New Albany came through a tune-up weekend no worse for the wear and with just what the doctor ordered: victories over two smaller regional rivals with upsets on their minds. After a narrow road win at Madison on Friday, the Dogs returned to the Doghouse on Saturday to defeat Scottsburg, 48-33, behind a big night from Jordan Thomas. The 6-foot-7…
New Albany and Jeffersonville have staged more classics in their long-running basketball series than anyone can count. Here’s an argument for adding Friday’s regular-season renewal — Jeff won 59-52 in overtime at The Doghouse — to that illustrious list. After all of the momentum shifts and adrenaline rushes you’d expect in a rivalry game, it reached epic status over the…
2020 couldn’t get here fast enough for New Albany coach Jim Shannon. Not that 2019 was so bad for his young Bulldog squad. Just a little tough. There were good wins — on the road against Carmel and at home over Zionsville, both ranked at the time — and an overtime heartbreaker at No. 8 Floyd Central. There were convincing…
Coaches talk about bouncing back when things go wrong. Lose a close game, come back tougher the next night. Easier said than done — but when it happens, it will warm a coach’s heart. After his team outlasted Zionsville 50-42 at the Doghouse on Saturday night, New Albany coach Jim Shannon couldn’t find much to complain about. “I was up on…
Basketball is a simple game. More often than not, statistics will reveal who came out on top in any given contest. Case in point: Find a way to take substantially more shots than the other team (and make a reasonable percentage of those), and you probably win. Which largely explains the result of Friday’s annual rivalry game between Floyd Central…
By Cary Stemle New Albany’s Jim Shannon has coached a lot of games — 815, to be exact (hat tip to the News and Tribune’s Josh Cook for the precise figures). But he doesn’t recall ever suiting up zero seniors. Saturday night at the Doghouse, the unexpected occurred, as forward Julien Hunter (injured) and Trey Hourigan (suspended) were sidelined. In…
At 7:58 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 24, the New Albany Bulldogs boys basketball squad burst onto the floor of the Doghouse for their final pre-game warmups. The school band, modest in size but spunky, played the NAHS fight song (“Far Above Cayuga’s Waters”), and as pre-game introductions commenced for the season opener against Bloomington South, the hometown fans were finally…
By Cary Stemle SEYMOUR, INDIANA —When you’re chipping away at a big stone, it helps to have the best chisel. And New Albany’s Romeo Langford is just a little more battle-tested and determined than Center Grove junior Trayce Jackson-Davis, as it turns out. In a game New Albany was expected to win, looked like it would win easily, and then…