Uncommon Loyalty in the Age of Portal Madness
With hundreds of Division One men's basketball players currently in the portal and hundreds more likely to join, Trevon Faulkner's loyalty to NKU goes beyond "unexpected".
March 8th
As the clock struck zero, and the basketball was hurled into the air by a victorious Grant Basile, the Norse solemnly made their way to the handshake line, some seemingly for the last time in their careers. Those final seconds of game time, mixed with the first couple of minutes postgame are what makes sports so emotionally draining. To quote Jim McKay from the popular show in the 60s and 70s, Wide World of Sports - “..it’s the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” And anyone watching the game could see that this was the case. The Raiders, victors once more, were heading to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018, while NKU’s tournament drought would continue, the last time being in March of 2019 (the 2020 tournament bid went to NKU, but was cancelled due to COVID-19).
Amid the celebration and the mourning comes the press conferences. Nobody really wants to be there, save for a few members of the media. The winners would rather be celebrating with their teammates, posting on social media, and Facetiming their moms or girlfriends. The losers would rather be doing — well quite frankly — anything else short of donating a kidney or having a cavity filled. But these press conferences can offer something special sometimes. The winners, releasing the burden of the countless hours of film, practice, shooting drills, weights, gameplanning — everything it took to get here — often come to the pressers with smiles as wide as the day is long, offering special moments of transparency and grace.
The losers come to the press conferences unguarded, but they were freed of this burden by a polar opposite force. Sometimes, the realization that it is your final game, your final day with your team — your brothers, and possibly your final time to wear that jersey you cherish hits you in such a way that you cannot help but have your emotional walls breached by the impossible force of a simple question “…can you verbalize what you felt in that moment after the buzzer went off?” It was this question that broke Trevon Faulkner. Try as he might to answer, he was overcome with emotion, and it took him 18 full seconds to recover enough to utter one word, “Crushed”.
(skip to 3:50 for the Q/A for Trevon)
Slowly but surely, we move on
As the hours became days, and the days became weeks, Norse fans began to move on. In our own ways, we paid homage to those players that we thought might be done putting on the black and gold, but with Trevon it’s always been difficult for fans to tell him how they feel. Unlike Jalen Tate, Tyler Sharpe, Drew McDonald, Marques Warrick, etc. Trevon walked the uncommon path of a Dantez Walton — that is to say — not active on social media. Fans offered their love to Trevon and the others as best they could but were fully prepared to look to the future. Many speculated he’d use his 5th year to grad transfer, others speculated that he might go overseas. Norse Report refused to remove him from our scholarship board, but had already reckoned with the fact that he was likely gone. We’ve been hyperfocused on recruiting for the past week, wondering when we’d get some news on that front. Then, on a random Tuesday, just two weeks after the Norse had their hearts broken, fans were surprised by a random string of Tweets.
Norse fans KNOW what this means. Big news is on the way. Sure enough, just a half hour later — we were blessed with the news of a 5th year return of NKU swingman TREVON FAULKNER.
Norse land 5th year swingman……. Trevon Faulkner?
It appears that unprecedented times call not only for unprecendented tragedies, but in the rarest of cases — for unprecedented blessings as well. Due to the shortened season in 2020-21, all NCAA players were granted an extra year of eligibility. The Norse fans, who caused an absolute riot on social media over the NCAA’s decision to deny Tyler Sharpe a 5th season, get Trevon Faulkner back for his 5th! While his stats were not as sexy on paper last year as they have been in year’s past, there is no denying the importance of Trevon’s role as team glue guy and leader. He’s the big brother to everyone on the team, and he’s one of the best defenders the Norse have. It sets a huge example when your Senior guard is the first person on the ground, diving after every loose ball, and the Norse welcome that back next year. The Norse also get a diverse scorer in Faulkner. Shooting the 3 has never been the strongest point of his game, but he is more than capable of doing so. He’s one of the best ISO guards from 12 feet-in, and a huge mismatch coming off of an Iverson-cut and getting the ball in an ISO situation on the wing.
*(in case it isn’t clear — Faulkner is “2” in this)
** we’ve run entries like this before, but not exactly the same.
Faulkner has been to the NCAA tournament once, and won another Horizon League championship which should have resulted in his second tournament appearance, however that tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19.
Time will tell if the Norse can deliver on Trevon’s wish to “finish the job” but fans all over social media are excited he’s back to give it a go.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter as we’re going to be getting a little more active again this season. Thank you to all of our subscribers and supporters for understanding that we took the season off from coverage. It was a much needed break. #NorseUp!