Controversial technical lingers with Africentric
DAYTON — For Africentric, the defining moment of Friday's Division III state semifinal loss won't be the backto-back 3-pointers Ottawa-glandorf sophomore Colin White made late in the third quarter that cut the Nubians' lead to four points.
It won't be the 13-2 second quarter that took Africentric from trailing 12-8 to holding a commanding 21-14 lead at halftime. It won't be the jump shot White made with 5:51 left in the fourth quarter to put Ottawa-glandorf back in the lead.
It'll be the moment junior Dailyn Swain's feet hit the ground after a dunk with 4:09 to play.
The dunk brought the Nubians within four points of the lead, but the officials perceived Swain to have hung on the rim unnecessarily and whistled him for a technical foul. Swain was stunned by the call, as were Africentric coach Michael Bates and Swain's teammates.
Though Ottawa-glandorf outscored the Nubians by only one point the rest of the way, going on to a 53-48 win, in Bates' view the technical foul changed the momentum of the game.
“There's a few things that just didn't go our way,” Bates said. “I don't want to get fined. I'm gonna be honest. I just don't want to get fined. I'm trying to be as positive as possible. But I've got kids in the locker room crying.
“There was some stuff that should've been called that I didn't think got called. There's some things that did get called that I didn't think should've gotten called. I think that some of those things might have swayed the momentum in the game.”
Swain finished with 32 points, 13 rebounds, seven steals, three assists and two blocks.
But it appeared that some of his energy was sapped by the technical — a subsequent dunk was noticeably gentler — and Ottawa-glandorf's momentum proved too much to overcome, despite Swain's performance throughout the game.
Swain led his teammates down the handshake line after the loss with a grim but neutral expression on his face. But in the postgame press conference, his emotions occasionally welled up beneath the neutral facade he fought to maintain, and he periodically wiped his eyes with the towel draped around his neck.
After not being able to participate in the postseason last year due to a player testing positive for COVID-19, making a run to the state semifinals this year carried extra meaning for the Nubians.
But that only made the loss, in a game they led for just over half of the 32 minutes, sting even more.
“There's a lot of hurt feelings in the locker room right now,” Bates said. “I thought we fought hard. I thought we played hard. I thought we had a great game plan. Some things happened in the second half. We talked about it at halftime.
“We knew that there was gonna be some adversity we would have to face in the second half. We knew it was gonna come. We just didn't know it was gonna come that hard.”