JFK’s rally falls short in season opener

If last week’s season opener vs. Truman was any indication, it could be a pretty exciting year for the JFK Campus boys’ basketball team this season. And while the Knights’ first game of the 2016-2017 campaign didn’t play out as they would have hoped, losing 71-68 in overtime to the Mustangs on a three-point shot at the buzzer, long-time Kennedy head coach Johnny Mathis thinks there is plenty to work with for him and his team to make for a memorable season.

“One thing I saw is we got some guys who can reach back and have some guts and they really played hard, really hard,” said Mathis, now in his 30th season at the Knights’ helm. “I definitely see some positives we can work on.”

For a large portion of the game, it didn’t look like the Knights belonged on the same court as the Mustangs as Truman used its superior height and long-range shooting to build a nine-point lead (24-15) at the end of the first quarter and still maintained a 30-22 lead at halftime after Truman’s Elijah Edwards sank a pair of free throws with less than a second to play in the half.

And when the situation did not seem to improve for Kennedy in the third quarter as the Truman lead grew to 12 points at one point after a layup by Dodzie Kojo with 7:23 to play in the quarter, you got the feeling Kennedy was in over its head as Truman held a 44-37 lead entering the fourth quarter.

But that was when the Knights came alive, as seniors Jason Guity and Sam Fraser and junior Revoldo Douglas went about fueling a furious Kennedy comeback.

Truman was holding a seemingly safe 53-43 lead with just under 5:00 to play when Kennedy got a jumper from and a layup from Douglas followed by a huge three-pointer from Frazier and suddenly the Knights were within 53-50 with 3:37 left to play. Truman responded by nudging its lead back to 57-50 after baskets by Edwards and Dimitre Alston and at that point just 2:25 stood between the Mustangs and victory.

But those would be the final points Truman would score in regulation while Kennedy went on a 7-0 spurt as Mouhamadou Diaoune drilled a three-pointer and Douglas added a layup and a pair of free throws with 16.3 seconds to play to knot the score at 57-57.

Truman’s Treyshon Bradley missed a jumper with eight seconds to play and Douglas missed on a three-point attempt for Kennedy as the buzzer sounded and a game Truman seemed to have in hand for three and a half quarters was off to overtime.

But there would be no storybook ending this time for the Knights, for despite jumping out to a six-point lead in the extra session, Truman’s Sanjee Rowe knocked down an off-balance three-pointer to tie the game at 68-68 with 14.4 seconds to play. And when Kennedy turned the ball over on its next possession, Truman’s Melachi Hughes drilled a three-pointer at the buzzer to stun Kennedy and pull out the three-point win.     

Guity finished with a team-best 15 points for Kennedy while Douglas added 12 and Frazier 11.

What turned out to be a backbreaker for the Knights was their inability at the foul line to convert their free throws. Kennedy missed a combined seven free throws in the fourth quarter and overtime and finished just 14-for-26 for the game.

“It definitely felt like we had the game and even when they hit that three near the end of overtime we still stuck together,” Guity said. “But the free throws down the end are what hurt us. That’s something that we are going to have to work on in practice. We missed four or five free throws down the end and that could have definitely switched the whole game around.”

Mathis, too, knows free throws are on the top of his list of things to fix in practice.

“I thought we had it there when we went up six in the overtime but we also missed a lot of free throws late in the game,” Mathis said. “You make the free throws and it’s a different game. But that three-pointer at the end hurt us, too. We needed a stop down there, that’s what we wanted and we couldn’t get it.”

Despite the loss, Guity thinks this Kennedy team has a chance to be better than the one which went 8-7 in conference play last season and reached the second-round of the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) playoffs.

“I definitely do believe we are going to have a good season,” Guity said. “We just have to come to practice every day and work hard, play hard and execute our plays the right way. If we do all that I think we’re going to have a very good season.”