Last Tuesday Northern Kentucky beat Milwaukee in the Horizon title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. This is the 1st year that the Norse have been eligible for the NCAA tourney since receiving full D-1 status only 7 months ago…and their reward is a game against #2-seed Kentucky on Friday night in a South Region match-up in Indianapolis (which is approximately 70 miles closer to NKU’s campus than it is to Big Blue Nation!). Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Northern Kentucky head coach John Brannen about how his team’s entire season turned around a couple of months ago.
You began your college career at Morehead State before transferring to Marshall, where you led the SoCon in scoring as a senior (20.9 PPG) and were named 1997 conference tourney MVP: how good a player were you back in the day, and how did you 1st get into coaching? It has been a long time since anyone has asked about my playing days! I was blessed to play for tremendous coaches who put me in a place to succeed.
1 of your assistant coaches for the Herd was Anthony Grant, who you later worked for as an assistant at VCU/Alabama: how much of a mentor has he been to you over the past 2 decades, and will you ask him for any tips since you ended up playing an SEC team?! Anthony has been a great mentor to me. He was 1 of the 1st folks to call me after we won the Horizon League championship. He is an assistant right now with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Even though they had lost a game that night, he told me that he was the only 1 smiling in the locker room because he knew that NKU won and was heading to the NCAA Tournament!
This is only your 2nd year at Northern Kentucky: how were you able to go from 9-21 to 24-10 in only 1 year? Trust. It is 1 of our core values, which we define as believing and investing in each other without knowing the outcome. Our players have taken ownership of this team and trust one another.
Your final non-conference game of the year was against your most difficult opponent of the year: how did you deal with West Virginia’s press, and what advice do you have for whichever school has to face them next week? We break the season down into 3 parts: non-conference, Horizon League, and postseason. At this point we are just going to look at how we can continue to work on the process of getting better for Kentucky.
Earlier this month you were named Horizon COY: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? It is all a tribute to my coaching staff/players. I have always felt that the award should be for the “Coaching Staff of the Year” because they do such a great job preparing. I know this sounds like “coach-talk” but it truly is a team effort.
In the Horizon tourney you were the only 1 of the top-4 seeds to win a game as Green Bay/Oakland/Valpo each lost to lower seeds: was it weird/comforting/other to see your team walk onto the court for its quarterfinal game knowing that you were the highest-remaining seed left in the whole tourney? We always tell our players to play with a clear mind and play in the moment. We cannot control what happens in any other game so all we focus on is whatever is happening in our contest at that very moment. We can only control our next game regardless of who our opponent is.
Lavone Holland II was named conference tourney MVP after scoring 56 PTS in 3 games: what makes him such a good player, and how was he able to play his best when it mattered the most? Lavone is a dynamic talent, but once again it goes back to our core value of trust. His teammates trust him to make plays and as the guy with the ball in his hands the most they trust him to make the right decision. He is fully invested in helping his teammates and taking our program to the next level.
Your team lost 4 of its last 6 games in January to fall to 5-5 in conference play, but rebounded to win 10 of its final 11: was there something that just clicked, or did they realize that they only had 1 month left to get their act together, or other? Our players really took ownership of this team in mid-January. We have a saying in this program that goes, “Bad teams have no leadership. Good teams are led by the coach. Great teams are led by the players.”
You only have 2 seniors on your roster: your team is obviously capable of winning right now, but are you even more excited that you have built a program that should be able to remain successful in the future? I am only focused on what we have at NKU right now…and what we have is a team that went 24-10 in 1 of the toughest mid-major conferences in the country and won the Horizon League tournament championship…and this team still is not finished. That excites me, but this is just the beginning for NKU Basketball
How do you feel about getting a #15-seed, and what do you know about your in-state foe Kentucky? We are excited to be in the NCAA tournament but still have work to do. I have not had much time to focus on Kentucky so I will be doing a lot of studying over the next few days to put in a game plan for our guys.