High school basketball finally returns to renovated Memorial Coliseum

Memorial Coliseum opens its doors to high school basketball for the first time since 2008 with the “BSHS Memorial Takeover,” a girls-boys hoops doubleheader Friday featuring the Bryan Station girls against Sayre and the Defenders’ boys against Scott County.

The event is one of two girls-boys high school doubleheaders at Memorial this season. Lexington Christian and Paul Laurence Dunbar will square off there Feb. 6.

The University of Kentucky’s sports venues have been home to a number of Kentucky High School Athletic Association state championships over the years, most notably Rupp Arena for the girls and boys state basketball tournaments. UK has also hosted state finals for football, baseball, softball, swimming and tennis.

“We’ve been in the thought process for a couple of years now to be able to bring high school basketball back to Memorial, both boys and girls,” said Scott Geisinger, UK’s associate athletic director for operations. “With the recent renovations, we just felt like it was time to give it a shot. It’s a bonus for the city, and it’s a bonus for Fayette County Public Schools to be able to do something like this.”

The biggest challenge for UK, Geisinger said, is finding windows of opportunity for high school events around its own games and practices for UK women’s basketball and gymnastics.

“That’s where it gets tough. The schedule is just so compact, but we’re always open to look,” Geisinger said.

When Bryan Station girls coach Serena Sandusky entered talks with UK about possibly playing at Memorial, she didn’t hesitate.

“We kind of had something in the works and they (UK) asked us if we wanted to play, and I was like ‘Of course.’ That’s a no-brainer,” she said. “Growing up in Lexington, of course I’ve been to Memorial. … It’s fun to be able to share that moment with our kids. There’s a lot of history. It means a lot to be the first ones to come back since ‘08.”

Scott County coach Sean Woods called out a play during the Cardinals’ 70-39 win at Sayre on Tuesday. The Cardinals face Bryan Station at Memorial Coliseum on Friday.

(Jared Peck/jpeck@herald-leader.com)

Sean Woods’ Scott County team takes on the Defenders

Friday’s late game marks the return of Kentucky “Unforgettable” Sean Woods to his former practice home as a player.

Woods is in his first season as head coach of Scott County. As coach of the La Familia UK legends team in The Basketball Tournament last summer, he’d already gotten a feel for the completely renovated venue. Friday is more important as an experience for his players, he said.

“It’s big. And I think they should start doing more,” Wood said. “Ever since they redid it, I think it’s a great venue for high school basketball.”

Woods jumped on Bryan Station’s offer to play at Memorial. For one, it means he won’t have to take them on in the Defenders’ home gym, which can pack out with a boisterous crowd quickly.

The Defenders (13-5, 6-2 in the 42nd District) feature one of the best guard-forward tandems in the state in seniors Amari Owens and Taeshawn Adams. Owens ranks as one of the top-scoring guards in Lexington boys high school basketball history.

“It’s going to be a challenge, because you’ve got to go against two of the best players in the region and one of the top five guards in the state,” Wood said.

The Cardinals (10-6, 2-1) routed Sayre 70-39 on Tuesday and have shown promise this season as Woods tries to rebuild a program that had been a Boys’ Sweet 16 contender yea in and year out under the late Billy Hicks. Scott County hasn’t had a winning season since its 11th Region title run in 2020.

“It’s been a roller coaster because they haven’t won much in the last five years,” Woods said. “Just getting them to change over and get used to believing they can win every single night is the deal. And we’re starting to get that a little bit.”

Scott County’s Montae Washburn, center, is fouled on his way to the basket between Sayre defenders Sayvion Staley, left, Kenji Berger and John Gaines, right) during the Cardinals’ 70-39 win at Sayre on Tuesday.

(Jared Peck/jpeck@herald-leader.com)

Senior guard Montae Washburn led the Cards with 21 points against Sayre and had four assists. Sophomore Parker Sanders chipped in 16 points off the bench, including three straight 3-pointers in the second half as Scott County pulled away.

Washburn is looking forward to taking on the Defenders in Memorial. The Cards have lost three in a row in the rivalry.

“I can’t wait to play Friday. I’ve been waiting for Station,” Washburn said. “Playing in that type of crowd, I feel like it’s hyping us up more.”

The Defenders escaped with a 62-61 win at Woodford County on Tuesday with 25 points from Owens and 24 points from Adams. After its overtime loss at Douglass last week, Bryan Station needs to beat Scott County to stay in the hunt for the 42nd District’s top tournament seed. Henry Clay helped in that regard by upsetting Douglass 65-53 on Tuesday night.

“Coach Woods has Scott County playing really, really good,” Bryan Station coach Champ Ligon said. “It should be a big-time game. It’s a very important early district game, especially with the way our district games have been going. It’s exciting.”

Scott County’s Parker Sanders celebrated his third consecutive 3-pointer during the second half of the Cardinals’ 70-39 win at Sayre on Tuesday.

(Jared Peck/jpeck@herald-leader.com)

High school basketball history at Memorial

The last high school basketball game at Memorial Coliseum took place on Jan. 18, 2008 when then No. 1 Lexington Catholic faced No. 3 Mason County, which featured that season’s Mr. Basketball and future UK standout Darius Miller. The Royals pulled out a 74-73 victory.

The Knights featured in a number of high-profile regular season games at Memorial over the years prior, maybe most notably a 2007 game against West Virginia’s No. 1 nationally ranked Huntington High School, which had top high school prospects O.J. Mayo and Patrick Patterson, another future UK star. Huntington routed LexCath 97-64 in front of 6,214 fans.

Two weeks later, then-Kentucky No. 1 Scott County knocked off Huntington, 72-68, in front of an estimated 7,500 fans at Memorial. That’s more people than the venue’s current capacity.

Memorial hosted the Boys’ Sweet 16 state tournament in the early 1950s and in a periodic rotation with Freedom Hall in Louisville in the 1950 and ‘60s. It also hosted some district tournaments for Lexington schools in the 1970s and was the boys 11th Region Tournament host for a number of years, the last in 1994.

The first statewide All “A” Classic for small schools was held in Memorial in 1991.

Girls high school games at Memorial have been far fewer. The last likely occurred in conjunction with the All “A” Classic in 1991. The All “A” held a girls final four in Memorial that year before making the girls event statewide the next year as well and moving it to Eastern Kentucky University’s McBrayer Arena.

After Title IX spurred the return of girls basketball as a high school sport in the late 1970s, Memorial hosted the Lady Kat Invitational Tournament for girls high school teams from 1978 to 1982, according to reports.

Lexington Catholic coach Brandon Salsman wouldn’t speculate why it’s taken so long for high school games to get back to Memorial. For his team, it came to make less sense financially to play there rather than on its home court, he said. But he’s glad to see their return to the venue.

“I’m certainly excited. I’ve been a huge proponent of getting the 11th Region Tournament back in Memorial Coliseum,” Salsman said. “Hopefully, it signals that the university is working to get the high school community back into Memorial Coliseum. It’s such a beautiful arena, and they’ve done such a good job with the remodel.”

A crowd of about 7,500 watched as O.J. Mayo, left, and his team from Huntington, West Virginia, lost to Scott County in a boy's high school basketball game at Memorial Coliseum on Feb. 2, 2007. — A crowd of about 7,500 watched as O.J. Mayo, left, and his team from Huntington, West Virginia, lost to Scott County in a boy’s high school basketball game at Memorial Coliseum on Feb. 2, 2007.

(Pablo Alcala/Herald-Leader)

Could the 11th Region tournaments return?

Geisinger indicated UK would be open to hosting 11th Region Tournaments in the future if the dates worked out.

“It’s simply scheduling for us,” he said. “We have to take care of our teams first. … But if we have the ability to do it, we would obviously love to. High school sports and external events — our coaches understand how important it is to do things like that.”

Lisa Hager, a retired educator and former Henry Clay assistant athletic director, has been selected for the new role of 11th Region Tournament director. Hager said UK had been talked about as a potential host before she came on board, but scheduling the number of days the region tournament would need at Memorial wasn’t possible this year.

For this season, the 11th Region boys and girls basketball tournaments will return to Eastern Kentucky University’s Baptist Health Arena now that its renovations there are complete.

EKU served as the exclusive home of boys and girls 11th Region Tournaments from 2015 to 2023 after the demolition of Frankfort’s Farnham Dudgeon Civic Center. It’s been held for the past two seasons at Paul Laurence Dunbar’s S.T. Roach Sports Center.

This will also be the first year since 2018 that EKU will host the entire boys and girls tournaments.

For the past seven years, first-round games have been held at the home of each district champion because EKU’s teams potentially had to host a round of their postseason conference tournaments. The ASUN Conference now holds its postseason tournaments entirely at one site, eliminating that conflict.