By Ryan Minkrmink@digitalsports.comDeMatha boys basketball coach
Mike Jones put the ball in
Jerian Grant’s hands with 9.9 seconds left and the WCAC title on the line.
At that point, Grant had to make a decision.
Was he going to shoot or was he going to pass?
Grant’s decision to pass, finding senior
Naji Hibbert wide open underneath the basket for the game-winning layup with 1.8 seconds remaining, gave DeMatha a 62-61 win over Gonzaga Thursday night at a jammed-packed American University.
It’s the Stags’ fourth WCAC title in the past five years after Gonzaga captured the conference crown last season. DeMatha (28-3) came out on top in its final two meetings with the Eagles and won 13 straight games to close out the season.
While Hibbert will go down as getting the game-winning layup, it was Grant’s pass that Jones called the play of the game.
“That might be the best basketball play a young man in high school could ever make because he did not take the shot,” Jones said. “It’s not Naji’s finish, even though that was unbelievable. He went up strong. It was the fact that Jerian was able to deliver that ball.”
Grant inbounded the ball and immediately got it back in his hands. Although Grant has not been DeMatha’s standout player this season, he proved in the WCAC semifinals against McNamara that he is the go-to player as he hit the eventual game-winning layup in the final seconds.
Grant (10 points) dribbled past midcourt and had all five Gonzaga defenders approach him. The junior guard rose up and found Hibbert (11 points) open along the baseline.
Hibbert did a nice job corralling the pass and rose up to lay it in with
Malcolm Lemmons bearing down on him and
Ian Hummer (game-high 18 points) just below.
“It was the toughest shot of my life,” Hibbert said. “I saw them coming. I just finished.”
DeMatha and Gonzaga went back-and-forth throughout the first half with neither taking more than a four-point lead.
Eagles senior guard
Cedrick Lindsay (17 points) exploded with 14 points in the third quarter, giving Gonzaga a six-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
DeMatha hung around until Grant tied the game at 56 with a driving layup with two minutes, 36 seconds remaining. Gonzaga retook the lead on a Hummer free throw before DeMatha freshman
James Robinson hit a jumper with 1:33.
Hummer nailed another two free-throws with 1:18 left but Robinson gave the Stags the lead again with a jumper from the free throw line with 23 seconds remaining.
None of the plays were designed for Robinson, but he found the ball anyway. Robinson said he wasn’t nervous to take the shots.
“Every day in practice Coach Jones has me working on those so it’s pretty natural when it’s game time,” Robinson said.
The next play was perhaps the craziest of a nutty night. After DeMatha senior
Marcus Rouse missed the front end of a 1-and-1,
Victor Oladipo stole a
Tyler Thornton (14 points) pass up the sideline. Thornton stole Oladipo’s pass and tapped a pass to Lemmons for a go-ahead layup with 9.9 seconds left.
But just when it seemed that Gonzaga might repeat as WCAC champions, the Stags landed the final punch.
“I could not be proud of all of our guys, every single one of them,” Jones said. “It goes to show what a team can do when they all come together and buy into what we’re doing.”