MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — University High qualified for its fifth consecutive state tournament Wednesday with a come-from-behind 58-55 victory against Wheeling Park, but don’t bother looking at the box score.
It won’t come close to telling the story of this game.
What it will tell you is Ryan Niceler scored 12 of his 13 points in the second half and that Blake Barkley came off the bench and played with a bad back and added eight critical points and five rebounds.
It will also tell you the Hawks (11-1) pulled out the win by outscoring the Patriots, 22-13, in the fourth quarter.
But that’s not the story.
The Hawks won this game and earned a No. 5 seed in next week’s state tournament — UHS will play No. 4 Huntington at 9 p.m. Thursday — because T.T. Brooks refused to take his eyes off of D.J. Saunders’ hips.
“The body can’t go anywhere without its hips,” said Brooks, who had five points in the win.
Sounds simple, sure, but what Brooks did was take something simple, and with just 21 seconds remaining in the game, he took that small moment and turned it into the game’s biggest play.
After dominating for most of the game — the Patriots led by 11 points with four minutes left in the third quarter — Wheeling Park now found itself down in the final minutes, 56-55.
Saunders, Wheeling Park’s senior point guard who had been frustrating UHS all night was now dribbling the ball near the foul line looking to set up a go-ahead score.
Brooks didn’t let it happen.
“His dribble was too high,” Brooks said. “Once I saw that, I just had to go for it. I stuck my hand out there and got a piece of it thankfully.”
The ball went squirting toward the sideline.
“I saw T.T. poke the ball away and the only thing on my mind at that moment was go get on the floor and get that ball,” UHS guard Jude Wisman-Raven said.
Wisman-Raven got it and called a timeout.
Moments later, the Hawks broke through Wheeling Park’s full-court pressure and Wisman-Raven found a wide open Garrison Kisner for a breakout dunk.
“They had a trap on Blake and there was some pretty tough defense there, but once he got the ball to me, I knew Garrison was all alone,” said Wisman-Raven who hit three 3-pointers and finished with 13 points for the Hawks. “I knew there was still time left and it was still a one-possession game, but that moment of watching him dunk it was a huge relief.”
Wheeling Park’s last-ditch effort saw Beau Heller launch a 35-footer that banged off the back of the rim.
The Patriots (11-7) led 33-22 midway through the third quarter and their spread-‘em-out and slow-it-down style had UHS frustrated, while it was Park’s players making all the right plays.
“We just basically told our guys to let them drive it,” UHS head coach Joe Schmidle said. “We couldn’t let them just stand out there and hold it, so we wanted them to drive it where we could contest the shot at the rim and force tough shots and get the rebounds.”
Brooks hit his only 3-pointer to get the Hawks going and then Niceler and Barkley started to become a factor.
Avery Lee had three 3-pointers from the corner in the second half for Park and finished with a game-high 20 points, but the lead kept getting smaller.
Barkley gave UHS its first lead, 54-53, when he picked up a loose ball when the Hawks went to a full-court press and layed it in with 1:16 remaining.
Niceler’s foul-line jumper with 50 seconds left gave UHS the lead for good, 56-55, with 50 seconds left.
The rest was left up to Brooks’ defensive play.
“I was really locked down at that moment,” Brooks said. “I didn’t really hear anything else. That play gave us the momentum. I didn’t want this to be our last game. I wanted to take on that challenge at that moment and it feels great that it worked out for us.”
“There is so much more to a basketball game than just the numbers,” added Wisman-Raven. “T.T. made a play that isn’t going to really show up in the stats. It’ll say he had a steal, but it was so much more than that. It was the play of the game.”
Box score
WHEELING PARK (11-7)
Jackson 1 0-1 2, Heller 3 1-3 10, Saunders 3 4-7 10, Francis 1 0-0 3, Phillips 4 0-0 8, Lee 7 2-2 20, Hairston 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 7- 13 55.
UNIVERSITY (11-1)
Niceler 5 3-4 13, Forbes 4 2-5 10, Brooks 2 0-0 5, Kisner 4 0-1 9, Hammack 0 0-1 0, Wisman-Raven 4 2-3 13, Barkley 4 0-0 8. Totals 23 7-14 58.
Wheeling Park 13 9 18 13—55
University 9 11 16 22—58
3-pointers: Wheeling Park 8 (Lee 4, Heller 3, Francis 1), University 5 (Wisman-Raven 3, Kisner 1, Brooks 1). Rebounds: Wheeling Park 21 (Phillips 7), University 24 (Niceler 6).
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