Thursday night at the Omaha Sports Academy, the Metro Basketball League came to an end as UNO Alumni and Bellevue University met in the finals of the summer league’s season ending tournament. Richard Shepherd scored 21 points, Jelani Johnson scored 18 points and James Parrott scored 17 points in leading Bellevue University to the win over UNO Alumni 69-59.
Bellevue University came out in their second game of the evening with a lot of energy and jumped out to an early 25-19 lead with just under seven minutes left in the first half. The UNO Alumni was playing a little shorthanded without Creighton graduate Brody Deren as he injured his ankle on the jump ball of the first game of the evening against Zurlo’s Pizza and was unable to play in either game. However, UNO Alumni came back behind the play of Mike Jenkins and Denny Johnston and were only down 29-27 at the half.
UNO Alumni came out in the second half with a little more energy to take a slight lead, but the Bruins battled back to tie it at 39 with just over twelve minutes left in the game. A three pointer by UNO’s Andrew Bridger gave the alumni team a 44-43 lead. After trading a couple of baskets, Shepherd hit a three pointer, his fifth of the game, with 7:10 to go that put Bellevue up 48-46 and the Bruins would not relinquish the lead.
Jenkins, who scored 13, kept the UNO Alumni in striking distance as Bellevue held a 60-54 lead with 2:20 to go. Denny Johnston chipped in 12 for the UNO Alumni, but it wasn’t enough. The Bruins hit free throws in the final few minutes with Jelani Johnson and Parrott combining to hit five free throws to seal it for Bellevue. The game was called with about 22 seconds to go.
Bellevue University finished summer league play at 8-1 while the UNO Alumni suffered their first loss of the summer and also finished 8-1.
Scoring:
Bellevue
Richard Shepherd, 21
Jelani Johnson, 18
James Parrott, 17
Jeremy Arrington, 9
#25, 2
UNO Alumni
Mike Jenkins, 13
Denny Johnston, 12
Tola Dada, 10
Andrew Bridger, 9
Justin Peterson, 7
Matt Newman, 5
Grant Nieland, 4
Semifinals
UNO Alumni 75, Zurlo’s Pizza 71
The semifinal matchup between these two teams got off to a rocky start for the UNO Alumni, as mentioned before, Brody Deren watched from the sidelines due to injury just seconds into the game. He iced throughout but was not able to return. But things turned out well for the UNO Alumni as Mike Jenkins took over the game throughout the contest. Jenkins scored 26 points and hit four free throws with under a minute to go to take the UNO Alumni to the finals 75-71.
Zurlo’s Pizza gave them all they could handle. Eastern Washington graduate Benny Valentine was on fire early scoring in bunches in the first half. He finished with 17 points to help keep things close as Zurlo’s went into halftime down just 36-34. The battle in the second half continued as the lead shifted back and forth due to a huge contribution by Creighton’s Ross Ferarrini. Ferarrini nailed five three pointers in the second half and tried to take the team on his shoulders down the stretch. He finished with 19 points. In addition, Creighton’s Matt Dorwart was a last minute replacement for the absent Bruce Chubick and grabbed some nice rebounds for Zurlo’s.
However, with the game tied at 71 with 29 seconds to go, Ferarrini fouled Jenkins who hit both free throws to put UNO Alumni up 73-71. On the next possession, Zurlo’s was able to get the ball down to Chad Spady for an apparent layup when UNO Alumni’s Justin Peterson came out of nowhere to block his shot. Jenkins recovered the ball and was fouled where he calmly sank the two free throws with 9.8 seconds left to seal the game for the UNO Alumni.
Bellevue University 70, Bellevue Alumni 64
In the battle of the current and former Bruins, this game was also close throughout. A balanced scoring attack allowed Bellevue University to keep the Bellevue Alumni guessing, but it was a stretch of four possessions late in the second half and timely free throws at the end that pulled out the victory for Bellevue University 70-64.
Each team was a little cold to start the contest and it also became somewhat heated between the players and the referees in the first half as bragging rights were on the line. Bellevue University got an early lead, but the Bellevue Alumni rallied back to cut the Bellevue lead to 31-29 at the half.
In the second half is where current Bruin Jeremy Arrington decided to take over. As each team went back and forth scoring baskets and exchanging the lead several times, it was Arrington who on four of five possessions late in the game that found a way to score whether it was outside or driving hard to the basket scoring 8 of his team high 12 points. With 2:30 left to go in the game, Bellevue took the lead to stay. Jelani Johnson sealed the game with four free throws in the final minute to push them to their final winning margin. The Bruins finished with four players in double figures–Arrington 12, Shepherd 11, Parrott 10, Johnson 10.