Kone shines for the Golden Bucks Athletic prowess draws on parents

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Most of us would count ourselves lucky just to have one parent pass down their athletic abilities.

Bucksport High senior Brianna Kone has two.

Her father, Mamadou Kone, was a top-notch guard at Husson College in the late 1980s. Her mother, Lorie Stevens, was a three-sport star for the Golden Bucks at that time, after which she had a stellar soccer and softball career at Husson.

That background, in addition to her own natural talents, has helped Brianna Kone become one of the top players in Eastern Maine Class B girls basketball.

The 5-foot-8 Golden Bucks point guard is leading the Big East Class B schools in assists (about 5.0 per game), steals (4.0 per game), and field goal percentage (55.3 percent).

In addition, the quick, athletic Kone can score (11.5 points per game, second-highest on the team) and rebound (about 5.0 per game). Those stats have helped 9-4 Bucksport six straight wins, the last of which came Tuesday with a 44-29 victory over Ellsworth. Kone scored a game-high 14 points against the Eagles.

The Bucks, who were ranked 10th in Tuesday’s Heal point standings, have already surpassed their win total last year (8-10 record).

Current Bucksport head coach Brendan Harvey graduated from Bucksport High School at the same time as Stevens and remembers her athletic prowess. He also recalls seeing highlights of Mamadou Kone on TV.

“He was a tremendous player,” Harvey said. “He was a point guard, sort of like her, on the tall side, a very good distributor of the ball and very good defensively. … [Stevens] was by far the best athlete in my class. So Brianna has great lineage.”

Kone, who lives with her mother in Bucksport, doesn’t know much about her father’s basketball background. Her parents have been divorced since she was 5 or 6 years old, she said.

“I remember him shooting around a lot,” Kone said. “He always asks me when I go to his house, so, how’s basketball? That’s like the first question out of his mouth.”

Local fans, however, likely remember Mamadou Kone’s on-court feats. While playing for former Husson coach Bruce MacGregor, Kone recorded 1,145 career points to go with 431 steals (fifth all-time at Husson) and 201 steals (fourth). He averaged 9.5 ppg and was a career 76 percent free-throw shooter and 41 percent 3-point shooter.

Mamadou Kone was a starter on MacGregor’s 1988-89 team that was ranked as high as No. 4 in the nation among NAIA teams.

Brianna Kone didn’t get all of her father’s skills – she admits she’s not a good 3-point shooter, although she did make one in Tuesday’s game against Ellsworth.

“Once in a while I can get it [to the rim],” she said with a laugh. “But it doesn’t go in.”

It was Kone’s mother who started Kone in sports, enrolling her in basketball when she was in fourth grade.

Kone played travel basketball from fifth to eighth grades. She made varsity her freshman year of high school and started midway through that first season.

Stevens and Kone do a lot of postgame analysis.

“My mom helped me with my shot and always tells me what I did wrong and what I did well after basketball games,” Kone said.

All that work and advice has clearly made a difference as Kone has been just as dangerous passing the ball as she has been scoring. Harvey pointed to two games against Foxcroft Academy this season to prove the point.

“In the first game [Foxcroft] tried to run a full-court man press and we were able to break that and she had 20 points and five assists,” he said. “In the second game it was a 2-3 zone, but [seniors] Katie Hurd and Lindsey Gordon controlled the boards on the defensive end and we were able to kick it out to Bri and she was able to beat the zone up the floor. She had five points, but she had eight assists.”

Kone, a captain, does a lot of scoring in transition, which Harvey said is also where she picks up a lot of her assists.

For Kone, however, penetration has been key for her this season. She’s recorded a lot of assists that way, too.

“All three years my coaches have been telling me to drive more,” she said. “This year I’m actually doing it. I don’t really think so much of scoring as driving and making the pass out. If I get a chance to go up [for a basket], I will.”

Defense is another area in which Kone has excelled this year as one of the Bucks’ top on-the-ball defenders.

“She creates a lot on the defensive end,” Harvey said. “She’s a tremendous athlete, she can jump, she’s got very strong hands, arms, and really generates a lot of our offense because of her presence on defense.”

Kone, who was a conference honorable mention all-star last year, may have picked the right season to put up impressive stats. The Golden Bucks are hoping to finish in eighth place in the Heal points, which would give them a home preliminary game and, they’re hoping, the program’s first trip to the Bangor Auditorium since 1997.

The Golden Bucks’ senior class of Kone, Gordon, and Hurd is one of the school’s best in years.

“Since my freshman year I’ve always wanted to go to the tournament, so I’m hoping this is our year,” said Kone, who is considering following her parents at Husson next year or walking on at the University of Maine. “That’s what one of our goals was, to make it to the tournament.”