City of Basketball Love

CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
— 

OLNEY — The 17th edition of the Danny Rumph Classic rolled into its third day of action on Saturday, with four more games at La Salle University in the double-elimination event.

The event is held annually as part of the Daniel E. Rumph II Foundation's effort to bring awareness to sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) and to provide screening for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, the leading cause for SCA.

As always, anybody who’d been watching Philly hoops for a few years would recognize just about everybody involved, with former area high school and college stars making up a majority of the eight teams in the all-star affair.

Here’s a roundup of Saturday’s action, which saw the six remaining teams whittle down to three, setting up Sunday’s playback semifinal and half of Monday’s championship:

~~~

Game 1: F.O.E. 87, CTC 83

Marcus Morris continued his torrid performance at the Danny Rumph Classic by keeping F.O.E.’s hopes of advancing to the championship game alive by hitting three straight three-pointers and being the first player in double figures to begin Saturday’s slate. 

The 6-foot-9 Los Angeles Clippers forward poured in 22 points, a day after scoring a tournament-high 33 against ARETE Sports, and drilled four shots from deep following a night where he hit seven and ignited the early crowd inside Tom Gola Arena. He scored 13 points alone in the first quarter and his last trey of the day gave F.O.E. a 43-40 lead with 1:27 left before halftime. 

While F.O.E. took a six-point lead into the break, Marcus’s twin brother, Markieff (21 points) and CTC’s Eric Paschall, the former national champion at Villanova who recently signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves, dueled it out in the third. Paschall joined a CTC squad that included several Villanova alumni including James Bell, Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree (Neumann-Goretti), Jermaine Samuels and coach Reggie Redding. Markieff took Paschall down on the block and turned into a smooth fadeaway for two then Paschall turned around and scored nine consecutive points as CTC trailed by five heading into the final quarter.

Paschall scored 14 in the second half and hit a key pull-up to pull CTC within one. Thomas Robinson, a former Kansas teammate of the Morris twins and first round selection by the Sacramento Kings in 2012, scored 17 points including a two-handed throwdown late then solidified the victory with an emphatic dunk to give F.O.E. an 83-81 lead with 18.5 seconds remaining. Samuels finished with 15 points and former Neumann-Goretti standout DJ Rivera chipped in 12 for CTC. — Rich Flanagan

~~~

Game Two: Rex6 75, 8EYE 71

Defending champions Rex6 defeated 8EYE for the opportunity to face F.O.E later in the afternoon in a “loser’s bracket” game between two teams that had already suffered losses earlier in the tournament.  

A pair of Neumann-Goretti products secured the win for Rex6. Antonio “Scoop” Jardine only scored six points, but had four in the final quarter, including a mid-range jumper off the glass to keep REX6’s lead at four. 

Though 8EYE’s Myles Cale (Seton Hall) zoomed up the floor off the inbound for a quick layup, Rex6’s Quade Green (Washington) went to the line with 7.7 ticks left. 

Green approached the charity stripe with confidence. On Thursday, in the opening round he knocked down three free throws with one second left against F.O.E., securing REX 6’s first victory. 

He sank the first, practiced his release, and swished the second to seal the deal. Green finished with 12 points.

The first half saw the lead change hands several times, and neither team created a significant lead for themselves. Rex6 went into the first half up 48-43. The reigning Rumph Classic MVP, Wali Hepburn (Lock Haven) and teammate Jamir Henner (University of Buffalo) led Rex6’s offense. 

Hepburn finished with 23 points, three assists, four rebounds, one steal, and one block. Henner exited the contest with an apparent leg injury but totaled 19 points, five rebounds, two steals, and two blocks. 

8EYE’s Troy Harper (Drexel) dominated in the second quarter, registering 10 points for 8EYE. The former dragon stayed aggressive in the second half and got himself to the line often. Harper went ⅘ from the charity stripe, finishing with 17 points.

Cale started the second half on fire, hitting two threes to start the 3rd quarter; he finished with 22 points, four rebounds, and one steal. – Jared Leveson

~~~

Game 3: Blue Magic 56, Rumph Center 45

The only matchup of 2-0 teams on the day turned out to be the least exciting, with Blue Magic outlasting Rumph Center in a grind-it-out game that was low-scoring from the outset.

The teams went back-and-forth most of the first three quarters, with Maurice ‘Doo-Wop’ Watson Jr. (Boys’ Latin) putting Rumph Center ahead 39-38 with a fourth quarter 3-pointer, but Blue Magic responded with seven straight to regain the lead.

Philly native Andrew ‘Scootie’ Randall (Temple), who’s played his entire professional career in Japan, hit the dagger, putting Blue Magic up 51-44 with under two minutes to play. Randall finished with 10 points, including two 3-pointers, as one of three Blue Magic players in double figures. Brandon Austin (Imhotep) scored a dozen points, Novar Gadson (Rider) scored 10, and Tim Quarterman (LSU), one of the non-locals participating in the event, added nine for Blue Magic, which will face F.O.E or Rumph Center in Monday night’s championship.

Watson, the flashy 5-10 point guard who scored more than 2,000 points in his high school career, scored 19 points to lead all scorers, but the ‘host’ team struggled to get consistent offense outside of him. Shannon Givens (West Chester) scored eight points. — Josh Verlin

~~~

Game 4: F.O.E. 88, Rex6 80

Even without their two NBA stars, F.O.E. knocked out the reigning defending champions in the final game of Saturday’s slate.

Playing in their second game of the day, F.O.E. filled up its roster with a few new faces and had a few others break out with big performances in the absence of the Morris twins and Thomas Robinson.

Jaylen Nixon led the way with 20 points, veteran Vinny Simpson scored another 19 (five threes) and Markus Kennedy was dominant inside with 16 points to set up a matchup with Rumph Center on Sunday for a spot in Monday night’s championship game.

“They told me the twins wasn’t going to show, so they was like, ‘You gotta put the team on your back, bring us a win,’” Nixon said. “As long as we got the win, that’s all that mattered.”

Reigning Rumph Classic MVP Wali Hepburn did his best to keep Rex6 alive in the elimination contest. He led all scorers with 29 points, scoring 21 of his team’s 42 second half points, including 12 in the fourth quarter. Scoop Jardine had 11 to join him in double figures.

It was all Rex6 early on, with an F.O.E. squad employing the services of Lincoln senior Naseem Wright in the starting lineup looking a bit overmatched.

Then Kennedy got going and Simpson hit a few shots and all of a sudden the underdogs had a 40-35 lead at the break.

Rex6 sees never got out of the game, but F.O.E. kept them at distance throughout the second half, extending its advantage to as large as eight points. Nixon had five in the third then ninth in the fourth quarter.

The putaway punch was a floater by Simpson as the shot clock wound down against fellow veteran and Rex6 captain Jardine around the minute mark. Nixon left an exclamation mark on the victory with an alley-oop to himself off the backboard. — Owen McCue