Fri Feb 10 2012
It came down to coaching.
That was the difference with Kent State pulling out a 75-74 victory against Tulsa in the opening round of the NIT.
“We were in big trouble,” said Kent State head coach Geno Ford. “They are a bigger team in size, play in a better conference (C-USA) and are a solid team.
“I love this team, our kids are so tough,” Ford said. “They have bounced back from adversity. I’ve said all year that we handle adversity better than success. We found a way to beat a team I have a lot of respect for.
“Even though we won 24 games, won our conference, we played our worse game of the year against Ohio University in the MAC Tournament,” Ford said.
With the game going back and forth with a one-point advantage, strategy became the ultimate commodity.
Ford had to balance his defense and offense on the floor in the last three minutes because of foul trouble.
His defensive unit included Brandon Parks at center, Anthony Simpson at forward, along with Frank Henry-Ala and guards Rodriguez Sherman and Tyree Evans.
On offense Ford put Chris Singletary and Justin Greene in for Parks and Evans.
It allowed Kent State to trade buckets with Tulsa, creating a see-saw battle that was well worth the admission.
Starting at 3:51 when Sherman put in two foul shots for a 69-68 advantage and Ford started his platooning.
Tulsa made a basket on a dunk by Joe Richard. It took several empty possessions before a Simpson dunk put KSU up 71-70 at 1:48. Tulsa responded with a jumper by Ben Uzoh.
Ford called a play for Singletary. The senior offered a fake, then drove down the lane and made a layup.
“I just lowered my head and drove to the bucket,” said Singletary. Tulsa’s last score came with 42 seconds remaining on a jumper by Justin Hurtt (22 points) for a 74-73 lead.
Kent State then ran the clock down to under 25 seconds with the ball in the hands of Sherman. The junior guard drove the lane, made the layup and gave the Flashes the lead with 14 ticks left on the clock.
“Beacuse of foul trouble, I had to platoon,” said Ford. “As it worked out, it was the smartest thing to do. On the last play of the game, we wanted to trap and force them to take a jumper and not put the ball in the hands of their 7-foot center Jerome Jordan (23 points). He’s a pro prospect. We wanted the biggest team possible to get the rebound.”
As it turned out, the strategy worked as Uzoh took an off-balanced shot and the rebound came to Greene as the buzzer sounded.
“We shot better, had more rebounds and scored 39 points in the final half,” said Tulsa head coach Doug Wojcik. “We just didn’t make the stops. They scored 47 points in the second half.”
The difference? Geno Ford.
He had to battle a poor shooting first half, where his team shot 32 percent and were 1-for-10 from 3-point range.
In the second half, the team hit 6-for-13 on 3-pointers. Evans broke open the game with a eight-point spurt by hitting a trey, a jumper and another trey. It was his first points in two games.
It was also Ford’s offensive design to have a balanced attack. Against Tulsa, there were six players in double figures.
As the players said after the game, “We wanted another chance to play for our fans.”
Indeed they did.
•••
Contact Don Dreger at ddreger@recordpub.com
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