We have another frenetic 1st 9-10 minutes of the game against St. Joseph's. We can't stop them from scoring, but they aren't stopping us either. 25-25 with 11 minutes to go as my starters rest. Hannan already has 11. However, they have Clifford in serious foul trouble.
Their bench dominates our bench over the next 6 minutes. Down 42-29.
Simmons responds with 2 3's in a row to cut it to 42-35 before they work it inside to draw a foul on Hannan. Simmons scores our next 3 points on a 12 foot jumper and a foul in the paint.
We end up being down 46-38 at the half. They are shooting an astonishing 62%, the highest any team has shot on us this year.
Their SF is abusing Hannan and is the leading scorer. He has hit jumpers, driven inside a few times, and had 2 monstrous dunks with the foul. Bowden has 15 points on 5 of 6 shooting and 5 of 6 from the line.
Simmons is leading our team in scoring with 12 points and in assists with 6 at the half. He is shooting 4 of 6, 3 of 4 from the arc, and 1 of 2 from the line. Hannan is ice cold after a quick start. He still has 11 points.
Our starters cut it to 60-54 but they exhaust themselves in the process. 10:40 to go in the game.
Great effort by our bench has us within 3 with 6 minutes to go! 70-67. Waters and Bowers were both excellent during that stretch.
Gill with a fastbreak dunk on a long rebound followed by another rebound.. a quick long pass from Simmons to Gill for a layup and the foul!!!
Gill makes the FT to put us up 72-70
We hit a FT on our next possession, but then they hit a 3 to tie it at 73.
Our next possession, Simmons blows by his man and gets fouled in the lane. He makes both FT's. 3:44 left.
After they hit a 3 to give them a 1 point lead, we go to Cornette in the post who hits a 5 foot fadeaway. 77-76, we lead. They miss the 3, and Cornette with a long pass to Gill who spins past his man and gets the breakaway dunk!
We exchange missed shots, but on the rebound, Cornette finds Simmons whose crossover around midcourt fakes out his man.. he drives into the lane and draws Hannan's defender and passes it to Hannan for a perfect alley-oop dunk! 81-76.
They miss a 3. 1:25 to go. Hannan misses a 3, but we used over 30 seconds. They miss a quick 3 as Hannan had good defense on their SF. Cornette gets the board, is fouled, and makes both FT's.
They make a quick 3, and then Simmons only makes 1 of 2 FT's. They miss the next quick 3, but get a putback tip. 84-81 with 24 seconds left.
Crud! They get a 10 second violation as I kept expecting the foul and never broke their traps quick enough.
They miss the 3 and Simmons goes way up for the board on the inside! This time he makes both FT's to give us the 5 point lead.
They hit another quick 3 to keep it alive. Simmons misses the first FT.. but makes the 2nd. 87-84 with 2.2 seconds left.
They miss the 3 from half court. We pull off the upset!!
Simmons is the player of the game with 23 points, 11 assists, 2 boards, 1 steal, and only 3 turnovers. He shot 6 of 11, 4 of 6, and 7 of 10.
Gill with 13 points, 4 assists, and a steal.
Hannan with 19 points, 3 boards, 1 assist, and 1 steal. He shot 7 of 16, 4 of 11, and 1 of 2.
Cornette with 11 points, 9 boards, 2 assists, and 2 steals. He shot 4 of 5, 1 of 1, and 2 of 2.
Clifford with 2 points and 9 boards.
Waters with 6 points and 3 assists. Bowers with 8 points.
Once we started doubling their star SF he only had 6 more points. He finished with 21 points, 4 boards, 4 assists, and 1 steal to lead their team. Simmons held their smaller PG to 5 of 18 shooting which was the key in our victory, as he was one of the top 3 point shooters in the country coming into the game.
They ended up shooting exactly 50% from the field for the game. We shot 48% from the field.