Golly gee! let's ALL give akaGlazed a hand! He predicted this matchup from the start! YAY!!!!!!
onto the games......
Game 1 PC vs WC - VERY poor first half for both teams offensively. Low scoring. Looked like two heavyweights sizing each other up for the 1st few rounds of a title fight. But this wasn't a sign of things to come as things got MUCH more exciting in the 2nd half. PC came out guns ablazing in the 3rd and Mercer had several baskets in transition. PC was up 14 and #33 for WC hits a 3 from the corner at the buzzer to cut the lead to 11. PC came out stalling the ball in the 4th and WC forced some turnovers. Rice converted 3 straight 3 pointers and the lead was cut to 2 with 5:00 to go. It had all the makings of a TOTAL COLAPSE by PC. Sound familiar?? WC had the lead by 1 with less than 2 mins to go...Rice (or aka "daddys boy" as the PC fans showed so much class in calling him) gets in trouble, tries to call TO but the refs signal jump ball to PC...Rhodes misses a 3 (he was off all night) rebounds goes long back to Rhodes, and he banks in the 3 ball w/ the AND1. Biggest shot of the night....after a couple of traded FTs and a miss at the line by Rhodes WC is down 2 with the ball. 15 secs. Rice head fakes, tries to draw foul from Tucker who was defending him, Tucker flops, Rice passes off the last shot to #12 who proceed to brick a 3 (which he did at least a dozen times during the game)...game over PC wins by 2. THEN the most entertaining part of the night when Coach Willard of WC chased the refs off the court for the non call on the last play.
Game 2 S-Town vs MP - MP gets off to poor luck in the 1st half as clifton got 2 quick fouls on Princeton Harlan. I thought S-town basically controlled the game entirely with Clifton making play after play after play (showing why he should EASILY be the Region MVP). MP tried to make a run in the 4th when Princeton was finally able to get back on the court. they fed the ball down low and he was simply unstoppable. MP couldn't make a FT or make a shot outside of 18 ft...Princeton DID have the highlight play of the game with a flat footed FEROCIOUS two handed jam on a miss in the paint over a couple of defenders!!