By MATT CRESS
The beautiful thing about basketball is that every game — no matter how narrow or how lopsided the final score — tells a story.
Whether it’s a team with something to prove, an underdog beating the odds or a championship on the line, every time two teams take the floor, there’s a hook. Explaining and exploring these hooks is what you do when you write about sports for a living.
Sometimes the hook is easy. Sometimes you have to dig around to find it.
Sometimes, on the good nights, you don’t even have to pick up a pen — you’ve just hit the mother lode.
When Joe Hinton, the legendary former coach at Floyd Central and Providence, returns to one of his old stomping grounds (and in Joe’s case, you are guaranteed to see some stomping), well, that’s what people in this business would call a good night.
It was Hinton’s run, and subsequent controversial exit that altered recent basketball history in this area like nothing else. It was his firing — in the wake of a recruiting scandal and accusations about his treatment of players — that brought Lou Lefevre to the Providence sideline.
Since then, the Pioneers have become the premier Class 2A program in the area, going 89-23 since Lefevre took control. Providence has simultaneously earned a reputation as a giant killer, regularly competing with and beating larger schools (they are the only team to defeat mighty New Albany at The Doghouse since 2007); as difficult to knock off at home (37-11 at the Larkin Center over the past five seasons); as a defensive machine (opponents have averaged only 43 points this season).
In that way, Hinton’s departure led to Providence’s greatest triumph as a school and as a community — its first-ever regional championship and semistate appearance two seasons ago.
Now, with the 16-4 Pioneers one of the odds-on favorites for a sectional title at the tournament they are hosting, a possible obstacle strode across the Larkin Center court on Tuesday night, clad in a white shirt with a purple jacket. He looked the same — has looked the same for years — when he stood on the sidelines for his team’s opening game of the postseason.
It was, of course, Joe Hinton.
“That’s the most relaxed I’ve been at the start of a game in a long time,” he said. “I think it was because so many friends came up and shook my hand and wished us luck. It’s a fun thing to be a part of.”
Winning makes things a lot more fun, friends seem a lot friendlier. So that’s exactly what Hinton did.
He took a night full of great stories from sectionals all across the state and put his team right in the thick of them by leading 10-10 Paoli to a 65-51 upset victory over Austin — at 18-4 a pre-tourney favorite and the only team in the field to take down Providence.
He was animated, as he tends to be, but he was a little more subdued than normal. It’s Hinton’s fire, as anyone who has followed his career can attest, that has both granted him much of his success and caused many of his problems. But he didn’t really need it on Tuesday night, as the Rams — a .500 team that has yet to live up to its potential — jumped ahead 15-3, extended the lead to 33-17 by halftime and was never really challenged in beating an Eagle squad that had suffered its four losses by a combined 18 points.
No, Austin had never been trampled like this. And it meant that Hinton’s return has again made things look rosier for the Pioneers, just as his departure did all those years ago.
There weren’t a lot of Providence fans in the bleachers for the Paoli-Austin matchup, but I guess I expected a little more when they announced Hinton’s name during the player introductions. There was mostly silence and a smattering of applause.
That’s the same silence Hinton felt when things went wrong, when he was ousted and the team given a one-year postseason ban for his part in the scandal. He was ultimately the fall guy, whether it was right or wrong. The truth, as it tends to, probably lies somewhere in the middle.
“People don’t know it, but I know I was part of the problem here,” said Hinton after the game, a look of what may have been regret in his eyes. “I’ve always admitted it. What bothers me is that I felt like I was on an island by myself.”
Both Providence and Hinton have done well since their split. Hinton is 39-29 as the boss at Paoli, winning the Class 2A sectional last year after a 20-5 season, making the regional final and proving he still has plenty left in the tank even after 43 long winters as a head coach. Coupled with time and the Pioneers’ on-court success, many of the old wounds have now been healed.
“I always got along with Joe and I think he’s a great guy,” said Providence athletic director Mickey Golembeski. “I would think there would have been more cheers for him than boos (during his introduction). Joe was loved here.”
We’ll see how loved he is if this story continues. Should Providence get past 4-16 Pekin Eastern tonight and either Clarksville or West Washington on Friday — as it will be favored to do — the Pioneers will be in Saturday night’s championship game. Their opponent will be either Brownstown or a team that has already handed the Braves one of their six losses. It will be Joe Hinton and Paoli.
“Everything else aside, it would be a guy who coached here against the guy who replaced him,” Golembeski said. “We would definitely be at capacity.”
Hinton vs. Lefevre would probably draw the biggest crowd in Larkin Center history. The reporters would eat it up, of course, but it would likely mean quite a bit more to a man who has told thousands of stories in a career that has defied time, survived the critics and accumulated 583 victories.
“When I first came to Providence, we ended up going to three overtimes with Floyd Central (a 91-87 Pioneer win on Dec. 15, 2001),” said Hinton with a smile. “I’ve won a lot of games and I’ve lost a lot of games. But I really enjoyed that one.”
Love him or hate him, and there are plenty of people who do both, Joe Hinton has a knack for creating incredible drama. All we do can do now is watch it play out and hope we get the ending he (and all of us) deserve.
If it happens, basketball fans won’t need me or anyone else to explain it. We’ll all watch Hinton-Lefevre and, no matter who wins, realize that it’s just two great coaches, each one writing another chapter.
Contact Matthew Cress at matthew.cress@newsandtribune.com
