February
19, 2006
 |
 |
 |
| James Bryant provided the spark off the bench that St. Joseph used to put away Old Tappan in the second quarter of Saturday Jambo semifinal. | |
HACKENSACK -- James Bryant could easily be a starter on any high school boys basketball team in Bergen County. Bryant could easily be a starter for his own St. Joseph team, but he’s not. It may not make sense, but there is a method to the madness.
Bryant has become the super sixth man for the Green Knights, the guy who can ignite the team in many different ways. On Saturday night in the Bergen County Jamboree semifinals, he kick started the offense.
Scoring 11 of his 14 points in the final 3:56 of the first period, the senior turned a 5-3 deficit into a 15-11 lead before the Knights blew the game open at the start of the second half on the way to a 66-28 rout of Old Tappan at the Rothman Center on the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University.
 |
| Doug Parker led Old Tappan with nine points, all of them coming from behind the arc. |
Defending champion St. Joseph picked up its 20th win of the season and moves into the championship game for the third straight season. They will face Don Bosco, a 71-39 winner over Fort Lee, in a rematch of a regular season game won by Bosco, 53-49, last Thursday.
“I’m pleased with the kids’ effort and the way they responded from Thursday,” SJR head coach Mike Doherty said. “We were concerned coming in. We wanted to come out and play well.”
They accomplished that once Bryant entered the game. The senior, who played for Don Bosco as a sophomore before transferring to St. Patrick’s last year and then to St. Joseph this season, had missed three games with a foot injury suffered against Elmwood Park in the Round of 16.
“He’s been tremendous for us all year,” Doherty commented, “and we really weren’t sure what we were going to get from him. He gave us a tremendous jump start. We have him coming off the bench for that very reason, because he’s such a great weapon.”
 |
| SJR's Junior Galette had 13 points to go along with had six rebounds and two blocked shots. |
On his first shot, Bryant evened the game with a jumper, and after the Golden Knights had gone up 9-6, he drained back to back three-point field goal to put the Green Knights up for good at 12-9. He added a putback off a rebound and completed the three point play with 1.6 left in the first period.
“I don’t like losing,” Bryant said, “and when I came in I saw there was something I knew I could do and my teammates had trust in me.”
Taking on the less-than-glamorous job of sixth man has not seemed to faze him, in part because he is usually inserted into the game at the midway point of the first quarter.
“I comfortable with it,” Bryant said. “Coach told me that it’s a strategy thing, and I come in and I’m a spark off the bench. I just do what I have to do.”
St. Joe’s (20-2) extended its lead to 29-18 at halftime, then took off with a 15-0 run to open the second half. They hit 6 of 9 shots in the run, which was punctuated by Bryant’s third three ball of the game.
“We got the run that enabled us to get the game to a different element,” Doherty assessed.
 |
| Ryan Veselsky and the Old Tappan guards faced SJR's tough man-to-man pressure. |
OT’s Sam Hagopian hit two free throws with 3:32 on the clock to halt the string, but the Green Knights went on another 14-0 run that continued into the fourth quarter before Hagopian hit a jumper with 6:23 remaining.
The Golden Knights (18-3) did not have nearly the same success with their three-point shooting as they did in the quarterfinal defeat of Paramus Catholic, mainly because Joe’s did not give them freedom behind the arc. They not only played them from the line, but the contested the passing lanes and did not allow OT to cycle the ball to an open man.
“Our guards were being too aggressive early on,” Doherty remarked, “and that was actually working against us. We had better success when we got off them a little and tried to contain them.”
Doug Parker, who was 7 of 12 from three against PC, hit a trio of threes in the first half, but got only two shots off in the second half, finishing 3 of 6 behind the arc for a team-high 9 points.
“We were very conscious of not giving them open looks,” Doherty explained. “We talked about locating them quickly and eliminating the open looks for the shooters.”
 |
| Noruwa Agho had a team-high 17 for SJR and also had eight boards and two blocked shots. |
When they weren’t frustrating Old Tappan, the Green Knights were using their quick hands to force turnovers. The Golden Knights had 20 in all, and they made only 8 of 33 field goals (including 3 of 10 threes) and 9 of 16 free throws.
“I tell you what, I haven’t seen a defense like that in a long time, maybe ever,” OT head coach Dennis Rossi admitted. “We had an opportunity early on to get them into a position they weren’t comfortable with, but when you make mistakes and turn the ball over, they’re going to make you pay for it.”
The starting five for OT had a combined 17 points in the game, or 10 less than Parker had by himself against Paramus Catholic. They were outrebounded 34-13, with Hagopian’s 4 caroms topping the Golden Knights.
“They’re just a better team,” Rossi said. “I just feel bad that we didn’t give the people a better show.”
St. Joseph was 11 of 19 shooting in the 25-2 third quarter, part of a 27 of 53 performance (4 of 5 behind the arc). They were 8 of 14 at the free throw line, and 10 different players scored points. Noruwa Agho had a team-high 17 and Junior Galette added 13. Agho had 8 boards and 2 blocked shots while Galette had 6 rebounds and 2 blocks.
The Green Knights will now go for their fourth Jamboree title (1981, 1982, 2005), and for Bryant, there will be plenty of familiar faces on the floor.
“They’re all my friends,” he said of his former team, “but it would feel good to beat them.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
|
|
|
| About Us | Contact Us | Home |
Questions?
E-mail the editor editor@northjerseysports.com
All contents © copyright 2003-2006 HSSportsWeb.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
