Doyel: Butler is Butler, Cooper Neese says — even without Chris Holtmann

INDIANAPOLIS – Cloverdale all-time scoring leader Cooper Neese was playing a competitive basketball game when he decided he wanted to make the prestigious IndyStar Indiana All-Star team. The game was Nerf. The facility was his living room. The competition was his father.

Cooper Neese was 5.

“He was little bitty,” Cooper’s father, Jerry Neese, was telling me at halftime of the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star game Saturday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. “And that’s when he said it: ‘I’m going to be an All-Star.’”

He said it again a few years later, this time to his mom. Cooper had gone to the Indiana-Kentucky game as a fan. He was 8. This was 2007, and that was one of the best Indiana All-Star teams ever. Cooper went to Conseco Fieldhouse and saw Eric Gordon and E’Twaun Moore. He saw JaJuan Johnson and Jeff Teague. Matt Howard. Robbie Hummel.

“On the way home he said in the car: ‘I’m going to play for the Indiana All-Stars,’” Cooper’s mom, Lisa Roeder says. “And I’m like: ‘Bub, that’s a goal. Let’s go for it.’”

Go for it? Cooper Neese went off on it, reaching 1,000 points at Cloverdale, then 2,000 points, not stopping until he was seventh on the state scoring list (2,496) and an IndyStar Mr. Basketball finalist and a Butler recruit and, yes, an Indiana All-Star.

“He’s always wanted to put on an Indiana All-Star jersey,” says Cloverdale coach Pat Rady Jr.

More:Doyel: This is what Cooper Neese means to Cloverdale

This wasn’t just a goal. This was a dream, damn near an obsession. For four years at Cloverdale High School, Cooper Neese shot nearly every day in the school gym. In season, out of season, didn’t matter. He was shooting. Also did it in middle school, truth be told, and every day he went to shoot – Every. Single. Day. – he stopped and took a look at those two beautiful Indiana All-Star jerseys hanging in the gym:

Rick Ford, from 1968.

Chad Tucker, from 1983.

“He was going to get an Indiana All-Star jersey,” says his mom, Lisa. “And hang it up there next to the other two.”

Cooper Neese got his goal, got his dream, got his jersey: No. 11. And a few hours after scoring 25 points Thursday night at Plainfield against the Indiana Junior All-Stars, he got the news:

Butler coach Chris Holtmann was leaving for Ohio State.

More:Doyel: Losing a great coach won't keep happening to Butler

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“I’m not going to lie,” Cooper was telling me Saturday night in the Indiana All-Star locker room, still in that beautiful white jersey with the blue lettering inside red trim as he delivers this bit of understatement: “That (news) didn’t make the week any better.”

* * *

In the other bed, Jack Nunge was sleeping.

Cooper Neese was across the room in their Marian University dormitory, lights out, phone on, lying in his bed and looking online for more information, for any confirmation, that the rumors were true:

Chris Holtmann, leaving Butler?

This was Thursday night. Well, no, this was Friday morning. Early Friday morning. While Neese was hanging 25 points and 10 rebounds on the Junior All-Stars in Plainfield, the news was breaking around the country:

Holtmann, Ohio State in serious talks.

More:Doyel: This is how hard it was for Chris Holtmann to leave Butler

Jack Nunge is over there just sleeping away, the 6-10 Iowa recruit from Castle getting some much-deserved shut-eye after putting up 28 points and 13 rebounds on the juniors. Cooper Neese is scrolling through Twitter, hitting the refresh button again. And again. And again.

“Every 10 seconds,” he says. “I was kind of flipping out a little bit.”

The last time he noticed the time, it was about 3 a.m. At some point Neese drifted off to sleep, but he popped awake at 5:30 a.m. and went back to his phone. There was the news. Holtmann was gone. A few hours later the phone rang. It was Chris Holtmann.

“He was really genuine about it,” Neese says. “Nice as he could be.”

Understand: Cooper isn’t mad at Holtmann. Nor is he feeling sorry for himself. He’s talking about one of the best basketball days of his life morphing into one of the worst, but only because I’m asking him about it. And we’re talking after the Indiana-Kentucky All-Star game on Saturday night, less than 40 hours after the Holtmann news broke.

And Cooper Neese has just played a bad game.

Well, he has. And it happens. Two nights after scoring 25 against superior talent – the Indiana juniors are better than the Kentucky seniors – Neese scores two points in the Indiana All-Stars' 94-89 win. This sweet shooter, one of the best in the national class of 2017, is 1-for-5 from the floor. Takes two free throws. Misses both.

In one second-half sequence, he bobbles the ball out of bounds twice, sandwiching those turnovers around a missed layup. On the court he is closing his eyes and shaking his head.

In the locker room a half-hour later, I’m asking him: Was it the Holtmann news?

And he’s saying: No.

“I wouldn’t use that as an excuse,” he says. “My only thing is blaming myself. I got stiff coming off the bench, which is something I’ve got to get used to (in college). So, no, not really an excuse. Just being not ready to get in, not ready to play.”

* * *

Cooper Neese hung up with Chris Holtmann and called his mom.

“Mom,” he said, “let’s talk about it.”

When the All-Stars broke for lunch on Friday, Lisa Roeder picked up her son outside his Marian dorm, drove him to Taco Bell, got him a caramel apple empanada and a Coke. She asked a question:

“How are you doing?”

And man did she love the answer he gave.

“Mom, I’m OK,” Cooper told her. “I worked four years for this. I’ve worked really hard to get to the Indiana All-Stars. I’m just not gonna think about it. I just want to focus on what I worked four years for.”

Earlier in the week, Neese had tweeted out a seven-second video of himself after practice at Marian. He’s walking off the corner of the court but a ball is bouncing toward him so he grabs it, way out of bounds, and turns and shoots a 45-footer. Without watching the result, he turns back around and heads out of the gym, pounding his chest after he hears the ball go into the basket behind him.

That was Wednesday. A few hours earlier, Neese had retweeted some smack talk by Indiana Junior All-Star Aaron Henry, a 6-5 wing from Ben Davis. Henry has since deleted his tweet, but whatever he said about the senior All-Stars – whom the Juniors had beaten 122-110 on Tuesday night – Neese retweeted it with one word:

Thursday.

Then on Thursday, Neese had those 25 points and 10 rebounds. Plus four assists and four steals. The seniors won 134-92.

“I saw that tweet from Cooper – Thursday – and I just knew,” says the Cloverdale coach, Rady. “I saw a bounce in his step in warmups and I looked at my dad and said: ‘Cooper’s gonna have a big game and the senior All-Stars are gonna drill ‘em.’ I said something to Cooper about it after the game, and he just smiled. I think one of his best attributes is his mental toughness.”

Well, yes. He averaged 27.2 points and 9.5 rebounds this season with six stress fractures in his back. Yes, six. He tore the meniscus in his right knee during a sectional game against North Putnam, then averaged 19 ppg and 10.5 rpg in the final two games of his high school career.

Then had knee surgery.

More:Cooper Neese lit it up for Cloverdale despite back, knee injuries

And then this happened last week, a few days before the All-Star games: Neese stubbed his left foot on a door at his house. Playing on a broken toe, he had that 25-point game.

Neese will need to tap into that mental toughness when he gets to Butler and finds himself playing 180 miles west of the coach who recruited him, signed him, bonded with him. Well, Neese already has. These were his last words to me on Saturday night from Bankers Life:

“Butler always gets a good coach,” he was saying. “Butler is Butler, and that’s what I look forward to.”

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at facebook.com/gregg.doyel.