photo by: Andrew Grimm

Steubenville's Cole Bowers puts up a shot inside during Big Red's Elite Eight game inside Ohio University's Convocation Center. Steubenville faces Akron Archbishop Hoban on Thursday night in the Final Four.

The Big Red basketball team got onto the school vans on Wednesday to do something no team at the school had since Harry Truman was President — head to the state tournament.

The team left town on Wednesday with a police escort, traveling to Dayton a day in advance of tonight’s state semifinal showdown with Akron Hoban. They stopped and practiced at Capital University on the way.

“It has been a whirlwind of a couple of days,” Big Red head coach Mike Haney said of the experience since Saturday’s regional championship win. “The community and everybody has been great. Everybody is talking about our kids. It’s been a good feeling for us.”

In all of the excitement, though, the work was not done. Haney and staff had to begin getting to work on preparing for the state tournament rather quickly on getting back from Athens.

“You’re happy that you win and then you gotta get focused the next day,” he said. “The mindset shifts to you’ve got a job to do. We’re not satisfied just going down here for the Final Four. Our goal is the same goal we had at the beginning of the year. We made it to Dayton, but we don’t want to just go to Dayton and come back. We want to be there for both days and win.”

To do so, they’ll be facing a tough opponent tonight. Big Red drew Akron Archbishop Hoban, who brings a 20-7 mark to Dayton after winning the Division III, Region 9 in Median. They defeated Garfield Heights and Youngstown Chaney in their regional tournament. The win over Chaney was a 61-60 thriller.

Hoban is ranked No. 5 in the state by MaxPreps. Their regional wins were over the No. 6 and No. 8 ranked teams in the state.

Big Red is ranked No. 9 in the state and defeated the No. 4 (Bishop Hartley) and No. 7 (Bishop Watterson) ranked teams to win the Region 11 title.

“Hoban are really good,” Haney said. “They have a really good coach (30-year veteran T.K. Griffith), he does a great job. They’re very fundamentally sound. They like to push the ball, they play a lot like we do They push the ball and they shoot a lot of 3s.

“They’ve actually made more 3s than 2s this year. We have got to chase them off the 3-point line. And, they have multiple scorers.”

Big Red standout Santino Haney is quite familiar with one of the faces he’ll see tonight on the opposing side as Hoban junior Johnny Johnson, a 6-foot-5 guard that is one of the Knights’ top weapons, is one of his teammates on his AAU team during the summer, the Ohio Basketball Club.

“Their best player is probably Johnny Johnson,” coach Haney said. “Santino played AAU with him the last two years for Ohio Basketball Club, so I’m familiar with him and Santino is familiar with him. He’s a really good player. About 6-foot 5, He can play forward, he shoots the 3 really well and can drive to the bucket, plays good defense and blocks some shots.”

With two teams that can light it up from the outside — Big Red made at least a dozen triples in each of its regional games — and that like to apply pressure, there is potential for a thrilling match up tonight.

“It should be an exciting game,” coach Haney said. “They like to play fast; we like to play fast. If guys are hitting shots on both teams, it could be high scoring.”

The winner tonight will have a quick turnaround to face the winner of No. 1 Toledo Central Catholic and No. 2 Trotwood Madison on Friday night in UD Arena.

“The quick turnaround makes it tough, but the positive about that is they will have the same amount of time,” coach Haney said. “It’s a quick turnaround for both semifinal winners. Our focus is on Hoban and getting to the next day first.”

When Big Red takes the floor at UD Arena tonight, it will be their fourth-straight game on the floor at a Division I college arena having played their district final and both regional games at Ohio University. That, the veteran coach thinks, will benefit his team in adjusting to the big atmosphere in Dayton.

“For sure it’ll definitely help,” he said. “Getting to play at OU, being in the college environment, atmosphere, and the big gym three times for us definitely will help us playing in there.

“We’re going to be playing in the same arena as the NCAA tournament First Four games, it’s pretty wild. I was watching the games (Tuesday) and now we’re going to play their.”

The opening tip tonight is set for 8 p.m.