournament runner-up finish in 1991. Henderson moved to Indiana where he graduated high school from Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, before being drafted as an outfielder in the 29th round by the New York Yankees in 1994.
Instead, Henderson played basketball at Princeton, where he helped the No. 13-seeded Tigers upset No. 4 seed UCLA 43-41 in the 1996 NCAA Tournament.
Now as the head coach, Henderson guided the No. 15-seeded Tigers to a 59-55 upset of No. 2 seed Arizona in the first round of the South Region in Sacramento.
Willard didn’t have a bad day, either. The son of former UK assistant coach Ralph Willard coached the No 8 seed Maryland Terrapins to a 69-68 win over No. 9 West Virginia in another South Region first-round game.
Princeton will play No. 7 seed Missouri on Saturday. Maryland gets No. 1 seed Alabama on Saturday.
As the No. 16 seed in the Midwest Region, Horn’s Northern Kentucky Norse lost 63-52 to No. 1 seed Houston on Thursday night in Birmingham.
“Those are three of the greatest competitors I know and three of the greatest people I know,” said Lexington’s Lee Greer, who went to school with all three and said that Henderson was one of his best friends. “They have really made Tates Creek proud.”
Horn was previously the head coach at his alma mater Western Kentucky, where he led the Hilltoppers to the Sweet 16 in 2008, before spending four seasons at South Carolina. This is his third season as the head coach at NKU. His son, Walker, is a walk-on basketball player at Kentucky.
Willard was an assistant coach under Rick Pitino at Louisville before being the head coach for three seasons at Iona and 12 seasons at Seton Hall. This is his first year at Maryland.
The 47-year-old Henderson was an assistant coach from 2000 through 2011 under former Princeton coach Bill Carmody at Northwestern. He returned to Princeton as head coach for the 2011-12 season. He’s 207-116 at the Ivy League school with an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2017 before this year. Thursday was Princeton’s first NCAA win since a 1998 victory over UNLV.
Despite making just four of 25 three-point shots, Princeton was 22-of-39 from two-point range and forced 13 Arizona turnovers to get the win over the Pac-12 Tournament champions.
“We were down the whole game and just made big plays,” said Henderson after Thursday’s victory. “That’s a really good team. We out-rebounded them. We had more points in the paint. I thought we’d have to have five turnovers to get it done. We had 11. It’s a heck of a win, and I’m so proud of them.”
This story was originally published March 16, 2023 at 9:07 PM.
