LORETTO, Pa. (Dec. 5, 2009) – Building off the confidence of a Northeast Conference-opening victory on Thursday night, the Saint Francis men's basketball team played superb team defense and got major contributions from its upperclassmen in a shocking 73-66 victory over preseason league favorite Mount St. Mary's, on Saturday night at DeGol Arena.
The Red Flash have won their first two Northeast Conference games for the first time since 2004-05, and have won three straight after winning last year's season finale over Fairleigh Dickinson. SFU, 3-5 overall, and take a week off for final exams before traveling to Drexel for a 1 p.m. tipoff next Sunday, Dec. 13th.
Senior Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist) (Washington, D.C. / Riverdale Baptist) posted his second straight double-double with 16 points and 10 rebounds, tied a career-high with five assists, and was 4-of-9 from the field and 8-for-8 from the free throw line. Senior Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ) made 4-of-7 field goal attempts for nine points, one shy of tying his career high, and had three rebounds and one block. Freshman Will Felder (Cleveland, OH/Lutheran East Hs) (Cleveland, Ohio / Lutheran East) fell a rebound shy of his first double-double with 19 points and nine rebounds, both tying career highs, and had a big block with 38.3 seconds remaining. He was 6-of-9 from the field and 7-for-7 from the charity stripe.
“For the first time since I got here, we ended up with a total team effort for 40 minutes,” said Saint Francis head coach Don Friday. “We played smart basketball on offense, and we played with a lot of energy and a lot of toughness and purpose on the defensive end. Our kids, they stuck to the game plan right to the very end… I'm very proud of them. I thought that, again, since the first time that I've been here, we put together 40 minutes of smart, hard, unselfish basketball. The last thing I said to my kids, 'It's amazing how much can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit.' And tonight we epitomized that.”
The Mountaineers dropped their Northeast Conference opener at Robert Morris on Thursday night, but came into Loretto having received nine (of 12) first-place votes in being selected as the favorite to win the league in 2009-10. Mount St. Mary's has advanced to each of the last two conference title games, and won it all in 2007-08.
The Mount scored the first bucket of the game to take an early lead, and jumped out 7-3 after a 3-pointer by Kelly Beidler. However, SFU Sweetney had two layups sandwiched around a Hoffman layup during a 6-0 run to take a brief 9-7 lead. Tayvon Jackson hit a pair of free throws to tie the contest at 9-9, but Felder answered with two free throws of his own as to give the Red Flash the lead for good.
Saint Francis led by as many as nine in the first half, and took a 32-27 lead into the break. Felder had nine points and five rebounds, and Sweetney had eight points and six rebounds in the first half.
Coming out of the break, the Mountaineers' Shawn Atupem made a layup to make it 32-29, but the Red Flash locked down on defense and continued to convert on offense. Every time that Mount St. Mary's made a run, Saint Francis answered.
SFU built its lead to as much as 11 midway through the second half, when Beidler (one) and Jeremy Goode (two) made three straight free throws to make it an eight-point game, 57-49, with 7:24 to go.
But Felder hit a big jumper, Sweetney added a pair of free throws and then a layup to give Saint Francis its largest lead of the night, 63-49, with 5:49 to play. The lead stood at 67-54 with 2:50 remaining when Mount St. Mary's made its last charge of the night. Goode scored four points during an 8-0 Mountaineers' run to cut it to five, 67-62, with 1:11 on the clock.
Junior Cedric Latimer (Los Angeles, CA /Windward) (Los Angeles, Calif. / Windward), Felder and Sweetney went a combined 6-for-6 from the free throw line in the final 45 seconds to seal the victory. With a seven point lead, 69-62, Felder had a huge block off a Goode layup to help some time off the clock on the defensive end.
Latimer contributed 10 points and two assists, and Ervin added 11 points, three rebounds and three steals for Saint Francis. Junior Sorena Orandi (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden/Solebury Prep) (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden / Solebury Prep) was 2-for-4 from outside the arc for six points, and played great defense, and freshman Chris Johnson (Newport News, Va./Denbigh) (Newport News, Va. / Denbigh) had a career-high nine assists, three rebounds and two steals.
Goode had 17 points, five rebounds, five assists and was 9-of-10 from the free throw line for the Mountaineers. Beidler added 17 points and eight rebounds, and Atupem had 11 points.
Saint Francis shot 49.0 percent from the field (24-of-49), and 46.7 percent from long range (7-of-15), and held Mount St. Mary's to 20.0 percent shooting from outside the arc (4-of-20). The Red Flash were 13-for-13 from the foul line in the second half, and 18-for-20 in the game (90.0 percent).
Post-Game Quotes:
Opening Statement for Head Coach Don Friday:
“For the first time since I got here, we ended up with a total team effort for 40 minutes. We played smart basketball on offense, and we played with a lot of energy and a lot of toughness and purpose on the defensive end. Our kids, they stuck to the game plan right to the very end. To my kids, I take that to Devin and Kurt and Mislav (Jukic), I take my hat off to them because there were some times early on where we would get a five or six point lead, and it was going back and forth. We were huddling up, we were talking. It's one thing if we are talking to them from the bench, and we are giving them some things and setting them up in some situations. But on the floor, we get five timeouts a game, and these guys kept it together on the floor. That was really, really important. I'm very proud of them. I thought that, again, since the first time that I've been here, we put together 40 minutes of smart, hard, unselfish basketball. The last thing I said to my kids, 'It's amazing how much can be accomplished when nobody cares who gets the credit.' And tonight we epitomized that.”
What did you do defensively on Jeremy Goode?
Senior Forward Kurt Hoffman (Johnstown, PA /Greater Johnstown ): “We put a focus on walling off the paint. Putting our shoes on the paint, and bringing in help side and keeping him out of there, discouraging him from getting in there and making plays.”
Don Friday: “What our focus was we knew we couldn't guard him one-on-one. Chris and Umar, and at times in our match-up, different guys had to play him. He's really good, no pun intended. He's a terrific player. What we try to do was when he got daylight and got by our guys, there had to be somebody else there. We put a lot of pressure on our guys, because as they helped on him. Not only did they have to help on him and stop him, but they had to get back to their man. The kid that gave us a great lift off the bench to start off was Sorena Orandi (Vastra Frolunda, Sweden/Solebury Prep). He came in a couple times and he walled it off, and he got back with high hands. His kid then had to back out. I could tell at that point, I knew we were in good shape because the whole energy level and confidence level on our bench, instead of saying 'Can we?,' it was 'We will.'”
What is the difference in team's attitude?
Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist): “I'd say that the attitude is that we are more focused. Coach Friday told us in the huddle right before we came to the media room, this has probably been the best week of practice that we've had since I've been here, and since he's been here. I really feel like our guys are all clicking, we are all on the same page. He has our attention, and it's paying off. We just have to keep working.”
Don Friday: “We came back on Monday. We didn't talk about Ohio State. I don't think I brought up Ohio State one bit. Didn't show them film. Nothing. We practiced, and we took an hour and 45 minutes each day. And we practiced our rear ends off. We played on Thursday night with energy. We practiced our tails off for one hour (Friday). We walled it off. We didn't work on any offense, we worked on defense. We worked on toughness. I wanted to put the hay in the barn last night, so they had tons of energy tonight, and they did.”
What exactly is the difference in attitude?
Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist): “I feel like with this group of guys, I've learned so much about winning. Winning is not just coming out and executing plays. It's the little things. After last season, coach Friday really challenged me as a player and as a person. He said, 'You're doing okay, but you can bring more to this team.' I really looked at myself in the mirror and challenged myself so that I can lead the team and they can follow so that we can be successful together.”
Can this be a turning point for this program going forward:
Devin Sweetney (Washington, DC /Riverdale Baptist): “I think so. The win feels good for me because I think that's the first time we've beat Mount St. Mary's since I've been here. That's one team I wanted. It was personal with me. It meant a little bit more to me. I'm just glad everybody got on the same page and we were 'as one' rather than five separate individuals out on the court.”
Where do you go from here?
Don Friday: “We have to put this in perspective. We have a long way to go to where we need to be. The thing I said to these kids is that the feeling they have right now is intoxicating. It's something that you need all of the time. It's like the addiction. I like to win. I don't like to come in here 6-23 and making excuses. I think we can put a good brand of basketball out there. Our kids are going to have to grow up more. We'll put a few more wrinkles in here to expand a little bit because I thought that we had to dumb it down a little bit to keep our young kids so they weren't paralyzed. But we can be a little bit more creative with some things. Last year, we had a six story building and we got to the sixth story. We maxed out our potential. This year, I've got a 30 story building, and I think we're at about the 16th story. So I think we've got a ways to go where we can continue to get better. That's going to be up to us, and it's going to be up to our kids. I think the question for these guys is 'how much better do they want to get?'” Now I can't lose my young kids in January where they just get paralyzed. The last thing I said to our kids was, now we are in final exams, my recipe is to put 14 great players together in a position to be successful. After final exams, academically, I want to have 14 players in my recipe. These older guys have to explain to these younger players what is going on.”
You guys 18-for-20 from the free throw line. That's nice to have, isn't it?
“The basketball Gods work in funny ways. Our kids worked really, really hard this week. We won this game, and we won Thursday night's game in practice. We didn't win it tonight. We won that game in practice. We prepared. Tonight, when it got to nut-crunching time, and it got hard, we executed things and we got things.”
