Bluegrass Hoops Report

The Eastern Kentucky Colonels (1-1) put up a valiant effort but couldn't quite pull off the upset on the road against the Pittsburgh Panthers (3-0), who were led by sophomore Ashton Gibbs' (photo) team-high 20 points.

Pitt's 71-60 victory was their 24th straight home victory.

EKU was led once again by Justin Stommes who led all scorers with 24 points. The Colonels were a ho-hum 9-of-24 from three point range (37.5%) against Pitt following an impressive 17-of-26 (65.4%) showing from downtown against West Virginia Wesleyan. Eastern kept the game close throughout but never led.

Here is the complete game re-cap from Pitt's official website.

EKU returns to action Monday Nov. 23rd, hosting Fairleigh Dickinson at 6 pm.

The Transylvania Pioneers (1-1) earned their first victory of the season on the road yesterday against intrastate rival Berea Mountaineers (3-2), winning 77-66. Transy was led by a combined 34 point effort from senior guards Tim Tierney (photo) and Matthew Parton.

The Pioneers led by just three at half, 37-34. Parton led the Transy offensive attack in the first half, putting up 9 points.

Transy returns to action on Saturday for their home opener against another intrastate rival, Centre. Berea plays tomorrow night at Kentucky Christian University.

photo courtesy of transy.edu

Holmes, Scott County, and Eastern all also made their way onto Northstar Basketball's National Preseason High School Top 100 list.

Unlike the Rivals.com rankings, Scott County (#74) is rated higher than Holmes (#81).

Eastern did not crack the Top-100, however they were named in the Honorable Mentions category.

Here is Northstar's take on the two ranked Kentucky teams:

74. Scott County (KY): It will be a big battle between Scott County and #81 Holmes for the honor of being Kentucky's best team, but with the state's top senior, Ge-Lawn Guyn, in the fold, this group just might have the upper hand. Akron-signee Dakotah Euton '10 (a one-time Kentucky commit), Chad Jackson '10, and Tamron Manning '12 are the other key pieces of the puzzle.

81. Holmes (KY): Ohio-commit Ricardo Johnson '10 leads the way for the Bluegrass State team, but Elijah Pittman '10 is talented as well.

The Trinity Shamrocks hosted Bowling Green this past saturday in a scrimmage at Steinhauser Gymnasium. Trinity senior Josh Sewell (photo) led the Rocks with 18 points en route to an impressive 64-47 victory over BG.

The Rocks controlled the entire game, leading 43-30 at half and by as much as 21 in the fourth quarter.

Bowling Green junior Chane Behanan, a transfer from Ohio considered one of the top players in Kentucky's 2011 class, finished with 19 points.

The Shamrocks open up regular season play on Saturday, Nov. 28th in the Fast Lane Classic at Sheldon Clark High School where they will face off against BHR Pre-Season #2 in the state Scott County.

(Source: Robert "Stats" Sampson)

After a rough start for the Cats in the first half which saw the #5 team in the nation fall behind the Miami RedHawks by 18 points, the game was ultimately in John Wall's hands at the end and as you can see from the video, he took care of business. Wall's game-winner came with just .5 seconds remaining, going coast-to-coast to nail a mid-range floater from the left wing with a hand in his face. This should be a sign of great things to come from the highly-touted Wall.

Miami was on a roll in the first half led by the hot shooting of Nick Winbush who was a perfect 6-for-6 from three in the first half (finishing 8-for-10). The RedHawks were much more patient than the younger, more anxious Cats were on offense, and used a tight zone to block the penetration of UK freshman guards Wall and Eric Bledsoe throughout the first half. Bledsoe struggled with poor decision-making all game.

The MVP of the first half for UK was JuCo transfer Darnell Dodson, who lived up to his billing as a long-range threat, leading the Cats' first half comeback by knocking down three three-pointers to cut the Miami lead to three at the break. Kentucky, led by Dodson, stormed back from down 18 with an 18-3 run of their own to finish the half. The score at halftime was Miami 39, UK 36.

In the second half Kentucky made a few runs but was held off from running away with it by a resilient Miami team. Freshman big DeMarcus Cousins came up with some huge buckets late in the half after receiving an earful on the bench from Coach Calipari and assistans. Cousins posted a double-double in the second half alone with 10 poitns and 10 boards.

Patrick Patterson did his usual thing, posting a double-double with 17 points and 10 boards. He hit two huge free-throws down the stretch to help UK ensure victory.

John Wall finished with 19 points, 5 assists and 3 steals.

John Hood and DeAndre Liggins did not see any game action, though Cal mentioned at the presser that he probably should have played Hood a little and to expect him to play in the future. Still no word on what is going on with Liggins.

Sophomore Darius Miller struggled again. He looks very timid with the ball and needs to toughen up, play with confidence and learn to take contact if he wants to reach his potential. Very frustrating...

Final Score: UK 72, Miami 70.

UK's next game is this Thursday at home against Sam Houston State in the first round of the Cancun Challenge.

Louisville picked up their first commitment for the 2010 class in 5-foot-10 South Kent (CT) point guard Russ Smith. Smith is not rated very highly by Rivals.com, with a zero-star rating. Scout.com gives Smith 2-stars.

Smith will join walk-on Elisha Justice from Shelby Valley, also a point guard, as the Cardinals' lone incoming fresman for a 2010 class that many experts believed would be Rick Pitino's best ever at Louisville.

- EKU junior guard/forward Justin Stommes (above, #31) led all scorers with 28 points as the Colonels won their season opener 102-71 over West Virginia Wesleyan on Saturday in Richmond. Four other Colonels posted double-figures in scoring, including senior Josh Taylor's four three-pointers, finishing with 19 points. Eastern knocked down 17 three's as a team (17-26, 65%), the highest single-game total of the head coach Jeff Neubauer era.



- The Bellarmine Knights also won their season opener yesterday, defeating Salem International University 92-75 in the first round of the John Dickinsheets Classic hosted by West Virginia State University. The Knights were led by star point guard Braydon Hobbs' 23 points and six assists and Oladapo Fagbenle's 11 rebounds. Bellarmine returns to action tonight, facing Hillsdale College in round 2 of the tournament at 5:30 pm.



In recruiting news, the Knights signed two local stars for next season: Ballard senior forward Keisten Jones and former Manual sharpshooter Jacob Jenkins, who has spent his freshman year of college at St. Thomas More Prep School in Connecticut. Jenkins averaged 20 ppg at Manual and was considered one of the top-5 seniors before missing 18 games due to a foot injury.



- Northern Kentucky suffered a tough loss to Grand Valley State 54-57 last night. GVSU's Justin Ringler scored six points in the final minute of the game to rally his team for the win. Chris Knight scored 15 points to lead NKU. The Norse play their home opener friday night against Lake Erie.



- Transylvania also took an ugly season-opening loss 54-76 to Carthage yesterday. Carthage opened the game with a 19-2 run and led by 25 at half. Transy is picked as the favorite to win the Heartland Conference. Transy's next game is Tuesday at Berea College at 7:30 pm.

On Adam Zagoria's blog today is a story about how Kentucky point guard John Wall is projected to be the #1 pick in next year's NBA Draft and how the lowly New York Knicks could use the help, but unfortunately they traded away their first round pick for the rights to the now estranged Stephon Marbury. The Utah Jazz now hold the Knicks' first round pick.

If Wall does end up being the consensus #1 best prospect after this season, it will be interesting to see what the Jazz do if they end up with the first pick. The Jazz already have a franchise point guard in former Illinois star Deron Williams.

Of course the Knicks, who are off to an abysmal 1-8 start, are hard after another player with UK ties, LeBron James (featured in the previous post) who is eligile to enter free agency after this season.