BROOKLYN, N.Y. – It hardly qualifies as the Miracle of St. Anthony, but it is still a story rarely told across the Hall of Fame career of Bob Hurley Sr.
His
St. Anthony (Jersey City, N.J.) program, ranked No. 2 in the MaxPreps Xcellent 25, listless and battle-weary, trailed
Boys & Girls (Brooklyn, N.Y.) by 12 points late in the third quarter while playing their second game in 20 hours.
Star point guard
Myles Mack caught his breath next to Hurley on the Friar bench, watching his teammates try to power a rare comeback attempt so that their undefeated season, lofty national ranking and SNY Invitational title hopes would not fall short like so many of their shot attempts Saturday evening.
Before the fourth quarter started, Hurley challenged his Friars to play differently and win unconventionally.
Kyle Anderson was named Most Outstanding Player of the SNY Invitational.
Photo by Lonnie Webb
"I said 'We're going to be aggressive. It's going to go from 12 to 20 or 12 to 4," Hurley said.
Despite playing an aggressive, trapping defense and tired legs, St. Anthony reeled off a game-closing 10-0 run, improving to 14-0 with a 43-38 victory over Boys & Girls in the SNY Invitational championship game before 1,417 at Long Island University's Wellness and Recreation Center.
"We were real tired, but we run a lot in practice," said 6-foot-6 senior guard
Lucious Jones, who finished with a game-high 12 points to go with seven boards and three steals. "We played hard, played smart and played together."
Make no mistake: St. Anthony needed to muster every last bit of resolve to overcome an athletic and energetic Boys & Girls squad that forced the Friars into a 3-for-14, 7-turnover third quarter before the lethargic juggernaut could pen its comeback tale.
Hurley called the St. Anthony approach through most of the first three quarters "a loser's mentality", an alibi he blamed himself for creating for his players after they returned home around midnight following Friday night's victory over
Mt. Vernon (N.Y.) that set up Saturday's sequence of events.
After an Anthony Hemingway free throw gave the Kangaroos (18-4) a 35-23 lead 1:52 before the third-quarter buzzer sounded, the Friars started their about-face. A jumper by Most Outstanding Player
Kyle Anderson (10 points, 8 rebounds, 3 steals) and a pair of free throws from Jones got St. Anthony within eight with eight minutes remaining.
In hindsight, Boys & Girls coach Ruth Lovelace – the first female coach ever to oppose Hurley – recalled thinking to herself, "When an opportunity presents itself that comes along so rarely, you've got to seize it."
St. Anthony continued closed the gap by finally converting inside. After scoring 50 points in the paint against Mount Vernon, most of the Friars' lay-up attempts found the iron unkind – they shot just 28.6 percent (14-for-49) – until Anderson started the fourth with a short jumper and a lay-up before a pair of free throws by Mack's understudy, sophomore
Josh Brown, broke the deficit down to 35-33.
A 3-pointer by Boys & Girls senior guard and Rutgers recruit
Michael Taylor (9 points, 7 rebounds), who scored his 1,000th point earlier in the game, made it 38-33 just seven seconds later, but the Kangaroos never scored again. Anderson calmly canned a pair of free throws to stake the Friars to their first lead since the first half, 40-38 with 2:25 remaining.
Taylor's potential tying 3-pointer inside of the final 20 seconds bounced off the rim harmlessly into the hands of St. Anthony junior forward
Jerome Frink (10 points, 7 rebounds), who went 3-for-4 at the charity stripe over the final 16 seconds to ice one of the most improbable of Hurley's 998 career victories.
"We were more than tested," Hurley said. "They took everything out of us. We happened to win the game in the amount of time it was played, but we walk out of here with a tremendous amount of respect for them."
