Northern Kentucky Sports Chronicle

  --- (This article was originally published on Nov. 8, 2008) HIGHLAND HEIGHTS, Ky. — University of Louisville coach Rick Pitino was puzzled about all the talk about Division I and Division II on Saturday night after his third-ranked Cardinals beat Division II Northern Kentucky University, 84-69, before 8,408 fans in The Bank of Kentucky Center’s college basketball debut. (Complete article provided below in a PDF document) https://online.fliphtml5.com/hfocp/ffws/#p=1

(This story was originally published on Feb. 26, 2020) Are you searching for the ultimate irony of sports justice inside the wishy-washy, leaning-tower-of-jello world called the NCAA? Look no further. It’s on full display simultaneously at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Houston. All you need to do is peer through the NCAA eyepiece nicknamed “betterment of the student-athlete” and you’ll see the contradictory view. But it’s easier to locate Alpha Centauri with a hand-held magnifying glass than to find common sense through the NCAA’s flawed administrative telescope.   Unfortunately for NKU senior basketball standout Tyler Sharpe, the NCAA’s logic-challenged focus is on the 11 total minutes he played as a freshman walk-on at the University of Louisville. And those seven games — virtually all in mop-up roles — will cost Sharpe a year of eligibility. Meanwhile, Houston quarterback D’Eriq King — a full scholarship recipient — throws for 663 yards and six touchdow...

L ooking back at it, the night of Nov. 8, 2008, emphatically revealed the impressive growth of Northern Kentucky University and the impact of intercollegiate athletics. The roads in Highland Heights were jammed with vehicles headed to The Bank of Kentucky Center. Unless you were on the pass list, parking on campus was a nightmare after 5 p.m. Why? Folks from all over the region were gathering to see NKU play host to the University of Louisville in the first-ever college basketball event in the new facility. Yes, the same basketball program that began its existence without a home floor in 1971 was welcoming legendary head coach Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals to open NKU’s new 9,400-seat arena. Who could’ve imagined this in 1971, when then-Northern Kentucky State College met Calvary College inside Newport High School’s small gym in the Norsemen’s debut as a basketball program? But it really happened. A raucous crowd of 8,408 — most of them wearing the black and gold of NKU — s...