City of Basketball Love

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)
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Trailing for the majority of the ball game, and in a timeout huddle with just 1:01 left on the clock and the score one point in their opponent’s favor Roman Catholic was on the verge of desperation against Abington.

That is, until a dagger corner 3-pointer immediately following the timeout from junior guard Allen Betrand gave Roman Catholic a two-point lead with just under a minute to play.

Following the three, Abington had no choice but to foul, and Roman capitalized on their opportunities at the stripe, which resulted in the Cahillites leaving the gymnasium as victors.

In the fourth game of five on the day in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic held at Archbishop Wood, Roman Catholic topped Abington by a score of 74-66.

Although his team was trailing for an overwhelmingly large amount of the game, first-year Roman Catholic head coach Matt Griffin is thrilled with the effort his players gave in this out-of-league bout.

“It’s great because we played a great team in Abington, who’s phenomenal,” said Griffin. “It helps us get better as a team. Ultimately, our goal is to continue to get better and be the best team we can be by February. This helps us take a step forward in our effort to get better. Playing against high-caliber players that they have and size, it forces us to get tougher and play better defense and be resilient.”

The “high-caliber player” and “size” traits that Griffin referred to when talking about this Abington team are humanized in the form of Eric Dixon.

Dixon, a 6-foot-7, 250-pound forward was a force on the inside for the Ghosts and caused problems for Roman from the opening tip until the final buzzer.

The sophomore, who was a participant in the 2016 USA Basketball Junior National Minicamp in October, finished the contest with game-highs of 27 points and 14 rebounds as his team came out on the wrong side of the decision.

Dixon, who scored 17 of his points in the first half, became more of a focus coming out of halftime for Roman Catholic.

“We made a slight adjustment at halftime. We put J.P. Sanders, who’s our best defender, on him,” Griffin said.

Sanders, who measures in at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, had his hands full with the massive Dixon, who is already garnering high-major interest.

Despite being massively outweighed and falling six inches short of Dixon, Sanders was up to the challenge as he held Abington’s leading scorer to just 10 second-half points on 2-of-8 shooting from the field.

“Even though he’s at a height disadvantage, J.P. plays with a tremendous amount of heart and he just did his best to front the post as much as possible,” Griffin said. “Make it harder for Dixon to get the ball and ultimately, even though Dixon is a phenomenal player and he had a phenomenal game, we were able to slow him down with that defensive adjustment.”

Dixon’s effort, although monumental, did not go unaided, as junior guard Robbie Heath added in 22 of his own points, while also dishing out five assist and reeling in five rebounds.

Building on the defensive effort of Sanders, his two teammates, Betrand and Seth Lundy, responded on the offensive end.

Lundy, a 6-foot-6 sophomore, who was given the daunting task of guarding Dixon early in the contest, finished with 21 points and a team-high of 13 rebounds in his squad’s victory.

Four of his points were crucial free-throws in the final minute that put Abington away for good.

Betrand, the transfer from Samuel Fels, was the hero for Roman as his three from the corner gave Roman their final lead of the ball game.

The wiry 6-foot-4 guard, who currently holds offers from Saint Joe’s and La Salle, finished with 23 points, five rebounds and three assists in the win.

“He’s a winner. He plays aggressive, he plays hard and he gives you everything he has every day,” Griffin said of his starting shooting guard. “He came up with some big time plays today. He’s a tremendous kid and we’re going to continue to look to him down the stretch.”

For Betrand, it wasn’t his offensive effort that stuck out, but the resiliency that his new look Roman team gave as whole after falling behind by double digits that hit home for the junior.

“I think it made us come together more,” Betrand said. “We started listening to each other. We struggled at first but we learned we need to play together to win.”

For Griffin, whose squad is looking to build an identity for itself after this past offseason wasn’t kind to the team from Broad and Vine.

After losing Tony Carr, Lamar Stevens, and Nazeer Bostick all to Penn State, Paul Newman to a postgraduate year, and D’Andre Vilmar and Mikeal Jones to transfer, Griffin is trying to instill the classic Roman Catholic program values into his young team, it was a tough ball game like this one that would shape this young team for success as the season goes on.

“That’s Roman basketball,” Griffin said. “We’re trying to play for 32 minutes and our guys were resilient, they played with high character, they never quit and they made the winning plays at the end of the game. I’m proud of them.”