City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Ken Ivory had much to be happy and unhappy about at the same time.

On the one hand, the Pottstown second-year coach had just watched his team blow a 20-point third quarter lead to Norristown in the opening round of the Pioneer Athletic Conference playoffs, commit numerous fourth-quarter turnovers, miss foul shots, and take a few ill-advised shots in the stretch run of a close game. 

“I’m not happy at all with execution late,” Ivory said. “It was actually putrid, it was horrible. 

“But hey,” he added. “A win’s a win.”

The Trojans’ fourth quarter wasn’t exactly one they’ll want to remember for longer than they need to learn from it, but the PAC’s fourth seed made plays when it needed to get past the fifth-seeded Eagles, 65-61.

Perkiomen Valley defeated Methacton 44-42 in the evening's other first-round game.

Pottstown (15-7) looked like it was on its way to a big win when it took a 50-30 lead midway through the third quarter, Ivory’s group shooting the lights out, led by senior guard Ty Elliot-Moore, who had connected by four 3-pointers on five attempts at that point in the game. 

But Norristown controlled most of the final 12 minutes, going on a 19-4 run to pull within five with five minutes to play, getting a timely 3-pointer from Roddy Gaymon plus strong inside work from senior forward Jonathan Brooks, who racked up a 12-point, 16-rebound double-double with seven offensive rebounds to his credit. 

The Eagles got as close as two points on a 3-pointer by junior guard Jayden Byrd with under five seconds to play, which set up a pair of game-sealing foul shots with 1.6 ticks remaining by junior guard Sadeeq Jackson. Jackson, who had wowed with some impressive buckets earlier, knocked down both, nothing but net, to seal the win.

“Buried ‘em, buried ‘em,” Ivory said. “Big, big free throws.”

Jackson finished with 18 points, including a gorgeous reverse layup with 2:15 left to put Pottstown up 58-51, a key bucket in a quarter where the Trojans only made two shots. That one came off a feed from his twin brother, Abdul Jackson, who finished with 10 points, six rebounds and four assists. 

The Trojans can be forgiven somewhat for their miscues down the stretch, as they’re all in unfamiliar territory. Pottstown hasn’t been in the PAC playoffs since 2012 and hasn’t been in the districts since 2019, when the current seniors were in eighth grade. They won only six games last year, not getting to experience what it was like to play meaningful games in February, with a chance to play into March.

“Yes, we are having guys learning how to win, with a couple seniors who only have one year of experience and they’re our primary scorers, and you’ve got juniors who are primary ball-handlers and decision-makers, and really this is their first time playing high-level basketball this late in the year,” Ivory said. “You’re going to have growing pains but we’ll keep working on it.”

“This is all of our first playoff game,” Sadeeq Jackson said. “It’s pretty cool, I came in, none of my team had nerves; I thought I was going to have nerves, butterflies, I didn’t have none of that, I was just really excited and ready to go, my team was ready to go.

“I’ve been locked in since I woke up,” he added. “I couldn’t even sleep, I’ve just been thinking about this game.”

Pottstown also got contributions from senior forward Terryece Phillips, who had 11 rebounds (five offensive) and five blocks along with two points, plus junior guard Jurrell Young (6 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists) and senior guard Jullian Beasley (9 points).

In addition to a playoff win, it was also a measure of revenge for Pottstown, which had lost to Norristown 65-57 on its home court back in December. 

“We know we can score, we lead the PAC in scoring, so we weren’t really worried about the offensive end, but we were worried about defense,” Jackson said. “We had a good game plan, and we knew it started on the defensive end. Defense wins championships, defense wins games.”

Pottstown’s turnaround hasn’t come as much of a surprise to Ivory, a 2001 Pottsgrove graduate, who took over the Pottstown program after coaching under Scott Palladino at both Pottsgrove and Pottstown, making the move from assistant to head coach before last season. 

“He’s a good coach [..] he cares about his players, he cares about all his players,” Saddiq Jackson said. “He’s more than a coach to me and the team, my teammates would say the same thing.”

Pottstown moves on to play tournament host and top seed Spring-Ford (20-2) in the semifinals on Friday night. It’ll be the first meeting this season between the two teams, but Ivory estimates he’s already watched the Rams on film “17,000” times, giving him plenty of respect for head coach Joe Dempsey’s group, which lost its season opener and closer but won 20 straight in between.

Spring-Ford has established itself as a difficult defensive team, winning a number of games in the 40s and 50s, but have also scored in the high-60s on a number of occasions. Sophomore guard Jacob Nguyen, junior E.J. Campbell and senior Caleb Little form a tough three-headed backcourt, with wing/forward Alex Lewis up front, and a strong supporting cast around them.

“They’re good to go, they have a heck of a backcourt, three-guard set that they run with Nguyen, and then you’ve got Campbell and (Little), he’s solid as heck,” Ivory said. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. If we come out and play like we did in the fourth quarter, we’ll get beat by 20.”

By Quarter
Norristown: 12  |  15  |  12  |  22  ||  61
Pottstown:  10  |  24  |  20  |  11  ||  67

Shooting
Norristown: 19-59 FG (5-20 3PT), 18-25 FT
Pottstown: 24-56 FG (7-14 3PT), 10-20 FT

Scoring
Norristown: Jaden Wise 17, Jonathan Brooks 12, Jayden Byrd 9, Miles Daniels 7, Roddy Gaymon 6, Myon Kirlew 6, Andre Gordon 4

Pottstown: Ty Elliot-Moore 20, Sadeeq Jackson 18, Abdul Jackson 10, Jullian Beasley 9, Jurrell Young 6, Terryece Phillips 2