City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)

--

After finishing the regular season at 11-11 and a 4-6 mark in the Public League’s ‘A’ division, it seemed like Constitution would have trouble returning to the conference’s title game.

The reigning A state champions lost two of its biggest stars to graduation, Ahmad Gilbert (Minnesota) and Kimar Williams (FIU).

So when the Generals finished below .500 in the Public League, another trip to the title game did not appear to be in the picture.

Hence why the playoffs are played.

“The regular season means absolutely nothing--it is all about the playoffs, that is when it matters,” Constitution junior Tamir Green said.

Green certainly did his part to guide the Generals to the championship game, tallying 27 points as he paced Constitution to a 75-66 victory over Martin Luther King.

“Everybody counted us out this year,” Green added. “They said we wouldn’t make it to the public league championship. Actually they said Imhotep would blow through the public league, which they did, but they didn’t come through, when it mattered, we did.”

Green has good reason to be excited. For most of the game, it appeared that it would be King heading for a showdown with Del-Val Charter at Saint Joseph’s on Saturday night. The Warriors beat Mastery Charter North in an earlier semifinal at South Philly HS.

The Cougars never trailed until the 1:19 mark of the fourth quarter when an acrobatic Green layup gave Constitution a 54-52 lead. King led by as many as 10 with less than six minutes remaining in the game, but Green and senior guard Anthony Satchell could not be stopped.

The two scored 17 of the Generals’ 20 fourth-quarter points and really set the tone late in the game.

Satchell finished with 26 points and six rebounds on 6-12 shooting and a 14-19 showing from the free throw line.

“I knew that he was going to take control of the game and put us on his back,” Constitution coach Rob Moore said. “I just knew that as a senior he was gonna step up and do that.”

It almost did not finish on a positive note for Satchell. At the start of overtime, Satchell and King senior Jabri McCall collided while attempting to secure an inbounds pass. Satchell went down with cramps in his left leg and after a solid minute of work from the trainer was able to stay in the game.

Had Satchell not been able to return for the Generals, there could have been trouble. Green fouled out at the end of the fourth quarter, and without either guard, Constitution may not have prevailed. But Satchell stayed in the game and powered his team to a win.

Before the game could even get to overtime, with Constitution leading 56-55, Satchell turned the ball over on an ill-advised in-bounds pass that was intercepted by King’s Rasool Samir. Satchell would later redeem himself though, connecting on two game-tying free throws with his team down 59-57 with 2.1 seconds to go.

“I want that moment, I want it,” Satchell said. “I turned that ball over.  should’ve called timeout, but I didn’t let it take me out of game, we never give up. I just knew that we had to go to the line and be confident. And even if I missed I was going to go after it.”

For King, the team will face either Roman Catholic or Archbishop Ryan in the District 12 AAAA championship game next week. Regardless of the outcome the Cougars are still state playoffs-bound as either the one or two seed from District 12.

“You just gotta suck it up, it was a tough game, a tough loss, it’s rough,” King coach Sean Colson said. “ I just gotta tell the kids, we are in the states again, and we just gotta bounce back.”

King was led by the senior McCall who finished with 22 points and eight rebounds on 7-11 shooting while shooting 7-8 from the free throw line. Fellow senior Nasir Bell, a Chestnut Hill commit, added 19 points and 10 rebounds on 7-14 shooting.

The trip to the championship game marks the fifth time in the last six seasons in which Constitution has traveled to the championship game.

“For Constitution as a basketball program, this public league championship is second nature to us,” Moore said. “We have nothing to lose. We finished the season 4-6 in our league, 11-11 overall, but here we are in the public league championship game. So we have to come out and play and they have to come out and play.”

Of course winning the championship is no easy task. Standing in their way is Del Val Charter, who finished 7-3 in the Public League this season and defeated favorite and reigning champions Imhotep in the League quarterfinals on Saturday.

“They are the best team in the public league left,” Moore added. They are the top seed. We are very familiar with them. We know that they can really shoot the ball, they have great guards. We have to come prepared to play but they have to come prepared to play too.”