LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Roy Pickerill has seen a lot of Kentucky Welseyan basketball in his 52 years at the school. Actually, let me correct that. He has seen all of the Panthers’ basketball in that time.
But on Monday night at the KFC Yum! Center, the KWC sports information director emeritus and special assistant to the KWC president experienced a first: A KWC win over Louisville.
“Never seen it, not in 52 years,” Pickerill said. “Did see a lot of exhibition blowouts.”
When the Panthers knocked off Louisville 71-68 in an exhibition Monday, it their first win over the Cardinals in Louisville since Nov. 30, 1946. That game was played in the Male High School gym, where a crowd of 3,800 saw the Panthers prevail 68-60.
Louisville got a subpar game from its young center, Jack Coleman, a 6-4 sophomore from Burgin, Ky. He scored only one point, but could be forgiven. He was worn out from a long football season. There was a bright side, however. The Louisville JV team beat Manual High 54-33.
Both programs have had a great deal of success since then. KWC has 8 NCAA Division II championships. Louisville has 3 titles (one vacated) in Division I.
But both are a long way from their glory days. At KWC, Corey Crowder, King Kelly Coleman, Dallas Thornton and Rod Drake are not walking through that door.
But on Monday night, George Tinsley did walk through the KFC Yum! Center doors. The Louisville native and Male High School graduate led KWC to three NCAA Division II national titles in the late 1960s before being drafted by the Chicago Bulls and later playing for the Kentucky Colonels.
Kentucky Wesleyan's bench celebrates a late 3-pointer in its win over Louisville.
He had flown up from Florida for the game, and to conduct some business in town.
He wound up staying longer than he expected. With his alma mater leading late in the game, Tinsley skipped his flight home to witness a little program history – a 71-68 win over Louisville.
And a proud program added another – and unexpected – item to its rich hoops history,.
Tinsley was one of several hundred KFC fans in the seats behind the Panthers’ bench who left feeling that the trip was absolutely worth it.
“It’s good for the fans and good for the team, building confidence,” Tinsley said after the victory. “They moved the ball well, played good defense, handled the ball well against the U of L press. . . . It’s a great day for Kentucky Wesleyan, and that’s good to see.”
Louisville had won its past 7 exhibition games against the Panthers, the past 5 by an average of 35 points. But Borja Fernandez led 5 KWC players in double figures with 19 points to let this KWC team put its own mark in the program’s lengthy history book.
KWC coach Drew Cooper said his team didn’t play as well as it can, but did praise his players for playing solid basketball down the stretch. The Panthers had lost by only 10 at Saint Louis, following a familiar script.
“So many of these games are close at halftime," Cooper said. "The D-2 team is up two or three or whatever it is, but then you come out and the bigger, stronger more athletic guys wear you down. But our guys physically felt fine. And then as they started to feel the crowd feel there was a problem, we made a few shots and our guys were tough down the stretch, made threes and free throws, got big rebounds and took care of the ball for the most part."
Kentucky Wesleyan coach Drew Cooper, who was an assistant on Bellarmine's 2011 NCAA Division II championship team, watches his players in hte second half of a win at Louisville.
The win comes at a good time for Kentucky Wesleyan. Just last week, the school announced program cutbacks and some layoffs. It cut its men’s and women’s cross country and track programs, in an effort to reduce costs.
When your enrollment is less than 800 students, survival is a challenge.
“Our college needed this,” Cooper said. “Last week, we made those cuts and 34 people at our college lost their jobs. Our track and cross country programs were cut. Dr. (Thomas) Mitzel, our president, is doing a remarkable job of setting our college up for long-term success. But at the end of the day, for our community, last week was just a grim week with all that stuff going on. But at the same time you’ve got people like Roy and these fans, they bleed purple, not just with basketball, but it’s a cool little college.”
And on a November night in Louisville, an undermanned team gave its college a reason for pride and celebration.
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