Bishop Seabury boys basketball recognized on SportsCenter after season was cut short

photo by: Carter Gaskins

Bishop Seabury senior Cobe Green (24) points at the sky after making a 3-pointer late in the first quarter during the opening round of sub-state Tuesday night at BSA on March 3, 2020.

The Bishop Seabury boys basketball team got some national media attention Monday night after a dominant 2019-20 season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On ESPN’s SportsCenter, the Seahawks were among the teams honored by Scott Van Pelt as a part of his #SeniorNight segment, which was created to honor college and high school athletes around the country who didn’t get the chance to play their final games this season.

Bishop Seabury, which has never won a state title, had advanced to the semifinals of the Class 2A state tournament before all postseason basketball was canceled by the Kansas State High School Activities Association.

“The Kansas Jayhawks weren’t the only basketball team in Lawrence who had title aspirations,” Van Pelt said during his 30-second segment. “Bishop Seabury ended the year on a school-record 15-game winning streak. Their head coach, Jonathan Raney, said, ‘This group loved to be with each other. We were a team in every sense of the word.'”

SportsCenter showed a pair of highlights of Bishop Seabury’s win over Valley Heights in the quarterfinals of the Class 2A state tournament. Both plays featured buckets by seniors Luke Hornberger and Cobe Green.

Green averaged 11.0 points, 3.6 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game in his final season at the high school level, and Hornberger provided a strong post presence for BSA all season long. Van Pelt also noted that Green had open-heart surgery in the offseason before he helped lift the Seahawks to a 22-2 record.

“Having Luke and Cobe get recognized on the segment was great,” Raney told the Journal-World on Tuesday. “Those two, and really all four of our seniors, sacrificed so much for the team. They did whatever they could to help us win, so to see them get a shoutout meant tons to me. They will be missed tremendously.”

When Raney heard that SportsCenter was looking for high school athletes’ stories, he replied to a tweet from Van Pelt by sending a story about Green’s open-heart surgery and how he was potentially two games away from winning a state title. Raney received a direct message from ESPN Monday afternoon asking for photos and videos of Bishop Seabury’s season.

It is not the first time that the Seahawks have appeared on SportsCenter. In the semifinals of the state tournament in 2017, Bishop Seabury was on the losing end of a six-overtime thriller against St. John. The 30-foot buzzer-beater from St. John’s Cole Kinnamon ended up being featured on SportsCenter.

“I know (Monday’s segment) sure beats the last time our program was on SportsCenter,” Raney said. “For them to actually pick us and tell our story even for 30 seconds was pretty special and something these boys will have for the rest of their lives.”

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