Huskies Bite Kennedy at Buzzer

Prologue
To Bloomington Kennedy to see the Eagles host St. Anthony.  Interesting non-conference matchup.  The new bleachers and redone floor definitely help the atmosphere.  But its still one of my least favorite buildings out there.  We're back to normal concessions with a hot dog.  No Sprite tonight as I resort to fruit punch Gatorade.  Minnehaha AD Josh Thurow with the white hat duty tonight for the officiating crew.

Song of the Day: Keb' Mo' - Tell Everybody I Know
Number of Teams I've Seen: 101 (81 games, 40 days, 27 buildings, 13 online)

Beverage Ticker: 499.6 ounces (5530 Calories)

• Pepsi: 170.7 ounces (2130 calories)
• Coke: 96 ounces (1140 calories) 
• Dr. Pepper: 24 ounces (300 calories)
• Sprite Zero: 20 ounces (0 calories) 
• Sprite: 104.9 ounces (1240 calories) 
• 7 Up: 12 ounces (140 calories)
• Red Gatorade: 40 ounces (2800 calories)  
• Red Powerade: 20 ounces (130 calories) 
• A&W Root Beer: 12 ounces (170 calories)

Food Ticker:

• Hot Dogs: 12
• Walking Tacos: 4
• Pizza: 12
• Chipotle: 1 (thanks to Bethel staff)

Game Time:
St. Anthony once again playing without shooter Aaron Smith.  He's still out due to an injury suffered in the South St. Paul championship game.  The early pace is to St. Anthony's liking.  But Kennedy takes a 10-7 lead thanks to a layup out of the THE WORST VERSION OF THE WORLD'S WORST OFFENSE.  Coach Jamin Cook going with the screen and pop version of the flex.  Drew Nelson a pair of triples and St. Anthony goes up 17-13 at the midway point of the half.  Kennedy quick fouls put the Huskies in the bonus in the half but no real advantage gained.  The teams trade 3s at the 6 minute mark.  22-21 St. Anthony with the lead.  Then another Drew Nelson 3 and Sullivan Jahnke converts 2 dropoffs for layups.  Tait Nelson fouled at the buzzer for 1 of 3 free throws.  The 8-0 run puts the Huskies up 31-25 at the break.

Kennedy turns up the full court pressure in the 2nd half.  That leads to 6 turnovers in the 1st 4 minutes.  St. Anthony finding it very hard to generate any offense.  Markel Aune 2 bombs and a free throw to put Kennedy up 34-33 after those 4 minutes.  Tait Nelson with a nice spin and he turns that into a 3 point play.  39-38 St. Anthony with 8:49 left.  Then 6 in a row from Kennedy thanks to 2 hoops and 2 free throws from Isaac Coutier.  Isaiah Stone converts a turnover inbetween that.  45-39 Kennedy with 6:30 to play.

St. Anthony rallies with Tait Nelson making bonus free throws and then finding Jahnke for a 3 point play.  That ties the game at 44 with 4:39 left.  Markel Aune drives and scores and then a steal for 2 more.  Kennedy by 4 with 3:05 left.  Mickey Jah with a triple off a BLOB.  Then a couple Kennedy misses around a St. Anthony turnover.  Jah scores with 1:14 left and its 49-48 Huskies back on top.  Kennedy runs a set for Aune that is well defended.  He misses an open lane jumper but Kennedy gets it back with 32 ticks left.  He then hits the same fade from the foul line with 26 seconds left and Kennedy is back on top.  Timeout St. Anthony.

Its an elbow entry and flare screen for Tait Nelson.  He gets a great look at 3 but it goes in and out.  It ends up in Stone's hands and he's fouled with 8.2 left.  St. Anthony takes time and Stone misses the front end.  Jah will push it back the other way hard.  He finds Jahnke for a wide open layup but Stone comes from nowhere and swats it out of bounds with 0.5 seconds left. One last timeout for the Huskies.  They run a screen and roll back that is defended.  But Jah's defender leaves him alone in the backside corner.  He catches and calmly buries the 3 at the buzzer.  St. Anthony wins 52-50.

Post Game
For Bloomington Kennedy, Markel Aune scores 13 of his 23 in the 2nd half.  That included the last 6 Kennedy points.  Jaylen Williams and Isaac Coutier 7 points each.  I was surprised Kennedy didn't run even more of THE WORLD'S WORST OFFENSE.  I thought it was the most effective stuff they ran all night (yes it kills me to say that knowing how much I despise it).  While they did get switches for post mismatches out of their euro ball screen look, I didn't see it doing that much for them.  Kennedy falls to 3-7 overall but 6 of those losses are by 8 points or less.  That includes this buzzer beater, a 2 OT loss at  Mounds View and a 1 point loss to section foe St. Paul Harding.  The Eagles host Jordan on Thursday before kicking off Metro West play next week.

Mickey Jah's game winner gives him 16 points to lead St. Anthony.  He scored the last 8 Huskies points in the last 2:45 with a pair of clutch triples.  Tait Nelson adds 14 points.  Drew Nelson with all 3 triples and 9 points in the 1st half.  Jah had 4 2nd half field goals while the rest of the roster had 3 combined.  He also did a ton of ball handling vs the press.  That diamond press really caused St. Anthony problems in the 2nd half when Kennedy went to a smaller lineup.  The Huskies improve to 7-5 overall.  This one was after 2 losses by a combined 9 points.  The schedule helps with 6 of the next 7 at home but they aren't easy.  Mahtomedi, Fridley and Roosevelt all come calling in the next 2 weeks.

Play of the Day
Here's the game winner.  The lineup is both corners, ball side block and backside elbow.  Ballside block sets the diagonal screen for the backside elbow and then rolls back to the backside block looking for a layup.  Jah was set up in the backside corner and its his defender who often helps on the roll back.  In this case the defender was too far away and Jah made the Eagles pay.