3-pointer at buzzer upsets Panthers
Hammond sinks winner with under a second left; Coulibaly scores 21 points
The St. Vincent Pallotti boys basketball team might be newcomers in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference this season, but it certainly didn’t look that way at St. Frances on Wednesday.
Visiting the area’s top-ranked team, No. 15 Pallotti dealt with foul trouble and trailed for most of the game but overcame the adversity to have a chance to win at the end.
Junior point guard Everette Hammond made it happen, hitting a 3-pointer with less than a second left to give Pallotti a shocking 60-58 win.
Pallotti, which moved up from the MIAABConference, is 3-1overall and 2-1in the Red Division. Abdoul Karim Coulibaly, a 6-foot-8 freshman center from Mali, scored 21 points despite missing chunks of the game with foul trouble. Hammond’s buzzer-beating 3 at the top of the key gave him 15 points for the game.
“We wanted to get it to our big man because he was a mismatch all game, but the play broke down. I knew the time was running down, so I beat my man, he gave me space to shoot it, and I made a jump shot,” Hammond said. “It was a great team effort, a great win, and I’m proud of our guys. It felt great — I felt it going in when it left my hands. It was a great team win.”
For St. Frances, senior guard Daquan Bracey scored 21 points, and backcourt mate Kurk Lee Jr., a fellow senior, added10 to surpass 1,000 for his career.
After Bracey hit a 3-pointer with 7:29 to play, St. Frances had its biggest lead of the game, 53-44, but Pallotti didn’t falter. Instead, the visitors went on a 10-2 run, with Hammond’s drive to the basket cutting the lead to 55-54 with 4:35 left.
After a number of defensive stops at both ends, Coulibaly tied it at 55 with 1:02 to play on a free throw before James Brown gave Pallotti a 57-55 lead on a basket in transition with 45 seconds left.
St. Frances sophomore forward Koran Moore answered, taking an inside pass from Bracey and completing a three-point play for a 58-57 lead with 34 seconds left. After Pallotti called timeout with 15 seconds to go, it couldn’t get the ball inside to Coulibaly, so Hammond got the clean look from the outside.
“The kids stayed with it, they grinded, and then obviously, Everette hit a big 3 at the end. The play kind of broke down, but good players make good plays, and he did that,” Pallotti coach Dennis Murphy said.
Said St. Frances coach Nick Myles: “I think [Pallotti] has some good young kids. I thought they played hard. They were disciplined. Like I said, [shoot 14-for-23] from the free-throw, and the three-, four-minute scoring drought — you’ll lose any game.”
And the message for Myles’ team after the game: “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Never get too high on any win or too low on any loss, and we come back tomorrow at 4 o’clock and try to get it together.”