LORETTO, Pa. (Jan. 5, 2008) – Monmouth sophomore Jhamar Youngblood went scoreless for the first 35 minutes, but made two crucial buckets in the final five minutes, including the game-winner with 15.1 seconds remaining, to hand the Saint Francis men's basketball team a gut-wrenching 51-50 Northeast Conference defeat on Saturday night at DeGol Arena.
Junior Chris Berry (Seagoville, TX/Seagoville) (Seagoville, Texas / Seagoville) gave the Red Flash a 50-49 lead on a layup with 1:24 remaining off a beautiful feed along the baseline from redshirt junior Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring) (Newville, Pa. / Big Spring). James Hett missed a 3-pointer at the other end with 46 seconds remaining, but Saint Francis committed a turnover on its next possession and the Hawks capitalized. Nelson's 3-point attempt fell just short at the buzzer.
The Red Flash dropped their fifth straight game to fall to 3-11 overall, and 1-2 in the NEC. They will resume play with a tough three-game road swing, beginning with a 7 p.m. tilt at Central Connecticut State on Thursday night.
Berry, Nelson and redshirt sophomore Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) had 10 points each for Saint Francis, while junior Steve Profeta (Carnegie, PA /Chartiers Valley ) (Carnegie, Pa. / Chartiers Valley) came off the bench to hit 3-of-7 from long range for 9 points. Berry and Sweetney had 8 and 5 rebounds, respectively
Monmouth (4-11, 1-2 NEC) was paced by Whitney Coleman, who had a terrific night. The junior guard hit 12-of-14 shots from the field for 27 points. No other Hawks player was in double digits.
The game featured 14 lead changes and six ties. Saint Francis held a distinct advantage in rebounds, 36-21, and had 19 offensive boards.
Coleman had 12 of his 27 points in the first half, but the Red Flash took a 24-22 lead into the break. Berry and Profeta had 6 points each in the first frame, while six other players had two points each.
Coleman tied the game at 27-27 on a layup with 17:44 remaining in the game. Sweetney answered with a layup off a baseline drive at the other end to give SFU a 29-27 lead. Sweetney then stole the ball from Youngblood and raced to a slam dunk to give the Red Flash a 31-27 edge with 16:20 to play. Coleman hit a jumper at the other end and Sweetney scored his sixth straight point to make it a four-point game again. But Coleman again answered with a dunk of his own before Profeta hit a 3-pointer to give Saint Francis a 36-31 lead with 14:08 to play. Coleman scored eight straight points and 10 of 12 points for Monmouth during the stretch to pull it even again at 38-38 with 8:45 remaining.
There were six lead changes over the final five minutes of the ballgame.
Postgame Quotes:
Head coach Bobby Jones
Opening Statement
“I thought that obviously Coleman was the difference in the ballgame. He's a tremendous player. He made some big shots for them, particularly late in the game on some backdoor cuts that gave them an opportunity to win this game. That shot late in the game, well, that was Youngblood's second field goal of the night. We did a nice job on him. Boy he hits a big shot there to put his team up one (point). I certainly want to credit Monmouth for a very, very good road victory. But it's a disappointing loss for us. Once again, I thought we played hard. Nineteen offensive rebounds is a tremendous number. We out-rebounded Monmouth 36-21. I thought our effort was tonight, certainly in my opinion, the best that we have played for 40 minutes at home this season. I'm really proud of how hard we played. Obviously when you feel like you played well enough to win, it's a very difficult loss to take at this time. The team is certainly very upset in the locker room. There are a lot of emotional guys in the locker room tonight. As a head coach, you do like to see that from time to time because it does mean that they care about winning and losing. That is certainly a bright spot as far as I'm concerned. A tough way to lose and what else can I say?”
The thing that really hurt you was having the ball with a one-point lead at the end and turning it over. Can you talk about that?
“We have to inbound the ball. We had a timeout. We come out of a timeout. That is probably the one thing that really hurts. When you come out of a timeout, you are organized and you go out and of course you know they are going to pressure that inbound pass because they are trying to recover that basketball. We probably inbound the ball a little too close to the sideline… When the game's on the line, we have to inbound the ball. We have to be strong with the ball.”
What did you think of Cale Nelson (Newville, PA /Big Spring)'s play at the end with four fouls on him?
“He picked up his fourth foul early in the second half. He is obviously one of our better ball handlers. You like to have him out there, particularly when it's late in the game and teams tend to foul. We were in a bonus situation and I like to have the ball in his hands when we feel like the opposing team is going to foul and be aggressive on the basketball. Cale has the ability to break the defense down, so he played a lot of minutes with four fouls. We were trying to go offense to defense to protect him a little bit. Maybe have him on offense a little bit more with that fourth foul, and have Chris McFarland (Montgomery Village, MD /Riverdale Baptist) in on defense. We were able to get away with that. When you out-rebound a team 15 rebounds, have 19 offensive rebounds and have three players in double figures, this is a very, very tough loss to get over. Once again, the game's keep coming. Our players certainly are down right now. We do have practice tomorrow, first day of classes for spring semester on Monday. We have a three-game road trip, and that's going to be a very difficult trip next week at Central Connecticut State and at Wagner, who today is probably the best team in the Northeast Conference. Then we have Mount Saint Mary's and they are very difficult to beat at home. We have our hands full next week, and we understand that. We dropped two at home. We are 1-2 with 15 games left. We have to regroup and get ready for the next one.”
