City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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LANCASTER — As they rolled toward Philadelphia’s Main Line Tuesday night, yet another success tucked safely away in a well-worn ledger flush with victories, Gregg Downer’s Lower Merion Aces undoubtedly were grinning the whole way home.

Not only had they just dismantled an athletic McCaskey side with a prudent yet precise approach at both ends of the basketball court, but Downer’s Aces also may have uncorked their best outing thus far while winning in impressive fashion.

Everything Lower Merion attempted against Steve Powell’s startled Tornado seemed to work and work effectively throughout a dominant 32-minute exercise that kept the sizable partisan crowd searching for some reason to cheer.

On this night, however, the Aces were the ones controlling the mute button.

Popping four players into double figures and tossing out several defensive approaches that prevented the hosts from locating any sort of rhythm or flow, Lower Merion registered a decisive 70-50 triumph over McCaskey in the title game of the Hagelgans & Veronis Holiday tournament. 

Tournament most valuable player Terrell Jones rang up 21 points — 13 in the opening half — while Dion Harris chimed in with a career-high 16 as Downer’s Aces (7-2) stretched their winning streak to three games.

Noah Fennell added 12 points and Jeremy Horn netted all 10 of his points in the opening quarter for a Lower Merion club that led by as many as 22 points (30-8) before the break and sported a 31-point bulge (53-22) after it.

Harris also snared 10 rebounds, while K.J. Helton dropped seven dimes.

And all of that came against a McCaskey club (8-2) that came into Tuesday night’s final riding an eight-game winning streak.

Kobe Gantz netted 12 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out six assists for Powell’s Tornado, while Jathan Gonzalez chipped in 10.

“This tournament championship is the pinnacle for this group. It’s the best thing this group has done,” Downer admitted. “We lost a tight opener to Coatesville … and we lost to a good Conestoga team, but I feel like we’re getting better and tonight, in many ways, may have been our cleanest 32-minute performance.

“I wasn’t expecting a margin like that.”

No one was.

“We got beat all the way around — playing and coaching,” wrote Powell, who is still using an erasable board to communicate as he continues to recover from a lengthy battle with oral cancer that’s cost him his tongue.

We’ll start at the offensive end.

Committed to using their half-court sets to kick it inside to Horn early against the smaller Tornado, the 6-8 senior responded with several jump hooks, a stickback, an easy finish at the rim and a jumper from just inside the foul line.

Fennell added two perimeter pops — one from beyond the arc — while the athletic Jones was able to get to the basket and knock down a deep look for a Lower Merion club that owned a 24-6 lead after one full quarter.

Then, with a commanding lead at its back, the Aces spread the floor and efficiently worked a spread attack that continued to cash in thanks to easy looks and work the clock. Helps explain why the lead was 37-18 at halftime.

Jones, who had 13 first-half points, Fennell, Helton and diminutive Zack Magill took turns piloting the dribble-drive while frustrating the Tornado.

“[Downer] shortened the game,” Powell said. “Plus, they did not miss any shots.”

Lower Merion shot just over 59 percent from the floor in the opening half (16-for-27) and nearly 62 percent (29-for-47) for the game.

“Four corners is almost like a legacy of Lower Merion basketball, I mean to spread the floor. We do it a lot,” Downer said. “We weren’t sure that this personnel could do it well, but they’ve done a good job with it.

“If we get a lead, we’re gonna try to milk the clock and that’s what we did tonight.”

And while the Aces opened in a 1-3-1 half-court trap, they also showed triangle-and-two and man-to-man defenses before the night was through.

Gantz and Randolph Speller, the only two starters returning from a club that last season wheeled into the PIAA Class AAAA semifinals before falling to eventual state champion Roman Catholic, were the targets of Downer’s gimmick defense.

Gantz and Speller joined Jones and Harris on the all-tournament team.

“I just think that [Gantz is] a very electric player and it all seems to go through him,” Downer said. “We talked about trying to have him what we call a tough 20 points, a really tough 20 points versus an easy 30 points. He’s a very electric player and we held him to 12 points. That was priority one.

“I’ve got a pocket full of defenses in my pocket right now. That’s one of them,” Downer continued. “I think sometimes good players like [Gantz] get into a rhythm and we wanted to kind of show some different looks at him. The one risk of that defense was maybe that [Ricky Cruz] would hit a couple of threes, but it seemed to knock them out of sync for like five or six minutes and they didn’t seem to like it.

“So, I agree with you that keeping them off balance and the triangle-and-two helped expand the lead.”

While Lower Merion showed its transition offense in the third quarter — Harris collected 11 points for an Aces club that bagged eight of nine shots — the 6-4 Gantz never really got anything going against Downer’s group.

Of course, Downer knows something about remarkably creative offensive players tagged Kobe, having mentored Kobe Bryant during his high school career.

“That’s exactly right. I’m like 20 years into this — I don’t know how popular that name is — but I really haven’t gone up against that many Kobes,” Downer said.

“I kept calling him Gantz, because calling him Kobe seemed a little weird to me. … Last night was my first time that I saw him and I read some things about him.

“He’s pretty dynamic. He’s probably gonna make a run at 2,000 points and that’s a lot of points. He’s gonna make a college coach pretty happy.”

So is the athletic 6-4 Jones.

“This is his first kind of meaningful time,” Downer added. “He’s an electric scorer as well. I haven’t had a lot of guys, in really the last five or 10 years, that have been averaging in the low 20s — which is where he is now. He’s averaging 20-22 points a game. He can make a 3 … he can score in bunches.

“He’s kind of a hidden gem and his name’s gonna get out there a little bit more the more people see him.”

Same might be said for this Lower Merion group as it continues to gain more experience playing together and additional traction.

Another challenge will come Wednesday at Chestnut Hill College, where the Aces will play Samuel Fels as part of the Pete/Jameer Nelson Classic. It’s the first time in Downer’s lengthy career that one of his teams will play three times in three days.

“Hopefully, we can get through that one,” said Downer, whose Aces opened the McCaskey Tournament with a 58-55 victory over York. “Hopefully, we’ll make some noise in 2016 and I think what you saw was probably our best performance.”

Plenty of folks would agree.

~~~

York takes third place
Knotted in a 51-all tie midway through the fourth quarter, York unleashed a 14-2 closing kick and zipped past neighboring West York 65-53 to claim the third-place game that opened the Hagelgans & Veronis twinbill.

All-tournament selection Jacquez Casiano banked 23 points and Trey Shifflett finished with 21 for Troy Sowers’ Bearcats (7-4), who will host unbeaten No. 5 Coatesville on Saturday night. Montrel Morgan, despite game-long foul issues, added 10 points — including four in York’s pivotal finish.

Kris Johnson snagged 13 rebounds and dished out four assists for York.

Darian McCauley scored 19 points and grabbed nine boards for West York (4-4) — McCauley also landed on the all-tournament team — which led 47-44 after three quarters. Kenton Meckley added 15 points and 10 rebounds.