{"id":2275,"date":"2010-02-02T05:50:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T05:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/boys-bball-jordan-finally-finishes-against-compton\/"},"modified":"2010-02-02T05:50:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T05:50:00","slug":"boys-bball-jordan-finally-finishes-against-compton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/boys-bball-jordan-finally-finishes-against-compton","title":{"rendered":"Boys’ BBall: Jordan Finally Finishes Against Compton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Jordan (5-3) tried to give away their second-round league matchup against Compton (7-2), but the Tarbabes came up just short in a defeat to the Panthers, 73-71, in another exciting edition of the league’s most even matchup (Compton won by one last time they played).  <\/span>The Panthers did two things they usually don’t do well\u2014staying out of foul trouble and hitting their free throws\u2014to cinch the victory, despite giving up a number of leads. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It looked like a blowout early, with Jordan going up 15-4\u2026before Compton roared back on a 13-0 run to see a 17-17 tie after the first quarter.  <\/span>Jordan went up by 8 early in the second quarter\u2026but their lead was eroded to just four points at half.  <\/span>There finally seemed to be permanent separation in the third, as the Panthers went up by 12, and held a nine-point lead at the end of the third quarter\u2026but a 9-2 open to the fourth quarter for Compton made it a four-point game with four minutes left.  <\/span>The Jordan pulled away again in the fourth, going up 70-58\u2026only to have Compton march back furiously at the end, scoring four points in five seconds, finally running out of time while still down by two.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

“That’s typical Compton,” said Jordan coach Ron Massey.  <\/span>“They just don’t ever give up.”<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Jordan fans must have been a little nervous throughout, but the ending was truly a fitting cap to a bizarre game.  <\/span>Jordan was up 73-67 with under thirty seconds left.  <\/span>Compton ran downcourt and got off an awkward shot that bricked, only to see Allan Guei, the shortest player on the court, leap and convert the put-back in the key.  <\/span>Then a sloppy Jordan inbounds was grabbed by Cliff Sims, Jr., who grabbed and shot, making it 73-71 with a second on the clock.  <\/span>Finally Raynard Tyler got a clean pass in to Darius Williams, who hugged the ball till the buzzer blew.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

What was most impressive\u2014and surprising\u2014about Jordan’s game was their free throw percentage.  <\/span>After their win over Millikan game, Massey admitted, “We shoot so poorly, we’ve stopped talking about free throws.  <\/span>We don’t even bring it up in practice.”  <\/span>He was a little puzzled in acknowledging that’s still their strategy\u2014yet somehow, Jordan started 13-13 from the free throw line, and finished 23-29 (Compton finished 17-27).  <\/span>The Panthers also did a good job of keeping their starters out of foul trouble for the bulk of the game.  <\/span>Usually they lose a guard early, or Darius Williams, but everyone stayed in till the waning moments.  <\/span>The Panthers’ starting five is about as good as anybody’s, and they combined for 65 of Jordan’s 73 points.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Leading scorer for the Panthers was “super sophomore” Isiah Hicks, a 6-4 guard\/forward tweener who could give the league fits next year and the year after.  <\/span>He finished with 21 points on 7-10 shooting, going a perfect 6-6 from the line.  <\/span>“It was a great win,” he said after the game.  <\/span>“A great team game.”  <\/span>He was backed up by Williams, who had 15 points, and Jesse Jones, who also had 15.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

For Compton, the big three trio of Guei, Sims, and Anthony January just didn’t put enough points on the board.  <\/span>They shot just over 40% as a group, and combined for 47 points (18 for Sims, 16 for January, and 13 for the point guard Guei).  <\/span>Compton coach Tony Thomas says his team needs to focus if they want to maintain second place, or compete for the title should Poly slip up.  <\/span>“We’re just not ready to play,” he said.  <\/span>“We have to make a commitment to being here and playing hard.  <\/span>They jumped on us early, because they came to play\u2014we weren’t prepared.”<\/o:p><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It took the Panthers a full 48 minutes to put away the feisty Tarbabes, but in the end they hung on to a two-point victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2275"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}