Four Bobcats hail from within a 65-mile radius, but the perception of basketball on their respective home courts is drastically different.
Ohio senior Ricardo Johnson, redshirt sophomore Treg Setty, and freshmen Antonio Campbell and D.J. Wingfield all played their high school basketball within 75 miles of Cincinnati. The meaning of the game, they said, was just a little different in each of the places they played.
Setty played his high school ball in Maysville, Ky., winning a state championship during his freshman campaign at Mason County High School. His team downed current teammate Johnson’s Covington Holmes High School (Ky.) in the championship game.
Setty, a forward, said that in Kentucky, basketball is less of a game than a religion.
“It’s life, man,” Setty said. “Other than Louisville, there are really not as many big areas, so you don’t have as many big schools, so football is not as prevalent. In Kentucky, it’s just all basketball. … It’s a completely different feel from any other state.”
Johnson, a forward who has been sidelined with a fractured leg since Jan. 4, helped carry Holmes to a state title in 2009. He said that because of the lack of any major professional sports team in Kentucky, basketball takes on a greater importance there.
“I know that in Kentucky, it’s taken very seriously,” Johnson said. “We don’t have any sports teams, so (University of) Kentucky basketball is everything. Everybody plays (basketball). The history of the Kentucky Wildcats is spread across the whole state.”
Wingfield, a guard and forward, grew up in Cincinnati, garnering three first-team all-Ohio selections and finishing his high school career at Walnut Hills High School.
In an area saturated with tradition-laden football programs, Wingfield said that basketball in the area takes a backseat from an outsider’s perspective.
“Nationwide, it (appears) more football-oriented because of some of the football programs out there,” he said. “But basketball, it’s on the rise.”
He also said that those involved in Cincinnati-area high school basketball are especially tight-knit and that many players from opposing teams hang out off the court.
Just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati is the aforementioned city of Covington, where Johnson and Campbell attended high school.
Before playing at Holmes, Johnson spent his freshman year at Taft High School in Cincinnati. He said there was a definite difference in how basketball is played on either side of the river.
“From my experience playing in Cincinnati, it was more of a run-and-gun pace,” Johnson said. “It was very intense. There was more running and different coaching styles from Cincinnati to Kentucky.”
Campbell, a forward who played at Holy Cross High School, said that basketball in Cincinnati was more “recreational.”
“It means that the referees don’t really call a lot and let you play more,” he said. “The game style is different in Kentucky. They like to run sets and plays and things like that. But over in Cincinnati, you pretty much get the ball and you go.”
Before playing for the Bobcats, Campbell and Wingfield met at an open gym in Cincinnati, where they exchanged numbers and shared what they enjoyed about the school they would eventually attend together. Their transitions to college were made easier because of the bond.
“We didn’t really know each other that well,” Wingfield said. “But we just both had the common interest of basketball, and I guess that kind of let us gel together.”
@c_hoppens
ch203310@ohiou.edu
This article appeared in print under the headline "Game play differs between cities."
