City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADrobinson3)
––

FORT WASHINGTON — It only took one.

Following a subpar first half, mainly at the hands of Sun Valley’s active 1-3-1 zone, Upper Dublin boys basketball made a few adjustments in positioning. But ultimately the success of those changes would depend on shot making.

The Cardinals didn’t have to worry much about that, nailing six straight 3-point looks to open the third and blow open what had been a close District 1 Class 5A semifinal game.

The No. 2-seeded Cardinal’s dominance in the third quarter vaulted them past the No. 6 Vanguards 55-25 on Saturday and to their first district title game since 1985.

“We knew we could do better, it was an ugly first half for us,” UD junior Ryan Mulroy said. “The run a really good 1-3-1, we made halftime adjustments and knocked down some 3s.”

Upper Dublin won the third quarter 26-2. The Cardinals made their first six 3s, and even the first one they missed in the frame led to points when Chris Kohlbrenner grabbed the offensive board and found Kobe Bazemore to draw a shooting foul. 

Sun Valley’s defense was the difference-maker in the first half, and with Kaiden Robinson flying around the Vanguards forced 10 Cardinals turnovers. If not for a nine-point effort by Mulroy, who led all scorers with 16 points, in the second it may well have been Sun Valley leading at the half.

UD coach Derek Brooks jokingly agreed that the third quarter barrage was, in fact, all about coaching. Where the second-year Cardinals boss did get serious talking about it was when he said it wasn’t his coaching that changed the look offensively.

“The credit goes to my assistant coaches,” Brooks said. “They were the ones who made the suggestions to put our taller players up top so they could pass over the zone. Our guards, some are young or undersized, and we just had a little trouble trying to make those passes over that 1-3-1.

“Credit to my assistants, credit to the guys we put in those spots and we knocked our 3s down.”

Brady Fogle and Idris Rines combined for one point Wednesday night, but the Cardinals pulled out the win anyway. They were much more involved offensively Saturday, the duo each hitting a pair of 3s in the third and Rines kicking off the deluge by hitting two treys around an assist to Mulroy for a third make from downtown.

Rines said he and Fogle both played with the mindset that there was going to be no repeat of Wednesday on the offensive end. After the 9-0 burst to open the third was stemmed by two Sun Valley free throws, the Cardinals got even hotter by closing on a 17-0 run.

“I think that might have been our hottest start to a half,” Rines said. “We’re a second-half team. We always fight adversity, so coming out of halftime, we knew what we had to do to take care of business.”

What had been a four-point game, 22-18, at halftime had turned into an overwhelming 28-point Upper Dublin lead.

“Once we saw one go in, that’s when we started feeling better about ourselves,” Fogle, who tallied 12 points on four treys, said. “It was contagious.”

Rines said nobody on the Cardinals’ side wanted the third quarter to stop. Even once the 3-point shelling ceased, Upper Dublin kept racking up points in other ways with Noah Cohen getting a layup and hitting a midrange shot before dishing to Mulroy for the final hoop of the quarter on a runout.

UD had a somewhat similar performance in the first quarter of the Suburban One League Tournament title game against Central Bucks West, but even that wasn’t quite the same in terms of how the SOL Liberty champions got to those points.

“You can’t always count on that type of shooting, but we are capable,” Brooks said. “Shooting is very momentum based sometimes. When one or two misses precede your shot, you think, ‘I hope I hit this one, because we’re struggling right now.’ When the previous guy hit it, you think, ‘I don’t need to hit it,’ and of course, that’s when it goes in.

“I think that’s what it was.”

The Cardinals defense certainly helped too, limiting the Vanguards to just seven total points in the second half. Even with some foul trouble in the first half — Rines had three fouls at halftime and Kobe Bazemore picked up two early — the Cardinals didn’t back away from their aggressive press and man defending while challenging shots at the rim.

Upper Dublin extended its program-record win streak to 15 games a few days after snapping a 22-year state tournament drought in Wednesday’s win. The Cardinals haven’t been this deep into the district tournament much either, Saturday’s win already assuring they’ll finish better than a fourth-place finish in 2002 and fifth in 1986 with the ability to win the program its first title since 1985 coming next week.

Last year, Mulroy went to Temple and watched the 5A and 6A title games. This year’s 5A game will be at West Chester University instead, but that’s not taking away any anticipation of playing for a championship.

“It made me so jealous, I thought we had the team to get there, but now we were able to do it this year,” Mulroy said. “I’m looking forward to it, the crowd’s gonna be awesome, I know we’ll be ready to play.”

~~~

By Quarter

Upper Dublin: 10 | 12 | 26 | 7 || 55

Sun Valley: 10 | 8 | 2 | 5 || 25

Scoring

Upper Dublin: Ryan Mulroy 16, Brady Fogle 12, Idris Rines 9, Kobe Bazemore 7, Brandon Altman 4, Noah Cohen 4, James Castronuovo 3

Sun Valley: Noah Griffin 9, Kaiden Robinson 8, Blaise Eldridgee 4, Aaron Freeman 2, Justin Hickman 2