Kenny Blakeney doesn't just know Washington, D.C. basketball. Kenny Blakeney is Washington, D.C. basketball. Born in the nation's capital, Blakeney starred at DeMatha High School, just outside the District, under Hall-of-Fame coach Morgan Wootten. The program that has produced 22 NBA players -- including five active players and one Hall of Famer, Adrian Dantley -- and Blakeney was no slouch on the court, either. The Gatorade Player of the Year in Maryland went on to be a two-time NCAA champion (1991, 1992) at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski.
Now, Blakeney leads his hometown hoop scene in a different manner -- as the head coach at Howard. He's coaching the sport that he says "saved [his] life."
"Basketball was something that really gave me an outlet, gave me a safe space to go to every day, to the rec center, or to the boys club, to whatever gym we could find to just kind of escape our everyday normal life" Blakeney told CBS Sports' Clark Kellogg earlier this year.
Blakeney leads the Bison against host Hampton at 4 p.m. ET in second half of Saturday's HBCU Showcase doubleheader (North Carolina A&T hosts North Carolina Central in the opener at 2 p.m. ET), broadcasting on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Blakeney's mother still lives in the same house she raised her family. Blakeney's childhood sports trophies still stand in his bedroom. He still visits DeMatha. And he gives back, leading D.C.'s next generation of players in summer camps, mentoring children he sees himself in.
It wasn't long ago that Blake Harper was like those kids. Now, he's Blakeney's promising standout, a 6'8" freshman guard who grew up in Washington, D.C. and attended Gonzaga College High School, a rival of DeMatha in the vaunted Washington Catholic Athletic Conference. A former McDonald's All-American nominee, Harper showed no early jitters, scoring 16 points at No. 1 Kansas in his collegiate debut. He hasn't slowed down, and his 16.1 points per game is second on the team to another Washington D.C.-native guard, senior Marcus Dockery.
It'll likely be that duo that carries the Bison as far as they may go, and under Blakeney, "as far as they may go" is as far as the program has ever gone. The Bison have gone to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments under Blakeney, who was hired ahead of the 2019 season. That may not seem like much until you realize Howard had gone to two NCAA Tournaments ever before Blakeney arrived. Furthermore, Blakeney's team went 4-29 in his first year and 1-4 in the COVID-disrupted 2019-20 season. He hasn't had a losing season since.
"It was a very challenging job, and always, I thought, had the bones to build, because when you look at the history of our country, Howard University has had his footprints on pretty everything but a sustainable, successful basketball program," Blakeney said. "So the basketball talent was here, but it wasn't staying home or looking at Howard as a viable option. And I wanted to recruit young men from the [WCAC] that I played in."
Blakeney's current team features three Washington, D.C. natives but also one player each from Niger, Nigeria and Canada. And while the record is just 5-7, there have been promising moments from Harper, Dockery and plenty of others. The back-to-back Tournament appearances, Blakeney hopes, is just a start, and he and Howard athletics as a whole have made progress, whether it's an athletics-wide partnership with Jordan Brand or the golf team being resurrected by Stephen Curry.
Blakeney very much embraces being a part of it.
"It's a wonderful responsibility that I accept 100%," he said. "It was so important for me because I had a vision and a plan for this place. ... To say that I can be an educator at one of the top 100 schools in the country right down the street from where I grew up, it's inspiring."