Permission provided by the Cumberland Times-News
Kyle Bennett - kbennett@times-news.com
CUMBERLAND, MD — Potomac State shot the lights out, stretching a nine-point halftime lead out to as many as 23, and fended off a resilient Allegany comeback as the Catamounts collected an 87-79 victory at Bob Kirk Arena on Monday night in junior college men's basketball action.
Jordan Davis led the Catamounts with a game-high 19 points on 7 of 11 shooting, including 5 of 8 from beyond the three-point stripe. Potomac State had five players in double figures, with Cortney Walton gathering 14 points, Breland Walton tallying a double-double with 13 points and 13 rebounds, Qualeke Bush added 11 points and Keon Lewis tacked on 11 off the bench.
"We just came out and played with energy," said Potomac State head coach Neil Epstein. "We haven't played with that energy in a long time. From the first guy to the 13th guy, we just came ready to roll. It didn't matter who we got in there, everybody was hot, sharing the sugar. We always say if one person eats, we all eat."
The Trojans were led by Imhotep George's 17 points on 6 of 9 shooting, 2 of 6 from beyond the arc, and 2 of 5 from the free-throw line. Jalen Jacox added 15 points, O'Bray Rufus had 13 and Justin Copman 12.
Allegany was looking to avenge a three-point, 72-69 defeat to the Catamounts on Jan. 25 at Lough Gymnasium, but it was Potomac State once again fending off a late Trojan comeback on Monday night.
"We wanted to stop certain guys and last time we didn't stop their backup guys," Epstein said. "Just a much better defensive effort, and offensive effort."
The teams traded baskets early on before Allegany turned a 12-9 deficit into a 15-12 lead as Rufus sank a free throw, Jacox knocked down a jumper from the left elbow and George nailed a three-pointer that sent the Catamounts into a timeout at the 14:04 mark.
The lead changed hands eight more times before the Catamounts used an 8-0 run to take the lead for good. Trailing 28-25, Breland Walton made a pair of free throws to get within one before back-to-back 3-pointers from Cortney Walton and Davis, who made a step-back three to give PSC a permanent lead with 3:34 to play in the first half at 33-28.
The Trojans used a four-point run to get back within one, but Potomac State closed out the half on an 11-3 surge to hold a 44-35 advantage at the break.
"Just to keep up the intensity," Epstein said of what he told his team at halftime. "Our big thing is when we're up, we want to stay up and make sure they don't come back. I don't think they got within 10 until the end."
After Bush knocked down a pair of free throws, and Copman responded with a step-back jumper to open the second half, Davis got the Catamount offense rolling, getting a steal and a breakaway lay-in, followed by a Cortney Walton 3-pointer in the right corner to give PSC a 51-37 lead.
Seemingly every basket the Trojans scored, Potomac State would counter with a pair of buckets or a 3-pointer — E'Mari Johnson knocked down a pair of free throws at 15:54, but Bush responded with a deep three from the top of the arc. George hit a left corner three and a floater at 14:27 to get ACM back to within 10, but Davis answered with a 3-ball.
Jacox hit a 3-pointer at the left elbow to make the score 57-47 with 13:50 remaining, but Potomac State countered with a 16-3 run — Jacox had a 3-pointer sandwiched between a pair of 8-0 PSC runs, with the second streak putting the Catamounts ahead 73-52.
"Any time any team shoots it that well, it doesn't matter what you do, that team is winning the basketball game," said Allegany head coach Tommie Reams. "They hit 15 threes. And it's not like they were getting wide-open looks. Jordan Davis hit five huge threes, a couple of them contested, a couple of them 25, 27 feet from the rim.
"And it wasn't just that — it was the team three. We have our scout that shows a couple of the guys that were hitting threes against us are hitting 21, 25 percent on the season — they've only taken 30 threes — and they go 2 of 3. It's hard to beat any team that's shooting that well in chemistry, in unison. That was the big difference. They were able to extend there in the second half."
The teams went back-and-forth, but Allegany still found itself trailing by 23, 81-58, with under six minutes to play.
Jacox knocked down another 3-pointer at the 5:35 mark to jumpstart what would be an 18-3 run by the Trojans that spanned nearly five minutes. Allegany big man Max Barrett grabbed an offensive board and got the lay-in to convert, George sank a free throw and then got a layup to fall, putting Allegany back to within 15, 81-66. Potomac State's Cavonte Duncun hit a deep 3-pointer for his only points of the game to stop the initial run.
But it wasn't over for the Catamounts, and the Trojans continued to claw back into the game with a Barrett dunk after the Duncun three, a free throw by Barrett at 2:20, a pair of converted foul shots by Copman one second later after he grabbed the offensive board and was fouled on the putback attempt, a Copman lay-in at 1:46 that sent Potomac State into a timeout and a converted free throw from George at 1:32 and a pair of made freebies by Derrick Dixon with 41 seconds to play to made the score 84-76.
"I knew we had the ability to go on a run," said Reams. "We've shown that all season long that we've been able to claw, fight and get right back to go-mode. But, when you let a team get up that quickly that's that good of a basketball team, you're going to get beat. There late in the game, it was 81-71 maybe, 81-68, something like that, but I told them in the huddle if we hold them to under 85, we absolutely have a chance.
"It was 84-76, 84-78, whatever it was, so we got it down to a six-point game and I was like 'this is what we're talking about.' Those guys buying into team defense and not 'me' defense. Our offense just going free-flowing and using each other and not trying to go iso(lation) ball. Whenever we play like that, we have good talent collectively to run points up very quickly, but isolation basketball, everybody sees it on TV all the time, but it doesn't work at this level. So, guys really have to buy in to the system and believe in each other."
Allegany was forced to start fouling, as Cortney Walton made a pair of free throws to stop the run and put Potomac State back up by nine, 85-76, but George responded with a 3-pointer with 19 seconds left to get the Trojans within six.
After a missed PSC free throw, the Trojans had contested threes from Rufus and George miss the mark, and Breland Walton was able to sink a pair of foul shots to ice the game with less than two seconds to play.
While Allegany had a balanced scoring attack, its free-flowing offense saw players getting involved heavily in the offense during spurts of the game, with all of Rufus' 13 points coming in the first half, 14 of George's 17 occurring in the second half, and Barrett and Johnson adding seven and six points, respectively, after not reaching the scoresheet in the opening half. The charity stripe wasn't kind to the Trojans, either, as they shot 12 of 22 (54.5%) from the line while the Catamounts were 10 for 13 (76.9%).
"I thought we had some better matchups," said Reams of his team's second-half performance. "Rufus is a good player for us, but I thought at times tonight he was honestly passing up opportunities. I basically looked at our guys and was like if he's going to pass up shots, somebody else is going to take them.
"Tep George has been averaging I want to say 27 points per game in the month of February and we barely got him the ball in the first half, and I don't think that had anything to do with what Potomac State was doing. We were just missing him. I thought we missed open shooters a lot tonight, and in the second half, we started finding them. Jalen Jacox gets involved, Tep George gets involved, Derrick Dixon gets involved, Max Barrett gets involved, and all of a sudden we're able to fight back into this game. So it wasn't really anything Xs and Os-wise other than 'guys, feed the hot hand, know where shooters are, and trust each other.'"
The victory snaps a three-game losing streak for the Catamounts (17-7), who play Wednesday at Garrett and Saturday at home to Northern Virginia.
"We have two more games left before playoffs," said Epstein. "Our goal was to win the next three to have some momentum going into the Region XX tournament. This was Game 1, we have a game Wednesday and another Saturday, so we've got to win two more. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going, and the defensive effort going, and I think we should be all right."
"No silver linings," Reams said. "Before the game, we talked about the (Tyson) Fury-(Deontay) Wilder (boxing) fight. We talked about how Wilder, in his career, has always been the aggressor, and Fury was the aggressor the other night, and I said that's what we have to do. We have to come out, we have to be the guy fighting. We have to be the one putting them back on their heels. We didn't do that until about the 10-minute mark (in the second half). And once we started doing that, you could see Potomac State didn't really have an answer for us being the aggressor.
"It's kind of one of those moments where I'm hoping it mirrors that fight where we found something down the stretch that if we just play, if we're the aggressor, if we're always in attack mode, if we're always in 'we can handle any situation with confidence,' we're going to be fine. Our Xs and Os are there. You could see in the second half the basketball IQ and the instinct was there, where in the first half, they were kind of second-guessing themselves down the stretch, and that's where they went on that nine-point run. So, I wouldn't say a good loss, but hopefully we take this tough lesson and use it to better ourselves for our playoff push next weekend."
Allegany (10-20) hosts Harford on Saturday, 7 p.m., in the NJCAA Division I Region XX Tournament. The Trojans are the second-seed and Harford No. 3, with the winner moving on to face No. 1 Hagerstown on Sunday.
Kyle Bennett is a sports reporter for the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @KyleBennettCTN.