December 29, 2021
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Jacksonville burned twice by 3-pointers at the buzzer, one that might have been late
HUNTSVILLE CITY CLASSIC
Tuesday’s scores
Spanish Fort 55, Jacksonville 52 (OT)
Sparkman 50, Oxford 33
Anniston 52, Bob Jones 38
Enterprise 70, Anniston 43
Wednesday’s games
Madison Academy vs. Jacksonville, 9 a.m. (Aux)
Mae Jemison vs. Oxford, 9 a.m. (Main)
Championship game: Sparkman vs. Grissom, 2 p.m.
HUNTSVILLE — Jacksonville’s frustration in the Huntsville City Classic continued Tuesday in the most gut-wrenching of ways.
The Golden Eagles dropped their second three-point game in less than 18 hours here when they lost to Spanish Fort 55-52 in overtime on a 3-pointer in a dark auxiliary gym that may or may not have beaten the buzzer.
Toros senior Kolby Horace hit the game-winner with a heave two steps behind the mid-court line. In real time, it sounded as if the horn went off before the guard launched the shot, but the officials signaled it good touching off widely differing degrees of emotion depending upon which side of the scorer’s table one sat.
Horace also hit a deep 3 with one second left in regulation to send the game into overtime and scored all 10 of the Toros’ points in the extra session.
“In my opinion, it was after, and I had several – several – people to say the same, I’ll just leave it at that,” Jacksonville coach Shane Morrow said. “But it shouldn’t have come to that, shouldn’t have mattered.”
EA Sports Today has seen the video on social media to confirm the horn. It is too close to call in real time, but slowing the replay shows the shot’s launch coming after the horn. When it went down, the Toros bench erupted in celebration, while the Golden Eagles raced onto the floor to express their displeasure.
When asked if the shot was before or after the buzzer, Spanish Fort coach Jimbo Tolbert said “the officials called it good” and that’s what he’ll stick with.
“The ball wound up in the hands of the guy we want it in,” Tolbert said. “I know it’s kind of clichéd to say, but every practice after practice is over he’ll work on that. It’s not a high-profile shot, but he works on it and he made it today.”
Horace said he hit a similar game-winner in a travel ball tournament as an eighth-grader that made it on ESPN. He finished this game with 35 points, going 14-of-23 from the field, 7-of-12 from 3-point range.
“I live for that; I’m really used to this,” he said. “The first 3, I knew my team needed a 3 so I had to step up and take part in that. For the last 3, there was four seconds left and I just had to try something. I did hear the buzzer go off, but at the same time if it goes in they’re going to count it, so …”
The Golden Eagles (8-4) definitely had their chances for it not to come down to a questionable buzzer beater. They led by five with less than 30 seconds left in regulation and three fouls to give. They also had 50 rebounds – twice as many as the Toros (11-5) – 19 on the offensive glass, but they also missed an inordinate number of layups. They did go 15-of-23 from the free throw line after being only 1-for-2 the night before.
But they hadn’t hit a 3-pointer in the game until Caden Johnson’s trey tied the game with seven seconds left in overtime and were only 1-for-16 behind the arc in the game. They also were only 18-of-52 from the field.
It was another loss with fewer than 55 points scored.
“I told the guys we’ve got to get it out running,” Morrow said. “At first I was thinking it’s just the new style and they’re trying to get used to it. At this point we’re two months into this. We’ve just got to get it done.
“It is frustrating and the biggest thing I hate for it is we had a lead in every game and gave it up. Some games we’ve held on. The frustrating part is we have to learn when we have that 5, 6, 7, 8, 10-point lead to run it out to 20 and finish people off and it doesn’t come down to an overtime shot, a 3-point shot.
“We’re still playing decent defense, because we’re holding people to 40, 50 points, but we’re not turning people over like we’re supposed to.”
Cade Phillips led Jacksonville with 18 points, 10 rebounds and four blocked shots. Caden Johnson had 12 points and nine boards. Quin Long had 11 points, and John Broom had nine points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots.
The Golden Eagles will play Madison Academy Wednesday at 9 a.m. in the auxiliary gym opposite of Oxford’s matchup with Mae Jemison in the main gym.
SPARKMAN 50, OXFORD 33: The Yellow Jackets got the defense they wanted to hold a team that scored 93 points the day before, but just never got the offense necessary to match it.The combination turns them into an average team, as their 9-8 record bears.
Rylan Houck bounced back from a below-average opener with 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting from the floor, but he didn’t get nearly the touches he needed and the production of the guards who were so key to the Jackets’ opening-round win just wasn’t there this time.
They trailed 14-6 after the first quarter and scored only four points in the fourth. They held the Senators to 26 points in the first half and it was a six-point game at halftime, then Josh Price scored all eight of his points to open the third quarter and the lead stretched to 15.
“First of all, you’ve got to fight, you can’t give in, which I didn’t think we ever did,” Jackets coach Joel VanMeter said. “You hold Sparkman High School to 50 points, you can’t get beat 50-33. We’ll have spurts where we look really good and then we’ll have spurts where we’re so inconsistent. You’ve got to be better.
“In the first two quarters when we ran something, we got exactly what we wanted and made the shot. The rest of the time we either turned it over, couldn’t get in it, made a bad decision, whatever it may be. When I say frustrating, you don’t know the word.”
One of the bright spots in the loss was the continued improvement of freshman Jayden Lewis. He followed a nine-rebound game in the tournament opener with 10 points and seven boards against Sparkman.
“My plan lately has been dominate and take everything I can,” Lewis said.
The Yellow Jackets will play their third game of the tournament Wednesday at 9 a.m. against Mae Jemison, coached by former Oxford player and assistant coach Jeremy Bynum.
VanMeter said it will be a “fun game.”
“We are really proud of Coach Bynum,” VanMeter said. “We’ve known how good he is for a long time. It will be another great opportunity for us to play a quality opponent to prepare us for February.”
ANNISTON PLAYS TWO: The Bulldogs came to the second day of the Huntsville City Classic with a lot more passion than they displayed in their tournament opener and it showed.
They beat Bob Jones in the consolation bracket 52-38, then lost an elimination game to Enterprise 70-43.
How much better was the first-game effort than the night before? They held the Patriots to 24 percent shooting from the field, turned them over 16 times and had 11 blocked shots. They allowed just four points in the first quarter and 18 in the second half.
“The effort from the time it was go until the time the horn sounded was great,” Bulldogs coach Torry Brown said. “I don’t know if it’s just the first day of tournaments or whatever, but we had a little more pep in our step today than yesterday, that’s for sure … It was good to see we can block some shots at the rim.”
Javen Croft led the block party with eight. He had four in the final three minutes of the game, one that produced a thunderous dunk by Antonio Kite, a further example of the increased passion the Bulldogs brought over the night before.Croft also had eight rebounds to go along with four points.
“I felt good,” he said. “It was probably the bus ride that was messing with me, but I didn’t come with the effort yesterday so I had to make up for it. I had my defensive stops that made me proud. I had a good night’s sleep. I did some stretching in the locker room, loosened my muscles and went out there and did my thing.”
Kite led Anniston with 16 points, five assists and three steals. Jamarius Billingsley, their leading scoring the night before with just eight points, had 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting.
The second game didn’t go as well as the one earlier in the day. The Wildcats (13-3) attacked the basket and used good ball movement steadily stretch the lead.
Kite and Billingsley led the Anniston offense with 16 and 11, respectively. The Bulldogs (9-6) also got some good numbers from Talib Christian (seven points, six rebounds, four blocked shots) and Troy Hall (nine rebounds), but they really missed Croft, who aggravated his knee and played less than four minutes.
“We didn’t play our best, but I think we played well effort-wise, especially coming off a three-hour rest and they had that extra hour and a half, two hours and that makes a difference,” Brown said. “Obviously, if this was our first game of the day we could have given a better fight, but given the situation I’m not disappointed in the effort. It was there.”
Despite the split results, Brown said his team “got better today.”
“Yesterday we probably took a step backward, but today we got better,” he said. “And that’s what it’s really about.” [**read more]
**When you click read more you will be taken to the EA Sports Today website. Please make sure to come back to read more Calhoun County News.
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