They had the KHSAA 4th Region draw for the eight boys basketball teams advancing to the second weekend of postseason play a couple weekends ago at Warren East High School.
After finding it on my third attempt — I went to the East Field House first, and the gym second — I strolled into a cafeteria area at 8 freakin’ A.M. and found dozens of coaches and administrators, plus a couple handfuls of media members — I got there in time to watch the drama unfold.
(An upset, some of my colleagues would say. Anyway …)
You know, locker room access, logistics, the hospitality room (I still haven’t found that one, either), for the eight teams, which runs concurrently with the KHSAA’s 4th Region girls tournament.
That one, the Bowling Green High School girls won in convincing fashion on Saturday night, after the Lady Purples rolled past an upstart Franklin-Simpson squad 62-34.
Before long, BGHS coach DG Sherrill would learn the Purples, a Sweet Sixteen squad in 2020-21, would open 4th Regional play against nearby Franklin-Simpson, the KHSAA 13th District champion sporting an impressive 22-3 record.
Warren Central, the 14th District champion, found out pretty quickly that the Dragons would be paired with Todd County Central, with a possible semifinal matchup against Barren Central. Will Unseld’s Dragons opened regional play with a rather breezy victory over the Rebels on Thursday, the last of the four quarterfinal matchups.
The Purples conquered that challenge with a 62-45 triumph, with senior guard Turner Buttry willing his younger teammates to put the issue to rest early in the second half.
Sherrill’s path to Tuesday night’s championship game was a little different. The Purples might have run into nearby rival Glasgow High School, which is only a KHSAA Class 3A school for sports such as football and track and field.
The basketball tournament, on the other hand, is an everybody’s welcome/make it, advance/one true state champion sport, and that often offers some unusual twists and turns.
This twist involved a clutch baseline jumper from Clinton County’s Cohen Davis, an undersized sophomore, in the final seconds of the opening quarterfinal matchup at Diddle. Glasgow’s Sam Browning had tied the score on the previous impression, nailing an off-balance 3 from near the top of the key to force the Bulldogs to take a timeout.
Then Davis delivered the shot of the tournament.
Clinton County’s Blake Melton — already a legend in Kentucky prep sports, at least in this part of the state, for his magnificent mullet and lumberback-worthy beard — found Davis on the right baseline for the buzzer beater, a 20-footer that torpedoed the Scotties like nobody’s business, a 43-40 verdict with a signature shot.
That put fiery Clinton County coach Todd Messer’s Bulldogs into the semifinals, and they’ll be Bowling Green’s opponent in tonight’s semifinal opener at Diddle.
Talk about a live underdog.
The Bulldogs (22-8) have won five of their last six games, and the 16th District champion will grind things into a half-court game if the opportunity presents itself.
Sherrill and his BGHS coaching staff have been preparing for this matchup for almost a full week.
“Todd’s kids will chew through barbed wire for him,” Sherrill said Sunday night in a telephone interview. “They won’t be in any hurry to score. Todd is a real intense guy, and he’ll junk it up, defensively … This is a very good basketball team.”
Senior forward Nick Delk leads Clinton County with 16.2 points per game, and Messer’s point guard, senior Bryson Cross, is one tough hombre. Melton’s the Bulldogs’ ultimate role player, a playmaker when they’re trying to milk the tempo, and Clinton County is capable of getting out in the open court with the majority of their opponents.
The Purples aren’t one of them.
And Sherrill, who has rebuilt this team around the senior leadership of point guard Turner Buttry, has several talented sophomores who are still finding their way around KHSAA postseason play.
“Anything these kids will do,” Sherrill said, “it will be known as the ‘first time …’ In practice, they’ve been great. You’ve got to keep focused on what’s front of you.”
That would be Clinton County, not the crosstown rival Warren Central Dragons.
It’s pretty much the same over on the hill on Morgantown Road, where Will Unseld has been pushing his squad with equal parts intensity and tenacity, at least when the Dragons are on the practice floor.
The personable Unseld definitely can relate with his players. I liked him right away, because I told him about following his uncle, the late, great Wes Unseld, and the erstwhile Washington Bullets taking the NBA championship in 1978. I had just graduated from WKU — they more or less gave me a framed diploma and told me to hit the bricks — and was back in metro Washington.
It was a great, uh, psuedo-childhood memory.
OK, adolescent memory.
“It’s pretty much ‘no days off’ at our place,” Unseld said. “We went pretty hard (Saturday and Sunday) … Did some scrimmaging. You’ve got to keep ’em sharp. (Veteran coach) Warren Cunningham always has Barren County prepared. You have to be tough on the boards, with those guys. We played them in the first game of the year, at our place, and won by 8 or 9 points.”
Unseld’s memory, not surprisingly, was right on. The Dragons won 64-55.
Warren Central would win 10 of its first 11 games, the lone loss coming in tournament play against Indianpolis Arsenal Technical. They had a COVID-19 interruption before taking the court against Bowling Green, on the Dragons’ home floor.
Warren Central would win that game in convincing fashion, as junior forward Chappelle Whitney led the Dragons to an impressive 91-69 victory over the Purples. Bowling Green would return the favor on its home court, stopping Warren Central 49-42 on January 18 at the BGHS Arena.
Unseld’s Dragons brought the lumber in the KHSAA 4th Region championship game, crushing Bowling Green 68-42.
No one has to tell Unseld the Purples are likely — in some circles, expected — to be waiting on Warren Central if the Dragons can eliminate Barren County on Monday night.
And no one will catch Will Unseld or DG Sherrill looking past a semifinal opponent with so much at stake.
“The coaching staff, we’ve looked at potential game plans for a matchup with Bowling Green or Clinton County,” Unseld said. “But in the locker room, with our guys … nobody talks about it. Upsets happen in this tournament … All the time.”
Senior swingman Jaiden Lawrence, always a threat from the perimeter, and the ultraquick Dragons defenders — Damarion Walkup, Omari Glover, et al — have made Warren Central the team to beat in the tournament. Two years ago, Dre Boyd and Warren Central knocked off Bowling Green in the 4th Region title game, only to miss its Sweet Sixteen experience because of the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now the Dragons are hoping to get back. Likewise, the Purples. It’s the beauty of high school sports. Yes, familiarity does breed contempt, but for the most part, it breeds respect, too. Particularly among the players and coaches. When the game’s over, it’s over.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” BGHS coach DG Sherrill said. “We always just try to deal with what’s in front of us. Keep focused. I’ve found the toughest part, really, is getting out of this region.
“Any team would play UK if they just got the shot to go up there.”
Tee it up, Hoss.
