City of Basketball Love

Ryan Coyle (@RyanCoyle35)
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LANSDALE — After suffering a 32-point loss in the District 1 6A quarterfinal round to Lower Merion on Friday night, it was fair to wonder how Upper Darby would respond Tuesday night in the playback round. 

In a North Penn gym that was nearly empty as tip-off approached at the beginning of their seeding game Tuesday night, the question was which team would be more motivated to play after seeing their district title dreams come to an abrupt halt?

No. 10 Upper Darby was able to use some of the built-up anger they had from their quarterfinal defeat and defeated No. 6 North Penn on Tuesday night, 71-68. 

“We have had a really good season, but we have had four losses to the same team in Lower Merion, including on Friday night,” Upper Darby head coach Bob Miller said. “It is really hard to get them motivated to come back from that and bounce back, but they were able to tonight, and I am proud of the fight they showed.”

With the victory, Upper Darby will play at No. 4 CB East on Friday night, with the winner getting the 1-5 seed for the 6A playoffs and the loser getting the 1-6 seed. North Penn will play No. 8 Garnet Valley on Friday as well, with the winner getting the 1-7 seed and the loser getting the 1-8 in the state bracket.

“It was hard, because both teams got beat up pretty good on Friday,” Miller said. “We got beat up by a team that we played close three straight times in the regular season. It’s tough because you are playing in an empty gym and you are trying to give your kids a reason to play in the playbacks. But in the end, they want to win.”

Tuesday’s matchup featured two teams that have similar styles and thrive in an uptempo environment. Coming into the game, Upper Darby had scored 60 or more points in 17 of their 27 games this season and North Penn had scored 60 or more in half of their 26 games, including a 12-1 mark when they scored 60 or more. 

“We like going fast,” Upper Darby senior forward Niymire Brown said after leading the game with 20 points. “If a team wants to go fast, we are fine with that because that is the way we like to play, we just have to clean up some of those sloppy plays. I don’t think anybody can stop us when we play together and play our game.”

Brown led the way in the victory for the Royals scoring 20 points, scoring eight points to close out the game in the fourth quarter, including a perfect 4-for-4 at the line down the stretch. The 6-foot-4 forward was able to impose his will in the paint and finish through contact for several tough buckets. 

“He is a tough matchup for anybody he goes against,” Miller said. “He can score down low, he didn’t really shoot much from outside tonight, but he can do that too, and he can drive by people, he is a tough cover. You combine that with his 6-4 frame and he is built like a grown man as a senior in high school, that makes him tough to stop.” 

North Penn switched it up on the defensive end several times, going between a man-to-man look and also throwing a 1-3-1 zone at the Royals, which Miller and his staff were able to use some past experience to exploit. 

“When they threw that 1-3-1 at us, we had him (Brown) running the backline and we were able to lob it up to him and get it to him under the hoop for some layups. Against Perk Valley we did the same thing and when you get it to him in position under the basket, he is tough to stop.”

In a game that was back and forth for most of the night, without much separation being created by either squad, Upper Darby was able to extend their lead to 58-47 with 4:38 left to go in the fourth quarter and appeared ready to pull away. That is when North Penn began to apply some defensive pressure and buckets by Corey Meade (14 points), Norm Gee (11 points), and Ahmaar Godhania (14 points) allowed them to begin to cut the lead.

North Penn was able to cut the lead all the way down to 69-68 with 12.8 seconds to go. On the ensuing inbounds pass by UD, Deininger intercepted a pass by Meyers, but turned it over right away, attempting to pass it to Gee. This allowed Royals to get another chance at an inbound, where they successfully got it in and Upper Darby made two foul shots to make it 71-68. 

The Knights turned it over on their next possession, essentially ending the game pending an inbounds pass from the Royals with 0.7 seconds. 

“I have no idea what the guys were doing at the end of the game against that pressure,” Miller said of his team's struggles down the stretch. “The middle was wide open, we weren’t throwing it where it needed to go, all they had to do was beat that pressure and we had our big man wide open down low.

North Penn led by a score of 16-13 after the first quarter which saw the Knights senior forward Ryan Deininger score six of his 16 points on a few slashes to the hoop. Upper Darby point guard Nadir Myers had eight of his 18 points in the opening frame, including two three-pointers.

While there wasn’t much of an energy on the floor in the first and some lackluster defensive play, the second quarter is when both teams started to settle in and shake off the losses from Friday night. 

For a game that began with little to no energy, it ended in a nailbiter with the Royals mindset playing a huge part in the road victory.

“Once you step in between those white lines on the court, everything should just go out of your head and you should focus on the game at hand,” Brown said. “You can’t change a past game, you can’t worry about another game going on. You can only control what is in front of you and that is my mindset out there.”

Before the state tournament, each team will have one more “dress rehearsal” to fine tune some things before they attempt to make a run that ends with a trip to Hershey. With a victory on Friday night, Upper Darby will play the No. 3 seed from District 12 in the states, likely to be Archbishop Wood; with a loss they will play the No. 2 seed from District 11. 

North Penn will play the District 3 No. 2 seed with a win on Friday and with a loss play District 12’s No. 2 seed, which will almost certainly be Central.

“Nobody ever thought we would go this far, so it is cool for us to be in this position to begin with,” Brown said. “It felt good to get that bounceback win after Friday, but we knew it would take a little bit to get our confidence back up. But, being able to get that win tonight is a good step towards getting ready for states.”

By Quarter
NP: 16  |  16  |  13  |  23  ||  68
UD:  13  |  18  |  19  |  21  ||  71

Shooting
NP: 27-61 FG (7-22 3PT) 7-11 FT
UD: 26-68 FG (7-24 3PT), 12-17 FT 

Scoring
NP: Deininger 16, Godhania 14, Meade 14, Gee 11, Zeltt 6, Hoffman 4, Sgro 2, Hammond 1

UD: Brown 20, Myers 18, Joyner 16, Slaughter 14, Cain 3