City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
--

Philly U’s T.J. Huggins came into Saturday afternoon’s tilt against CACC South-leading Holy Family with a statistic on his mind.

In his four years with the Rams, the team never lost on Senior Day. And the guard, who was one of three seniors honored before the game, wasn’t about to let that trend come to an end.

“I didn’t want to drop the ball. Both me and (fellow senior Peter Alexis) knew coming in, and we definitely wanted to keep that streak going,” Huggins said.

Behind 23 points from both Huggins and Alexis, the Rams did not disappoint. They beat Holy Family, 76-66 for one of their best wins of the year, in what was just the second league loss for the Tigers this season.

Philly U moved to 14-4 in the CACC – good for second place – and is now 21-6, while the Tigers are 22-5 and 16-2 in the conference. The Rams came in ranked seventh in the Division-II East Region, and the win over the second-ranked Tigers should help the team’s chances at an NCAA Tournament bid immensely.

But, as Huggins pointed out afterward, the win was “big in every aspect.” And one of those reasons was that it came on Senior Day. In the Rams penultimate home game (they host Chestnut Hill on Tuesday night), both Huggins and Alexis showed up in a big way, combining for 60.5 percent of their team’s points.

“It was a little surreal,” Alexis said. “It didn’t really hit me until I was down the hallway, heading to the locker room before the game. I only have two or three games left here. Four years, it went by like nothing.”

While the two of them, as well as senior guard Cory Dean, got presented with flowers and a gift with their parents in an on-court ceremony, Alexis’ presentation had a little something extra.

The 6-foot-10 forward was presented with a basketball commemorating a career feat that was accomplished just once before in Rams history. During his last game, Alexis became just the fourth Philly U player to eclipse 2,000 career points, and with his work on the glass, he became the second player in program history to have 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

Alexis’ college career began at Penn State, where he committed to play out of Wilkes-Barre's Holy Redeemer high school. However, Alexis never played for the Nittany Lions and transferred to Philly U after sitting out his freshman season.

Since, he has imposed his will at the Division-II level -- something he always envisioned as a possibility.

“I knew what I could do, I figured somewhere I could showcase that,” said Alexis, who entered Saturday averaging 19.6 points and nine rebounds per game. “As soon as I got here. I liked the environment. I met the guys on the team, we had the same personality and they played a style I was used to. As soon as I got here and got a feel for it, I knew it was the right fit.”

A team depleted by injuries, Herb Magee’s squad has still put together another winning season. The team lost point guard Mike Louden to injury earlier in the season and sophomore Kaison Randolph has also missed the last seven games.

But thanks in large part of Alexis and Huggins, the Rams have kept winning and will threaten for another CACC title. On Saturday, they also got a big hand from their defense.

After the Tigers cut Philly U’s lead to two points at 52-50, the Rams held their opponent scoreless for the next seven-and-a-half minutes, going on a 13-0 run in the process to take a 65-50 lead. Though the Rams made some careless mistakes late in the game to let Holy Family get to within six points, Holy Family never recovered from the scoreless spell.

“Our scouting reports are phenomenal,” Huggins said after he helped hold Holy Family to a 37.1 field goal percentage. “We knew what each player wanted to do, and we made some adjustments at halftime. We just did what our coaches said to do and it worked.”

Holy Family, which already has the regular season CACC title squared away, was led by Mavin Crawford’s 19 points and also got 16 from Reggie Charles.

“This helps out our RPI and if we can beat Chestnut Hill on Tuesday that can do a lot for our Tournament hopes,” Alexis said of the victory. “We obviously still want to get it done in the conference tournament, but it’s good to go into that on this kind of high.”