Hornets scrap for 42-37 win over Cabot
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the look back at each day in Bryant athletic history has been so favorably received during the time when there was no sports during the COVID-19 shutdown, BryantDaily.com will continue posting past stories of Bryant athletics either posted on BryantDaily.com (from 2009 to the present) or published in the Bryant Times (from 1998 to 2008).
By Rob Patrick
Photos by Kevin Nagle
If someone had told Bryant Hornets basketball coach Mike Abrahamson before Friday night’s game against the Cabot Panthers that,[more] through three quarters of the game, his top two scorers would be held to just 3 points between them, he might’ve wondered what predicament his team might be in.
“Not good,” he conjectured. “But I would’ve followed that up by saying, hopefully, other people are stepping up.”
As it turned out, they sure were.
Despite the fact that junior guards Jordan Griffin and Brantley Cozart had been held to just three free throws between them, the home-standing Hornets only trailed 25-24. And when the duo combined for 13 points down the stretch including some clutch play at the end, Bryant extracted a 42-37 win.
The victory added fuel to the Hornets’ hopes for a late run at the Class 7A State Tournament. They host three of their final four games, all next week, starting on Monday with Russellville.
“The first half was just a battle — the whole game was a battle, but that first half, 13-11, at halftime, that’s probably not the most entertaining game for the fans to watch,” Abrahamson stated. “But it was two teams playing extremely hard that didn’t want the other team to get anything. Second half, there was more scoring but it was the same type of game. Cabot’s a really good team, well-coached. I respect Coach (Jerry) Bridges a lot. It’s a really, good win.
“It wasn’t any one person,” he said. “It was a collective, group effort. Then our two guys (Cozart and Griffin) hit a couple of shots there at the end. They just stayed with it.”
It was a seesaw game for most of the second half. Cabot’s Darin Jones, who scored his team’s last 10 points in the game, had tied the game with a basket inside then, after a turnover, had converted two free throws to give his team a 37-35 lead with 2:31 left to play.
The Hornets, who hit four 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, tried to take the lead with a long jumper by senior Houston Garner, but it refused to go down. Cabot began to run clock until Jones was fouled with 1:03 showing. After a Bryant timeout, he missed the front end, leaving the door open for Bryant to regain the advantage.
And, with :53 left, Cozart drove and kicked out to Griffin who drained his second triple of the quarter.
Bryant led 38-37 and, at the other end, Jones made a move on the baseline as he had repeatedly for key baskets throughout the second half. But the Hornets double-teamed him and he lost the ball out of bounds.
“Our guys took it on themselves to double him that one time and I liked that,” Abrahamson observed. “They weren’t going to let him score, which is big. The last two days in practice, the players have been taking more on themselves, trying to talk their way through how we’re going to guard this team. They’ve really taken ownership of it and I think that translated well into tonight.
“He’s such a good player,” Abrahamson said of Jones. “We felt like they had a couple of guys on the perimeter that weren’t looking to shoot, so when those guys that we identified had the ball, we wanted to back off them because (Jones) and (Davis) are so good. It enabled us to shade toward those two guys. (Jones) got on the baseline all night long but we got some stops with him at the end. He uses his body. He’s very crafty. He knows his way around the rim.”
After a Cabot timeout with :31.4 left, the Panthers came out fouling. To that point, they had committed just four team fouls in the quarter and needed to use up three more to get Bryant into the bonus.
Finally, with :26.6 on the clock, the Panthers fouled junior Logan Trudell, who had knocked down two key baskets, including a 3, during the quarter.
Trudell couldn’t get the front end to go but when Cabot’s Kai Davis rebounded, Griffin contested him, tipping the ball away. Trudell tracked down the loose ball and was fouled again with :24.5 showing.
Again his first shot did everything but go in. And, again, Griffin contested the rebound near the left baseline. The ball went out of bounds last touched by Cabot.
Griffin inbounded the ball to Cozart and, with :21.5 showing, he took his turn at the line where he converted both ends of the one-and-one to make it a 40-37 Bryant lead.
Davis tried to get a 3-point shot away over the outstretched hand of Bryant’s 6-7 center Quinton Motto and missed. Cozart rebounded and was fouled again. With :06.6 to go, he drained both freebies again to seal the Hornets’ victory.
Motto led the Hornets with 10 points. Marcus Wilson added 9, Griffin and Cozart 8 each, Trudell 5 and Garner 2. Jones had 24 for the Panthers but no one else had any more than Davis’ 6.
Cabot led 8-5 after a quarter after J.D. Brunett hit a 3 to erase a 5-3 lead by Bryant and Chuck Mantione tipped in a teammate’s miss in the final minute of the period.
Every possession was desperately contested by both teams and, going into the final two minutes of the half, the score was just 13-7, Cabot.
Motto, who had struggled at the line to that point, converted a pair with 1:57 to play in the period. Garner added a pair from the line in the final minute and the Hornets were within 13-11 at the half.
“We were playing great defense and we were rebounding,” Abrahamson observed. “We were playing really hard on offense and I didn’t think that we were playing that bad. We weren’t making shots, weren’t making free throws.
“I told our team at halftime, we did a really good job of taking away their big two and they did a good job of taking away our big two,” he added. “I thought Quinton was playing well. We were running some plays and he was getting to the free-throw line. He wasn’t making them all but he was getting there. Marcus, obviously, hit some 3’s for us and then, at the end of the game, Logan Trudell stepped up big, got a couple of big offensive rebounds and hit a big 3.”
Wilson provided a third-quarter spark. Cabot had established its largest lead at 18-12 early in the period, forcing Abrahamson to take a timeout. The Hornets responded to their coach’s instruction by putting together a 12-2 surge to push into the lead.
Griffin hit a pair of free throws to get the run going. Moments later, Wilson drained his second trey of the game. Brunett missed an attempt to answer in kind and Motto was fouled. He tied it with 1 of 2.
Jones got free on the baseline for a basket to put his team back in the lead but Wilson trumped that with his third troika, putting the Hornets ahead, 21-20, with 4:28 left in the third quarter.
Following a Cabot miss, Wilson rebounded and fed Motto for a layup. Wilson helped force a turnover and, with 3:15 left in the period, Motto hit a free throw hat had the Hornets up 24-20.
But Bryant couldn’t get a shot to fall in the final three minutes of the quarter. The Hornets’ defense stayed tough enough but Cabot was still able to regain the upper hand. Davis’ bank shot from eight feet out off a feed by Jones, gave the Panthers their 25-24 lead going into the final eight minutes.
Davis opened the fourth quarter with a baseline jumper but Cozart, held to just 1 point in the game up to then, nailed a 3 to tie it at 27. Jones hit a pair from the line but Trudell, at the other end, grabbed an offensive rebound and scored. Again Jones scored inside, shooting around Motto but Griffin answered with a 3. Jones put the Panthers up 33-32 but Trudell drilled a triple from the corner to put the Hornets back on top.
Both teams had opportunities to change the score but it didn’t happen until Jones knotted it at 35 with 3:03 to go setting up the dramatic finish.
HORNETS 42, PANTHERS 37
Score by quarters
Cabot 8 5 12 12 — 37
BRYANT 5 6 13 18 — 42
PANTHERS (13-12, 7-5) 37
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Thielemier 0-4 0-0 0-0 0 3 0
Brunett 1-6 0-0 1-3 4 5 3
Vaught 1-5 0-0 2-4 6 2 2
Jones 7-13 10-13 1-5-6 3 24
Davis 3-11 0-0 2-6 8 3 6
Spry 0-0 0-4 0-0 0 0 0
Mantione 1-3 0-0 2-0 2 1 2
Rock 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 2 0
Team 2-2 4
Totals 13-43 10-17 10-20 30 19 37
HORNETS (6-17, 2-8) 42
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Griffin 2-5 2-2 1-2 3 2 8
Cozart 1-5 5-6 0-7 7 2 8
Wilson 3-5 0-0 0-2 2 0 9
Garner 0-6 2-2 1-3 4 1 2
Motto 3-5 4-9 1-5 6 4 10
Cambron 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Nossaman 0-0 0-0 0-1 1 3 0
Moore 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Trudell 2-2 0-2 1-1 2 1 5
Team 1-2 3
Totals 11-29 13-21 5-23 28 15 42
Three-point field goals: Bryant 7-20 (Wilson 3-5, Griffin 2-4, Cozart 1-4, Trudell 1-1, Garner 0-5, Motto 0-1), Conway 1-12 (Brunett 1-4, Davis 0-4, Thielemier 0-3, Jones 0-1). Turnovers: Bryant 16, Cabot 10.
