The unofficial online home for fans of the Kent State University Golden Flashes. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

With the current state of the NBA and college basketball it seems extremely fair to say that the easiest way to get into the NBA or college basketball is to grow up as the son of someone that played there. So with that in mind, I figured it would be a good to start a thread about the next generation (sons and nephews) of former flashes. These are the ones that I'm aware of feel free to add to the list.

Jalen Sullinger This is the obvious one. Son of J.J, and nephew of former flash turned current assistant Julian. The rest of this year and the next two years should be really fun to watch Jalen grow. Seems like he will be a focal point of the team next year and with Gio going down, have an increased role the rest of the way. If he doesn't move into the starting lineup MAC 6th man of the year seems like a real possibility.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pla...ger-1.html

Jayden Quaintance 6'9" 210 lbs. HS Sophomore son of KSU great Q. We're on his offer list, but so are some much bigger name schools like Baylor, Cincy, Oregon, and Pitt. Likely a pipe dream that he'd come here (at least right out of school) but it will still be fun to follow his career. If he's anything like his dad he'll be extremely fun to watch.
https://247sports.com/Player/Jayden-Quai...-46131379/

John Whorton Jr 6'7" 205 lbs. St V's Sophomore, son of the late great John Whorton. Not much on the internet about him playing but St V's is a very good team so I imagine there's not a ton of minutes for Sophomores. For what it's worth, he's the only class of 2025 player that appears on St V's RealGM page. So definitely a name to watch the next two years.
https://basketball.realgm.com/highschool...igh-School

Meechie Johnson Jr Son of former flash Demetrius Johnson. High ranked recruit a couple years ago. Graduated early to enroll at OSU in midseason in the covid year because it wouldn't count against his eligibility. In his 1.5 years at OSU he didn't do very much. Transferred to South Carolina this year where he's their second leading scorer but is doing it very inefficiently (47.8 true shooting %. For comparison, on Kent only Rollins and Jacobs have lower TS% than that this year). South Carolina as a whole shoots under 40% and is 8-15. Will be interesting to see if he sticks around or looks for a new home for his final two seasons.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pla...njr-1.html

Sonny Johnson Jr Son of former OU star Sonny Johnson and nephew of former flash Demetrius. At one point it looked like there would be a future PG battle in the Big 10 between Meechie Jr and Sonny Jr as Sonny first committed to Penn State. I believe he had a serious knee injury in HS that contributed to him winding up at Detroit. Hasn't played this year as a freshman so I assume he's redshirting. We had offered him.
https://detroittitans.com/sports/mens-ba...hnson/5970

Marcus Johnson Younger brother of Sonny Jr. Freshman at Garfield Heights. Making headlines on their varsity team already... and dunking... as a 6'1" HS freshman... Seems like most expect him to be the best of the next generation of Johnson's. Likely a high major recruit.
https://247sports.com/Player/Marcus-Johnson-46138675/

Those are the ones I know of, or at least remember right now.

(02-06-2023 11:00 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  With the current state of the NBA and college basketball it seems extremely fair to say that the easiest way to get into the NBA or college basketball is to grow up as the son of someone that played there. So with that in mind, I figured it would be a good to start a thread about the next generation (sons and nephews) of former flashes. These are the ones that I'm aware of feel free to add to the list.

Jalen Sullinger This is the obvious one. Son of J.J, and nephew of former flash turned current assistant Julian. The rest of this year and the next two years should be really fun to watch Jalen grow. Seems like he will be a focal point of the team next year and with Gio going down, have an increased role the rest of the way. If he doesn't move into the starting lineup MAC 6th man of the year seems like a real possibility.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pla...ger-1.html

Jayden Quaintance 6'9" 210 lbs. HS Sophomore son of KSU great Q. We're on his offer list, but so are some much bigger name schools like Baylor, Cincy, Oregon, and Pitt. Likely a pipe dream that he'd come here (at least right out of school) but it will still be fun to follow his career. If he's anything like his dad he'll be extremely fun to watch.
https://247sports.com/Player/Jayden-Quai...-46131379/

John Whorton Jr 6'7" 205 lbs. St V's Sophomore, son of the late great John Whorton. Not much on the internet about him playing but St V's is a very good team so I imagine there's not a ton of minutes for Sophomores. For what it's worth, he's the only class of 2025 player that appears on St V's RealGM page. So definitely a name to watch the next two years.
https://basketball.realgm.com/highschool...igh-School

Meechie Johnson Jr Son of former flash Demetrius Johnson. High ranked recruit a couple years ago. Graduated early to enroll at OSU in midseason in the covid year because it wouldn't count against his eligibility. In his 1.5 years at OSU he didn't do very much. Transferred to South Carolina this year where he's their second leading scorer but is doing it very inefficiently (47.8 true shooting %. For comparison, on Kent only Rollins and Jacobs have lower TS% than that this year). South Carolina as a whole shoots under 40% and is 8-15. Will be interesting to see if he sticks around or looks for a new home for his final two seasons.
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pla...njr-1.html

Sonny Johnson Jr Son of former OU star Sonny Johnson and nephew of former flash Demetrius. At one point it looked like there would be a future PG battle in the Big 10 between Meechie Jr and Sonny Jr as Sonny first committed to Penn State. I believe he had a serious knee injury in HS that contributed to him winding up at Detroit. Hasn't played this year as a freshman so I assume he's redshirting. We had offered him.
https://detroittitans.com/sports/mens-ba...hnson/5970

Marcus Johnson Younger brother of Sonny Jr. Freshman at Garfield Heights. Making headlines on their varsity team already... and dunking... as a 6'1" HS freshman... Seems like most expect him to be the best of the next generation of Johnson's. Likely a high major recruit.
https://247sports.com/Player/Marcus-Johnson-46138675/

Those are the ones I know of, or at least remember right now.

Nice work and thank you for compiling this! Jalen is a cold blooded killer scoring the ball and a fine young man (all of the Sullinger’s are really good people). Q’s boy has the 2” more than pops. If Q had that he might have been in the NBA. Hope he has his Dad’s motor.

Good luck to all these young bucks!

Awesome job, anti-zip. Great reading. Antonio Gates, Jr. is a red shirt freshman WR at Michigan State, the same school that was his dad's first stop. He's 6'1" tall.

Last night I was thinking of a cool tee-shirt idea:
Sullinger: The Next Generation

I gotta believe one or more of Deandre Haynes sons will be a stud. I remember the year he coached here his son was always around the guys and bench area during games. Here's an article from the fall on Deandre Sr..

https://marquettewire.org/4085373/sports...the-court/

(02-07-2023 01:00 PM)ksu315 Wrote:  I gotta believe one or more of Deandre Haynes sons will be a stud. I remember the year he coached here his son was always around the guys and bench area during games. Here's an article from the fall on Deandre Sr..

https://marquettewire.org/4085373/sports...the-court/

That, my friends, is the good stuff!

(02-07-2023 08:20 AM)Muskrat Wrote:  Awesome job, anti-zip. Great reading. Antonio Gates, Jr. is a red shirt freshman WR at Michigan State, the same school that was his dad's first stop. He's 6'1" tall.

Ah I knew I was missing at least one fairly notable one. Definitely going to be interested to see how he does.

I wonder how many father-son combinations played basketball at Kent State. Off the top of my head I can only think of Roger Evans.

(02-07-2023 08:54 AM)AlphaFlash Wrote:  Last night I was thinking of a cool tee-shirt idea:
Sullinger: The Next Generation

Can it also say "Better, Faster, Smaller"?

Replace better with shorter shorts

My son played against Whorton's Ohio Basketball Club today out in Phoenix (Session 1 of the Under Armour season). They got us pretty good (we are very undersized). I was very underwhelmed with him. A kid that size should have feasted on us. As a side note, my boy didn't do much today (3 pts.) so he was probably pretty underwhelmed too. My kid doesn't make excuses (sometimes his dad does), but it might have had something to do with them scouting us last night when Grayson dropped 6 three pointers on a team from NJ.

No catches in week 1 but appears to have a role in the offense.

https://spartanswire.usatoday.com/lists/...stock-now/

Ironic, he’s a WR and had no catches but did good blocking, while dad was a TE with many catches and wasn’t good at blocking.

A fairly notable tournament matchup for us today. Garfield Heights and 6'9" Kent recruit DeAndre Jones facing SVSM and 6'9" John Whorton Jr. It's tough to get recaps and box scores anymore, but I saw Whorton had 26 in an earlier tournament game.

Not totally relevant to this thread, but also today Nichols is going to be going head to head with a Miami of Ohio recruit.

(03-09-2024 10:21 AM)anti-zip Wrote:  Not totally relevant to this thread, but also today Nichols is going to be going head to head with a Miami of Ohio recruit.

I went to the Hoban vs. Brecksville game this afternoon. Hoban’s Nichol’s played a great game with about 20 pts and a sharp floor game. He is a big strong young man who is very polished. Hit 3-4 deep 3’s all when he should have. Looks like he’s 23-24 years old. He is a man!

Miami’s recruit (Brecksville’s Luke Skaljak) is a fine player as well. Very quick and an excellent point guard in his own right. One of the best shooters in state (had around 28 pts). Incredible range and a quick left handed release.

Nichole and Skaljak guarded each other some of the time. I’d call it a stand-off.

Both schools seem to be getting excellent point guards for next season!

I should have mentioned that Hoban won on a baseline 8 footer at the buzzer. Hoban rebounded a Nichols shot and another Hoban player snared the long rebound and put it back in. This was the District Final. Defending D1 state champ Hoban moved on to the Regional

Here's the Hoban buzzer beater of Nichol's miss. I haven't seen Nichols in person but from the videos I've seen I agree that he doesn't not look a HS kid.

https://twitter.com/HobanBasketball/stat...gr%5Etweet

I haven't seen any stats from the Garfield Heights SVSM game yet but it looks like Garfield Heights won by 12. Not an embarrassing score from SVSM's perspective considering GH might be the best team in the state.

(03-09-2024 06:13 PM)anti-zip Wrote:  Here's the Hoban buzzer beater of Nichol's miss. I haven't seen Nichols in person but from the videos I've seen I agree that he doesn't not look a HS kid.

https://twitter.com/HobanBasketball/stat...gr%5Etweet

I haven't seen any stats from the Garfield Heights SVSM game yet but it looks like Garfield Heights won by 12. Not an embarrassing score from SVSM's perspective considering GH might be the best team in the state.

Not sure Nichols is a PG ... but he does seem to have 'game.'

Sounds like Nichols and Jones will face each other at the JAR on Wednesday.