City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Gary Manchel had seen his Mercyhurst squad hold teams under 60 points 11 times this season.

That’s how the Lakers wound up with the top scoring defense in the NCAA’s Division II, limiting their opponents to just 58.9 ppg.

So he wasn’t very happy when he looked up at the scoreboard midway through Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) men’s basketball championship against No. 21 West Chester to see his team had already given up 44 points.

In the locker room, he implored his team to just get back to what they had been doing all year long.

“Teams haven’t put it to us very often in the first half like West Chester did,” he said. “If we were going to lose, let’s lose our way. If they make shots with a hand in their face with the right slides, so be it.”

Whatever he said, it worked.

The Lakers’ defense clamped down the Rams, holding them without a field goal for a 10-minute stretch to take the lead, and then a veteran group knocked down key shots when they needed to in a 70-67 win.

It’s the first PSAC championship for Mercyhurst (20-8), which joined the league in the 2007-08 and was making its debut appearance in the title game. The program advances to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time ever after getting an at-large selection a year ago, though they lost in the first round.

“I’ll challenge our guys, we need to do one more thing,” Manchel said. “The school has never won a game in NCAAs in school history."

West Chester (23-5) looked early on like it would finally get to celebrate that first-ever league championship on its home floor, shooting a blistering 69.2 percent (18-of-26) from the floor during the first half. A long 3-pointer by freshman Malik Jackson--who finished with a game-high 27 points--gave the Rams a 44-37 lead at the break, though the advantage was as many as 11 during the opening 10 minutes.

The lead was 49-43 with 15 minutes remaining when West Chester senior Matt Wiseley, the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, picked up his fourth foul and had to head to the bench.

“That killed us, that absolutely killed us,” WCU head coach Damien Blair said. “He’s a kid that plays 40 minutes per game, he puts everybody in the right spot. If he’s in the game for 30 minutes that’s 15-18 rebounds and 14 points, those are big numbers and you can’t duplicate that.”

Wiseley finished with eight points and seven rebounds in only 22 minutes. By the time he returned to the floor, with under eight minutes remaining, Mercyhurst had rallied to take a 54-50 lead.

The Rams had one more punch left in them, going up 64-60 with 4:03 left after 3-point plays by Jackson and fellow freshman Matt Penecale (10 points, five assists).

But it was Mercyhurst who got the last blow. Jackson had two turnovers and two missed foul shots in the next two minutes, and the Lakers took advantage.

Senior guard Jean Onana, a native of Cameroon, hit the back-breaker, a 3-pointer from the right wing that made it 66-64 with 2:44 left, the final lead change of the night.

“That’s my teammates pumping me up,” he said, slapping fellow senior Kayode Ajenifua on the back. “You better hit that shot, when you have teammates pushing you like that, you’ve got all the confidence in the world and the shot will just fall by itself.”

“That’s the Jean I know,” Ajenifuja chimed in. “We’re always telling him to ‘keep shooting, Jean, it’s going to fall.’”

West Chester shot only 22.6 percent (7-of-31) from the floor in the second half, including 2-of-15 (13.3 percent) on 3-pointers.

Onana led the Lakers with 19 points on 6-of-8 shooting, hitting 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. Ajenifuja added 14 points and six rebounds and was named tournament MVP, while seniors Damon Jones (13 points) and Gerrae Williams (11) also reached double figures.

For West Chester, the defeat marks three times in five years that Blair has led his group into the title game only to see them fall short each time; previously, it was East Stroudsburg that got the better off its East Division rival in 2012 and 2014.

The Rams, which haven’t won a PSAC championship since the pre-playoff era in 1959, dropped to 0-5 all-time in league championship games.

“You get that ‘W’, you made history,” Blair said. “You have the best record ever, you’re the only team that has won a PSAC championship in 50-something years...I’m proud of our coaches and our players because we’ve been there three times in five years, but I’ve thought the third time would be a charm. We’ve got to figure out a way to get it done.”

Both teams will continue their seasons in the NCAA Tournament, whose field is slated to be announced Sunday night at 10:30 PM.