After 12 grueling games over three hours at the Omaha Sports Academy on Monday night, the dust settled and the final four teams are set for the Metro Basketball League tournament. Three of the top four seeds fell in the 9PM quarterfinals after getting past the 7PM first round games along with the defending MBL Champs, UNO Alumni.
Winning Mentality was the only team of the top four to make it to the semifinals and almost didn’t make it past the first round. NEBHSSPORTS.COM suffered their first defeat against the all-Creighton Narmi Group. Going Vertical fell to the Bellevue University graduate team of the Regulators, while the Rooferees knocked off the defending champs UNO Alumni where they led wire to wire.
The semifinal games are set for 7:45 p.m. on Thursday night:
Court 1: Narmi Group @ Baird vs. Rooferees
Court 4: Regulators vs. Winning Mentality
The winners will face off for the MBL Championship at 8:45 p.m on Court 4.
Here is how the games went down on Monday night:
Quarterfinals
Winning Mentality 97, BD 95
Both teams survived from being upset in the first round and this game in the quarterfinals didn’t disappoint providing the most exciting game of the night. Both teams went back and forth throughout the first half with Winning Mentality taking the slim 50-49 lead into the break.
The second half had Winning Mentality getting out to an almost double-digit lead before BD made a comeback but were unable to get the lead on their side. With a little over a minute to go, former Husker and Pro Steffon Bradford hit a three-pointer to put Winning Mentality up by eight which could have easily been a dagger. However, BD bounced back with a three-pointer from Midland University grad Ben Imig to cut the lead to five with under a minute to go. After a steal on the ensuing inbound play, BD found James Parrott in the corner to hit another three-pointer and cut the game down to two points. Winning mentality had problems again inbounding the ball and BD took advantage. After setting up a play. Jelani Johnson drove the lane an put up the layup to tie the game with 15 seconds remaining.
Winning Mentality then setup for the last shot of the game to go for the win. The clock was ran down to the final seconds on a drive to the basket. The ball bounced off the rim but right back into the hands of the same player who drove to the basket and the putback was good as time expired. See the final sequence from the Periscope video below:
LIVE on #Periscope: BD vs Winning Mentality @omametroleague quarterfinals https://t.co/mX8BcDn7n2
— Patrick Marshall (@wildjays) July 19, 2016
In the first round:
BD 85, OFWF 83: BD survived the hot shooting from Creighton’s Davion Mintz who drained 10 three pointers to get the victory. BD looked like they were going to close it out but an amazing put-back dunk by Creighton’s Toby Hegner cut the lead to three points. BD’s Galen Gullie was fouled with 5-seconds remaining with the score 83-80 and made both free throws to make it 85-80 before Mintz hit a beyond half-court shot as time expired to get the final 85-83 score. Mintz had 40 points on 10-of-11 from three shooting.
Winning Mentality 85, Apex Foster Care 83: The game was tied at 83 when Winning Mentality was fouled with :02 remaining. Both free throws were made and Apex (Peru St.) couldn’t get the equalizer and Winning Mentality survived from being upset in the first round.
Narmi Group @ Baird 106, NEBHSSPORTS.COM 88
Both teams pulled away in their first round games to get to this point. If you were a Bluejay fan, this is a game you wanted to see with Justin Patton, Khyri Thomas and Antoine Young of NEBHSSPORTS.COM facing off with Ronnie Harrell, Tyler Clement, Jahenns Manigat, Taylor Stormberg, and Matt Dorwart for Narmi Group. NEBHSSPORTS.COM looked like they were going to run away with this one early as they jumped out to a 10 point lead part way through the first half. However, Narmi Group got hot from three and climbed back into the game to tie things up right before halftime before NEBHSSPORTS.COM hit a three to go into the break up 47-44.
The second half belonged to Ronnie Harrell and the Narmi Group. Harrell was unstoppable whether it was from behind the arc or his smooth drives to the basket. Add in some clutch shooting by Matt Dorwart and Jahenns Manigat and this one started getting away from NEBHSSPORTS.COM ruining their perfect run in summer league and dashing their hopes of getting the MBL title.
The Narmi Group hit 21 three’s as a team with Ronnie Harrell leading the way going 9-of-15 from behind the arc and finishing with 48 points. Khyri Thomas finished with 33 points for NEBHSSPORTS.COM.
In the first round:
NEBHSSPORTS.COM 100, Air Force 76: NEBHSSPORTS.COM jumped out to a big lead on the Offutt Air Force Base team early, but sputtered a bit before getting the big victory. NEBHSSPORTS.COM was up 44-33 at halftime, but the lead was cut 60-52 with 14 minutes to go. Fortunately the athleticism of NEBHSSPORTS.COM overcame the comeback and went on a 40-24 run to finish the game. Khyri Thomas had 29 points, Justin Patton had 20 points, 19 rebounds.
Narmi Group @ Baird 74, Lopers 53: Ronnie Harrell had a great game before the NEBHSSPORTS.COM game as well in this one as Narmi group went into the half up 36-30. They pulled away in the second half with hot shooting from behind the arc and Harrell slicing and dicing the Loper defense.
Regulators 81, Going Vertical 67
There will be a lot of questions whether the top four seeds getting the 8PM hour off really benefits the teams as Going Vertical was the 2nd of the top four seeds to go down in the quarterfinals. The Regulators coming off of an easy win over Shanks Law Firm the hour before, looked revved up and ready to take it to a team that has won the MBL before in Going Vertical.
After going toe to toe in the first half with both teams tied at 35, the Regulators jumped out to a 15 point lead early in the second half. A run behind Justin Carter, Tre’Shawn Thurman and Tra-Deon Hollins cut the lead to 60-54 with six minutes remaining and it looked like Going Vertical would pull it out. However, the Regulators kicked things into gear and started pulling away down the stretch getting some easy points off of careless turnovers and the favored Going Vertical was eliminated 81-67.
In the first round:
Going Vertical 84, EQ School of Hair 76: After rumors earlier in the day that new Creighton Bluejay Kobe Paras was joining Maurice Watson’ Jr. and EQ for the game, league officials were informed 10 minutes before the game that Paras would be in attendance but wouldn’t be playing. However, EQ was hot in the first half like they had an extra player going into the half up 43-40. Going Vertical came out in the second half and went on a 15-2 run to go up 55-45 with 13 minutes left and maintained their lead until the final score
Regulators 92, Shanks Law 75: The Regulators contained Trey Bardsley and the Nebraska Wesleyan grads to keep pace with a 38-36 lead at the half and then continued to score two baskets to Shanks one throughout the second half to roll to victory.
Rooferees 90, UNO Alumni 82
This one was not as close as the final score appears. The Rooferees were coming off their win earlier against Bank of Nebraska and dismantled UNO Alumni in about the same way. The balanced scoring between Andre Smith, Derek Fletcher and others helped the Rooferees get an early 46-40 lead at the half. However, in the second half, the Rooferees started to pull away behind the ball control of Grant Gibbs and Jason Isaacson. UNO Alumni attempted a comeback, but ran out of time to catch back up and win.
In the first round:
Rooferees W, Bank of Nebraska L: We didn’t pick up the final score in this one, but the Rooferees did the same thing to Bank of Nebraska as they eventually did to UNO Alumni. They had a 49-44 lead at the half and the lead in the second got up to as many as 15 and stayed there throughout the game, allowing the Rooferees to advance.
UNO Alumni 105, Judd Knispel Insurance 103: Judd Knispel almost upset UNO Alumni in the opening round and tied the game in the final seconds behind a basket by Creighton’s Marcus Foster in the lane. However, UNO Alumni ran the clock down to take the final shot, and it was new UNO Alum Devin Patterson who drove right down the lane to score as the clock expired to get the win.
The MBL tournament concludes on Thursday, July 21st. For more on Monday night’s action visit the OMAMetroLeague Twitter timeline and visit the MBL mini-site.