City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Travis Conrad doesn’t care about how much he scores on any given night.

Many players say similar things, but the Lebanon Valley senior guard’s stat lines back him up: heading into a MAC Commonwealth league game against Arcadia on Wednesday night, he’d only scored in double figures in two of his team’s first 10 games, taking only more than eight shots on a single occasion.

That's despite being the Dutchmen’s only senior, and a two-year captain who's been a steady contributor for the last three seasons. If anybody on the roster is entitled to taking a bad shot every once in a while, it’s Conrad.

But that’s not his style.

“It’s a game-by-game basis, it all depends on what the defense does,” he said. “I feel as though we’re so good, teams have to pick a poison.”

Typically, that poison comes in the form of juniors Sam Light and Andy Orr, who almost evenly split 40 points per night. But in making sure Light and Orr didn’t take over, Arcadia left Conrad open. And he made them pay.

Against the Knights, Conrad was automatic, hitting all eight of his shots -- including seven from beyond the arc -- to help the Dutchmen to an 83-82 win.

The 6-foot-tall, 190-pound guard from Lewisburg (Pa.) finished with a career-high 27 points as Lebanon Valley (10-6, 4-3) won for the sixth time in its last seven games.

It's the second time in three games that Conrad hit the 20-point mark. The game in the middle, he went scoreless, only taking one shot.

Light (25 points) and Orr (18 points, nine rebounds) both found a way to their usual production. Light, a 6-1 guard, had 20 points by halftime and finished 5-of-6 from 3-point territory; Orr did most of his damage in the second half.

Conrad started off quietly, making just one 3-pointer over the game’s opening 16 minutes. Then he hit three in four minutes to close out the first half, which saw Lebanon Valley go 9-for-11 from deep to lead 44-40 at the break.

Each shot he hit from that point onward was important: his fifth triple, with 14:30 left, put his team back on top by one. A mid-range jumper (his only 2-point attempt) a minute later tied the game. When he connected again from 3-point range, it was to put his team up four with 10:49 to play.

His final 3-point shot was the back-breaker, a rainbow triple from straightaway to put Lebanon Valley up 77-71 with 2:13 remaining.

“I knew I hadn’t missed, but I didn’t know how many I had taken,” he said. “The ref had said something about ‘keep making all your shots.’ It clicked probably in the second half, I wasn’t really thinking about it.”

Arcadia (8-7, 3-3) hit three 3-pointers in the final 30 seconds, including one by senior Ryan Kelley to make it a one-point game with 0.6s left on the clock.

But though the Knights were able to put a hand on the ensuing inbounds pass, the ball bounced away as the buzzer sounded.

Conrad made four foul shots, all in the last 42 seconds, to help seal the win.

“He’s now just getting back to full strength and feeling comfortable and he’s in the gym every day shooting jump shots,” Lebanon Valley head coach Brad McAlester said. “And he also gives stability to the team…(he) makes smart decisions, and tonight obviously he made huge shots, made big foul shots; he was clearly our most valuable player in tonight’s game, no question.”

Sophomore forward Evan Slone led Arcadia with 20 points. Brandon Thompson added 17 and Kelley 15 for the Knights, who are now 3-3 over their last six games.

It’s easy to see why McAlester has selected Conrad as a team captain each of the last two years. The son of former Lycoming and Bloomsburg head coach Terry Conrad, Travis Conrad is constantly providing encouragement to his younger teammates.

For example: when LVC sophomore forward Andrew Eberhart was whistled for a foul, Conrad was quick to pep up his teammate, letting him know it wasn’t a big deal and telling him how to correct the problem next time around.

“I let the coaches coach and I just try to provide motivation every day in practice, give us some energy,” Conrad said. “College in itself is already tough enough, so I just try to keep those guys positive.”

After starting off the season with five losses in its first nine games -- one of which was at the hands of Division I George Mason -- Lebanon Valley has righted the ship, and the schedule tilts in the Dutchmen's favor. They're already played division front-runners Lycoming, Alvernia, Hood and now Arcadia on the road, and get those return games over the final nine games of the season.

To continue towards a potential MAC Commonwealth title, Conrad said it's just a matter of getting his team to play as hard as possible for 40 minutes, and the rest will take care of itself.

Whether he's scoring or not.

"We’ve got the key pieces and the basketball IQ to get the ball moving and figure it out," he said. "I don’t view it as I’m the one who needs to be the third scorer, just been working out that way a little bit here.”