Les Nicholson Photo
Harlan County coach Kyle Jones knows what his star player, Trent Noah, faces now that he has signed to play basketball at the University of Kentucky.
“Obviously there is always pressure when a Kentucky kid goes to the University of Kentucky. Trent thrives in pressure situations and proved that his whole high school career and playing on the AAU Adidas circuit with Midwest Basketball.”
Noah originally signed with South Carolina but asked out of his scholarship and quickly committed and signed with Mark Pope and Kentucky.
Noah averaged 29.9 points and 10.4 rebounds per game last season when he shot 56 percent overall from the field, 43 percent from 3 (he made 102 3’s) and 89 percent at the foul line and helped get Harlan County to the state championship game. He ended his career with 3,707 points, the fifth best mark in state history.
He was sensational in the state tournament where he hit a tourney record 19 3-pointers, averaged 32.2 points per game and tallied 48 points in a comeback win over Campbell County in the quarterfinals.
“He actually performed like that for the last two years for us. He averaged 30 points per game his last two years. He plays well on the biggest platforms and always has,” Jones said. “That’s why I feel he will do big things at Kentucky. He proved at the Sweet Sixteen, one of the biggest platforms for high school basketball, where he belongs.
“I said all along I felt that even though Trent signed with a Power 5 team in the SEC, I told coaches he is a hidden gem.”
Jones was not heavily involved with Noah’s recruitment but as soon as Noah had his release from South Carolina several schools reached out to the coach.
“He had so many opportunities but it is kind of a no-brainer once that happens a Kentucky kid is going to Kentucky if he has the chance,” Jones said.
The community has reacted just the way Jones expected after Noah, who was not offered a scholarship by former UK coach John Calipari, signed with Kentucky and new coach Mark Pope Wednesday.
“Trent was already a rock star in our community based on what he has done to put the high school and community on the map,” the Harlan County coach said Thursday. “Today we had a Kentucky blue day and 80 percent of the students and all of the faculty had on Kentucky blue.”
Not only is it a dream for a Kentucky player to play at UK but it is also a dream for a Kentucky high school coach to send a player to play for the Wildcats and the high school fan base to have one of its own playing for UK.
“He will never truly understand what he has done for our community and me as a coach,” Jones said. “Just the things I got to see and people and coaches I got to meet through him. He has changed my life and I could not be happier for him.”
12 Responses
"Not only is it a dream for a Kentucky player to play at UK but it is also a dream for a Kentucky high school coach to send a player to play for the Wildcats and the high school fan base to have one of its own playing for UK."
Well, this says it all.
This is not the only factor in UK’s long-time success, …
BUT IT IS A MAJOR FACTOR.
Professor You are So Correct! Kids “Old What’s His Face” never really wanted Ky Kids and it showed in the way he did the NCAA Freshman of The Year Reed! Good Riddance! Maybe he will kiss lots of Muddy Hogs Asses!
UK has 8 National Championships with at least 1 key player on the team from a KY HS.
UK has ZERO Titles when the team is void of a significant player from a KY
The fraud CHEATED UK and KY HS players and should be sued, fined and serve time as any other CRIMINAL does,
UK is already way ahead of the last 4 seasons when hogwash was being spewed from the future fraud-hog’s mouth.
Right On! So True!
I honestly was disgusted that our former coach didn’t even recruit this kid. He indeed more than proved his mettle during his career but when it mattered most during the state tournament. Congratulations Trent and Coach Pope for making this happen. Hopefully, he will get his chance to light up Arkansas when they meet up! BBN welcomes this great news! GO CATS!!!
Calipari is already taking shots at BBN for wanting him gone. At the same time, he is already starting his players first bullshit in Fayetteville. It won’t take long for the Hogs to learn that they got bamboozled!
What’s His Face thought it was all about Him! He Loves Himself for thinking He’s so great for getting players into the NBA and all the time He wasn’t trying to do what he was paid for!
I did not and do not care about Calipari as a coach but I will say, he usually only went after players he really wanted. The problem is that he only wanted players that were here for 1 year. He stated many times that his goal was to put kids into the NBA as fast as he could; nothing else mattered.
It is the "nothing else mattered" that caused his problems. I am all for kids going to the NBA and making all the money they can, but not at the expense of building a team that will make a determined effort to win every game they play; both offensively and defensively.
Under Cal, we had a lot of good players that did not stick around because Cal did not run plays designed to take advantage of what each player could contribute. This kid from Harlan would not have stood a chance to get playing time under Cal, so I am very glad Cal did not recruit him. It would not have been a good situation.
I am glad he is gone and ready to move forward with the Coach Mark Pope era in UK Basketball!!
I’m glad to have this kid in the fold he deserves it. He’s worked his whole life for this moment it must be a great feeling. I think he will have a very productive career. Perry Noah and Chandler will be one of the best back courts in college basketball in 2-3 years. I think Chandler is the best of the bunch. His game is so fluid its looks natural like its to easy for him to take the game over. Chandler is now 6’6" so he’s a big guard. Noah is 6’6" and will probably grow a inch or 2 in the next couple of years. You might have Perry at the Point Chandler at shooting guard and Noah at the 3. That will be a 3 headed monster on the 3’s. All three of them are elite shooters and will only get better. I hope we can get Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno. I really really hope they give Ty Price a scholarship. He scores 35 points and will also have 13 assists. He cam score and distribute. Whatever you need. He’s grown 2 inches this last year. Now he’s 6′ . He will be a great point guard whoever ends up getting him I know Louisville has offered him a scholarship. Also Kaden Magwood is a great off guard. He’s 6’3" and very very athletic. I live in Louisville the boy who plays for western high school in Louisville is incredible too. This might be the deepest class in Kentucky high school history 2025
It is so unreal to finally have a men’s basketball coach who acknowledges and accepts that his number one job is bringing No. 9 to Kentucky and then No. 10! I think it will happen sooner than most expect. Kentucky is not about winning every game and winning a national title every year. It’s about playing the game right, being competitive, and playing for the name on the front of the jersey. We will win far more than we lose, we will be in the hunt for an SEC title every year, and we will be in the mix for winning the Big One each season too. It’s not unrealistic to want to win either an SEC season title or an SEC tourney title at least twice every 5 years. Our league has gotten bigger and better. Making a Final 4 every four years is a healthy goal and bringing home the bacon at least once every 10 years is doable…even with the portal and NIL being what they are. If we play as a team, play smart, play hard and lose, so be it…but more times than not, we will prevail. Mark has done a fantastic job putting together a staff and team from scratch in just 3 weeks and he is not done. Seeing Kentucky’s best high school seniors wearing Wildcat uniforms has been long overdo. I am excited about Kentucky basketball again. Go CATS!!!
It’s really a miracle how fast he put such a great team together a real team at that. No all stars and crybabies a bunch of great kids who want to go out as champions and they will do whatever it takes to win. They don’t care about personal accolades they want to win. And win they will.
Success is measured by championships, and being competitive rather than just being present.
History is clear. A substantial percentage of those that play in the final 4 over the years come from the most efficient teams in the land at the end of the regular season. I have shared the detailed data here previously.
Suffice it to say that a team is competitive for the national stage (final 4) and the championship when the team finishes the regular season as one of the 6 most efficient teams.
No team does this with smoke and mirrors. It takes talent and coaching. It takes good to great play at both ends of the court.
If Coach Pope is truly "into analytics" and so many of the writing class have characterized him, then he already knows this. If he only speaks the right words relative to the analytics, then he may not know this despite these promising words.
I will be looking in 2024-25 for Pope’s team to demonstrate lower defensive efficiency and higher offensive efficiency, e.g., better analytics, than the recent UK team performances because UK’s recent team performances have been insufficient across the board for any team to be legitimate national contenders.
I will be looking at the results, regardless of the coaches names, player names, or misplaced hopes about what a team could become. A team demonstrates its character within the first 5 to 8 games of a new season.
We will know the answer to this question by next Thanksgiving.