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Kevin Devaney Jr. • The Journal News •
January 27, 2008
LINDEN, N.J. - There was almost a
sense of shock on the Mount Vernon players' faces as they walked off the
court last night. A team that has made a habit of winning close games on
big stages of late had actually let one slip away.
The two-time Class AA state champions
let turnovers and defensive lapses spill into an unsettling 60-53 loss
to New Jersey state power Linden High School.
Before a raucous Linden crowd and a
television audience, the Knights were uncharacteristically careless with
the ball and got outhustled by a feisty Tigers team in the fourth
quarter.
"We weren't particularly effective
down the stretch," Mount Vernon coach Bob Cimmino said. "We talk about
making plays, and we didn't make very many good ones in the fourth
quarter."
Linden, the two-time Group IV state
champions, trailed the majority of the game before taking a 47-45 lead
with 2:35 to play. The Tigers then scored eight of the game's final 11
points.
The Knights (11-3) were coming off a
pair of dramatic fourth-quarter victories over two other New Jersey
teams. They rallied from 14 points down in the second half and beat
Paterson Catholic at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 14. At the Jersey
City Armory last Saturday, Mount Vernon won a nail-biter with Union as
Kevin Jones hit a game-winning jumper in the final seconds.
Jones, a senior headed to West
Virginia, had 18 points, 13 rebounds and six blocks against Linden, and
junior Sherrod Wright added 18 points. But the Knights had their
six-game winning streak broken.
"Our guys were well aware of the Mount
Vernon program," Linden coach Phil Colicchio said. "People have said to
me that we are the Mount Vernon of New Jersey. If we can be the Mount
Vernon of New Jersey, then we're doing something really special."
Linden (14-2) has two special players
in David Bruce and Desmond Wade. Bruce, a 6-foot-9 junior, had 14 points
and six rebounds, and Wade, a point guard headed to the University of
Houston, carried the Tigers in the fourth quarter.
Wade, a 5-10 senior, was quiet for the
first three quarters but scored 12 of his 21 points in the fourth,
including 6 for 6 from the line. He broke a 45-45 tie with a step-back
jumper from just inside the 3-point line.
Following one of Mount Vernon's eight
fourth-quarter turnovers, Wade sank a pair of foul shots to increase the
lead.
Jerelle Louis put Linden ahead by six
with a 3-pointer with 1:45 left, but Wright kept Mount Vernon alive with
a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession. Mount Vernon had the ball,
trailing 54-50, but Ketema Brooks was whistled for a charge, fouling the
senior point guard out of the game.
A pair of steals and transition
baskets for Linden in the final minutes sealed the victory.
"We lost our heads a little at the
end," Brooks said. "It's not like us to not be able to make plays at the
end, on offense or defense. We weren't playing as a whole on defense."
The Knights have to regroup quickly.
They host rivals White Plains on Tuesday and New Rochelle on Thursday,
before taking on Long Island Lutheran on Saturday.
"We have to realize that we're not a
good team - yet," Cimmino said.
"We have to get better. I thought we
brought our 'C' game against a very good team. The outcome is going to
be expected when you aren't hard and sharp on defense, and when you're
not good on offense. And there are no special teams in basketball.
"They gave us five pizza pies and a
couple of meatball heroes. That's the only good thing I'm going to take
out of this game." |
