By Brandon Colon
The Basketball Tournament (TBT) was back in the Long Island University – Brooklyn Campus Friday and things were intense. The second game of Friday nights double-header featured 16th seed South Jamaica Kings against the 17th seed Philadelphia Stars. What started out as a good back and forth game turned into a wild ending that the Kings would win 73-68.
After a missed shot early in the fourth quarter Jordan Washington of the Kings and Deione Lathem of the Stars would get into each other’s face and share some pleasantries. The incident ended with Washington taking a swipe at the face of Lathem, earning him an ejection.
Less than two minutes later Cameron Tyler (SJ Kings) was called for a blocking foul, while on the floor he was kicked in the back by Jamir Haner (PHI Stars). This started another scuffle between both teams and even got the crowd supporters of both teams into a heated discussion. After some pushing and shoving in the stands TBT Officials decided to have the police and LIU Security officers clear the gym for everyone’s safety.
The game would finish in front of 10 fans mostly family of both teams. Alan Thomas who scored 20 of his 29 points in the first half helped lead the way, while Jordan Washington contributed 19 points before his ejection. In total five players were ejected from the game, and there has been no word if any of the three ejected players from the SJ Kings will play in Saturday’s game. Players were not made available to media for comment on the event.]
Credit: Brandon Colon
The South Jamaica Kings will take on Boeheim’s Army (6:40 pm), a team filled with Syracuse Alumni who came very close to winning it all last year. It shall make for another intense game as both fan bases travel well and both teams have players who can get under other each other’s skin.
The first match-up was not as chippy as the second game of the night as the Talladega Knights defeated Queens Struggle 81-69. Talladega lead for a majority of the game as things only got close towards the end when Queens cut their once 20 point deficit to nine points late in the fourth.
The Knights moved the ball well all night with 26 assists and were able to knock down their shots from beyond the arc with 40% shooting. They also had 4 players in double figures lead by Novar Gadson’s 16 points and 15 points off the bench for Keith Wright.
“Nobody wants to be selfish so that’s why we had so many assists, we may be overpassed the ball sometimes but it was good for the first game, for everyone to get some touches,” said Franz Massenat. “Its good to establish that because no one likes to play with a ball hog, and it is amazing what you can accomplish when no one cares who gets the credit for it,” added Keith Wright.
Credit: Brandon Colon
TBT added a new twist to their tournament this year with the Elam Ending, created by Nick Elam. With under four minutes left in the game, the clock is turned off and seven points are added to the leading teams score to get a ‘target score’. The first team to reach the target score wins and moves on to the next round. In both games Friday night the winning team reached target score on game-winning lay-ups by Keith Wright (Talladega Knights) and Alan Thomas (South Jamaica Kings).
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