City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
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All eyes in the gym were trained on the two McDonald’s All-Americans duking it out for the most hotly contested sectional title in the state of New Jersey.

Just like they’ve done in the nearly four years leading up to receiving the most prestigious honor in high school basketball, both of them delivered.

But in the end, it was Kentucky commit Isaiah Briscoe and Roselle Catholic who fought off Syracuse-bound Malachi Richardson and his Trenton Catholic squad, coming from behind to take home the South Jersey Non Public B title with a 72-67 win.

Briscoe poured in 34 points, including 21 in the second half, in leading the Lions to their third consecutive sectional title. They’ll take on St. Anthony on Saturday for the state title, which they’ve also claimed in each of the last two seasons.

While Roselle ultimately came away victorious, it looked initially like the game might not live up to its billing, as the first half saw Trenton Catholic get out to a 30-11 lead not even midway through the second quarter.

When the lead reached 19, the largest it had been all game, Roselle head coach Dave Boff fought off the urge to call a timeout. Instead, he let his team play through it, instituting a full court press and zone defense to get his players going.

All they did was rip off a 21-4 run spanning across halftime, ultimately taking the lead by the midway point of the third quarter.

“You’ve got to hand it to Trenton Catholic, they came out on fire,” Boff said. “They knocked us on our heels, but that’s happened to us in the past, not only this year but other years, and you’ve just got to stay together. When this team stays together, they can do things like that.

“You’ve just got to have faith in your kids. You’ve just got to instill that faith in them all year long that things are gonna be OK.”

The pressure defense had an instant impact. With 6-foot-9 freshman sensation Nazreon Reidplaying up top, Trenton Catholic’s guards struggled just to see over his enormous length, let alone pass over him.

The defensive switch helped Roselle take some momentum back before the break, ultimately cutting the deficit down to just 10 by halftime.

“The zone helped us. Normally against a team that shoots it that well you wouldn’t go zone, but we just needed to change something,” Boff said. “We just needed to change something and see what it did, so a little bit of pressure, a little bit of zone, and it just kind of calmed things down.”

Briscoe was able to get himself going early, but he didn’t receive much help, as his 13 points accounted for more than half of the team’s total when they entered the locker room.

But in the third, Roselle’s length on defense forced four consecutive steals to start the half, allowing not only Briscoe, but also South Carolina signee Chris Silva, to get out in transition.

Silva accounted for eight points in the period, en route to finishing with 13 and 12 rebounds. His dunk after a monster offensive rebound gave the Lions their first lead of the game, at 40-39.

Moments before that, however, it was clear that the tide was starting to turn. After Briscoe got the ball on a fast break, it looked like he would go all the way for one of his signature acrobatic finishes.

He rose up, appearing to do just that, but decided instead to throw a lob off the backboard, which Silva promptly caught and threw down with two hands, tying the game for the first time since the opening tip off.

“It gave us momentum. We feed off that, and as you can see, we just go,” Briscoe said. “Once we see Chris doing what he’s gotta do, now we’re all happy. Now we’re all hype. Now Chris starts yelling, we all start yelling and clapping. That’s the way we want to play.”

While Silva’s assistance certainly helped, it was clear from the start of Roselle’s run that Briscoe was on a mission. He poured in 21 points after halftime, getting to the rim seemingly at will and finishing through contact with either hand, from a variety of angles.

For Briscoe, it was just another day at the office.

“That’s what I do,” he said. “Just being the best guard in the country.”

“There are moments in the game when I can look at Isaiah and we can make eye contact and I can see that he feels like we’re in a real good spot,” Boff said. “When I see that from him that certainly gives me a lot of confidence. We came out [in the third quarter], scored the first couple to get it to five, and I saw the look on Isaiah’s face.”

Following Briscoe’s lead, Roselle looked to be in control for the majority of the second half, but that didn’t stop Richardson and the Iron Mikes from trying.

Richardson bounced back from a third quarter in which he didn’t make a field goal to knock down a trio of fourth quarter three-pointers on his way to a team-high 21 points in his final high school game. His contested trey from the top of the key with just over three minutes remaining cut the Lions’ lead to 61-60, but it would only go up from there, with the Iron Mikes failing to make another field goal until they found themselves down 10 points.

Senior point guard Marcus Floyd, whose ballhandling and shooting played a big part in his team’s hot start, finished with 17 points to join Richardson in double figures. Junior center Richmond Aririguzoh posted a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds.

Briscoe ultimately proved to be too much to handle, answering nearly every key Trenton Catholic bucket with a score of his own, scoring 15 of his points in the fourth quarter to seal the win.

Roselle will now take on St. Anthony in a matchup between the consensus top two teams in the state, with the winner claiming a state championship and advancing to the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions.

The TOC consists of the state’s six state champions (four public, two non-public), with the winner cementing itself as the top team in New Jersey. Roselle lost a heartbreaker in the semifinals last season to Newark Eastside. They won the title in 2013, when interestingly enough, Richardson led the way in his lone season at the school.

The Lions began the season as the top team in the state, but have since been surpassed by St. Anthony in many rankings. When they matched up earlier in the season, however, it was Roselle that came out on top, with its star guard scoring 22 points in a 51-48 victory.

The ever-confident Briscoe, still unsure of whether St. Anthony or Hudson Catholic would advance to the state final, was, not surprisingly, unfazed by the rematch with the Friars that potentially awaited him.

“Whoever we play on Saturday, that’s who we play. It’s fine,” he said. “We try to take it one game at a time, not try to look too ahead, but I think we’ll be in the TOC.”