Sunday,
February 23, 2014
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Alphonso Gee lining up the buzzer-beating 3-pointer that gave Kennedy a last second, 38-36 win over Hawthorne Christian in the semifinals of the Passaic County Tournament on Saturday. |
PATERSON – Sometimes it is best to just set the scene and let the player himself tell the story of what happened. So here we go...
Kennedy, playing on its own home floor, was trailing by one point with seven seconds left to go in the Passaic County Tournament semifinals against third-seeded and undefeated Hawthorne Christian Academy. The Defenders had just missed the front end of a one-and-one and Kennedy's Charles Powell had grabbed the rebound and called a timeout. That gave the Knights the ball under their own basket and one more chance to win a game that they had trailed in for all but 58 seconds.
Kennedy's Alphonso Gee picks up the story from there.
“They set a screen for me to be able to get the ball and as soon as I got it I knew I had an opening to go. I was one-on-one with a defender and I know no one can guard me. If they stayed with one defender that I was going to go right past him,” said Gee, who pushed the ball up the left hand side of the court before running into a second defender trying to set a trap. “I knew they were going to try to trap me, but they left me enough room and I have range on my shot. I just pulled up and as soon as it left my fingertips I knew it was going in.”
Gee was on the left wing and just inside the sideline when he pulled up and the shot did go in, right through the middle of the hoop just as the buzzer sounded and the do-or-die shot gave Kennedy an improbable 38-36 victory. The Knights will play top-seeded and cross-town rival Eastside in next Saturday's county final.
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Alex Thomas scored 15 points for Hawthorne Christian, which was undefeated coming into the game. |
“Seven seconds is an eternity in a basketball game and we had enough time. The one thing I did not want [Gee] to do was to be going towards the baseline when he caught the ball. I wanted him to come off the screen and then just move the ball up the floor,” said Kennedy head coach Jim Ring. “When I saw him turn the corner and there was nobody there, I knew he was going to pull up. I have seen him make that shot 100 times in practice and he did it here.”
Other than keeping Gee from getting the ball in the first place, there really wasn't much that Hawthorne Christian could have done differently. The Defenders had six team fouls, so they could body Gee without putting him on the line and the last shot did come from long distance and from the middle of a double team.
“We wanted the ball out of Gee's hands. Our timeout was about making someone else beat us besides Gee. But when he got it we had what we wanted. As soon as he crossed the volleyball line our best defender, Jake [Hart], went out to double. We actually knocked him off balance and he hit a fade-away 3. He's a great player and he made a great shot.” said Hawthorne Christian head coach Kevin Standford. “I don't think I would have done anything different. A kid like that is going to get a shot and he was off balance fading away.”
It was almost like Hawthorne Christian got everything it wanted except the win. The pace of place was obviously in its favor, the Defenders stayed out of foul trouble, which allowed all five its starters to play the full 32 minutes and they spent just about the whole game playing with a lead. Kennedy only scored three first quarter points and the game-opening 3-pointer by Gee gave Kennedy its only lead of the first half. Kennedy got to the free throw line just twice in the game and made just one, while HCA shot 14 free throws and made 8. Alex Thomas, HCA's 6-foot-8 senior center, had his way inside as he had 9 rebounds and 6 blocked shots in the first half alone and the Defenders led 20-14 at halftime.
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Jevon Rawls and Kennedy will play crosstown rival Eastside in next week's Passaic County final. |
There was only one stretch in the game when Kennedy was able to speed things up and that came early in the third quarter. After Thomas made a free throw to open the second half scoring and give HCA its largest lead of the game, Kennedy responded with a 9-0 spurt that resulted in its second lead of the game. Khadir Lindsey had a steal, an assists and his only two baskets of the game came in the span of just one minute and Gee hit a 3 from the wing to give the Knights a 23-21 lead that lasted for all of 15 seconds.
Thomas hit a foul line jumper to tie the score at 23 and there were two more ties in the third quarter, which ended in a 27-27 stalemate. A 3-pointer by Javon Rawls forged the last tie of the game at 32 before Hart hit one of two free throws to give HCA a one-point advantage with 4:37 remaining and the scored stayed that way for the next 3:20 until Thomas scored off a lob by Chris Aust to made it 35-32 lead with 1:17 left.
It looked it was going to be the Defenders' day when Kennedy was called for an illegal screen that cost it a possession with 41 seconds left and Thomas made the front end of a one-and-one to make it a two-possession game with 18 seconds left. Had it not been the for the 3-pointer that Gee hit with 10 seconds to go, his next one might just have been window dressing, but when HCA missed its next free throw with 8 seconds left, the stage was set of Gee's heroics. And boy did he steal the show.
“This was a really tough game, one of the toughest that I have ever played in,” said Gee. “Hawthorne [Christian} was good, they were very disciplined and that made it hard for us, but when the last shot went up I was just thinking, “God, let it go in.” And it did.”
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Senior Chris Aust and the rest of the HCA starter all played the full 32 minutes. |
Gee was almost a one man show in the offensive end for Kennedy. He scored 15 of his game-high 16 points from behind the arc and two of those 3-pointers came in the final 1o seconds of the game. No other Knight made more than two field goals and none even attempted a free throw. Aalim Jones, Muhammad Mustahim, Powell and Lindsey all finished with 4 points and Rawls had the other 3 for Kennedy. Thomas scored a team-high 15 for HCA and finished just two blocked shy of a triple double as he pulled down 15 rebounds. Aust scored 8 of his 10 points in the first half, Hart finished with 8 and AJ Newell had the other 3 points for the Defenders (21-1), who made made it all the way to late February before losing their first game of the season.
“I couldn't be more proud of them even if they won. They did everything we asked, they stuck to the game plan. Kennedy turns teams over and we knew we were going to make some mistakes, but we weathered the storm even when we went from a seven-point to behind by two in little more than a minute,” said Standford. “I am sure all of the guys are going to think about something they did during the game that might not have worked out the way we wanted, but I am going to try to remind them of all of the good things that they did.”
The good thing that Kennedy did was win the game and Ring has some advice for those hoping to see next Saturday's all-Paterson public school final.
“Buy your ticket and get there early,” said Ring. “Because they will be closing the doors.”
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