Men’s Basketball Loses on Last-Second Bucket
Down one point with 13 seconds left in the game, everyone in the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse knew what St. Vincent head coach D.P. Harris was chalking up for his team.
After coming back from down as many as 15 points in the second half, the four-time defending Presidents’ Athletic Conference champion Bearcats put the game in the hands of junior forward Tom Kromka.
Kromka, who used his 6-5, 245-pound frame to score 15 points and grab 13 rebounds so far in the game, took the ball in the post and made a left-handed layup with five seconds remaining to give the Bearcats the 71-70 win.
“We were looking for a post-up for me on that [last play],” Kromka said. “It’s a big confidence booster for me moving forward in the season knowing that [head coach D.P. Harris] does trust me enough to take the big shots and make them for our team.”
Kromka started his collegiate basketball career at Carnegie Mellon University and Harris said when he decided to transfer, he was highly sought after. Harris, who is in his 14th season as the St. Vincent (7-3, 3-0) head coach, said Kromka is his team’s “difference maker.”
Waynesburg (3-5, 2-2) head coach Mark Christner said he knew Harris was going to call on Kromka in that situation, and he was glad his defense was able to double him and force him into a tough shot.
Rather than elect to call a timeout with five seconds left and set up his offense, Christner chose to push the ball, leading to a missed 3-pointer by junior wing Kendall Paige.
“We wanted to push, and we got a good look from Kendall,” Christner said. “That shot is going to be better than [off a timeout] with five seconds left.”
Two seasons ago against St. Vincent at home, Christner did not call a timeout when his team was down one point with 10 seconds left in the game. Then-junior guard B.J. Durham went on to hit a runner to give Waynesburg one of its most iconic wins in Christner’s seven-year tenure.
To start the game, Waynesburg took an early lead and did not relinquish it until five minutes left in the second half. The Yellow Jackets held a seven-plus point lead for an 18-minute stretch, even reaching 15 points in the middle of the second half. The majority of that lead was built up by 3-pointers, as the Jackets shot 14-24 from behind the arc.
Most of those threes, and a variety of other buckets for the Jackets, were assisted by senior point guard Timmy Kaiser, who totaled 13 assists to go along with nine points – the first double-digit assist game for Waynesburg since 2008 and the most assists in a game by a Jacket since 2003.
“He’s a true point guard,” Christner said. “The best thing about Timmy is that he loves to play; he loves to talk basketball; he loves to compete. It was a big performance.”
Kaiser, who is fifth in the PAC in minutes per game (30.8) and second in the conference in assists per game (4.8), said the pass-first mentality is always the way he’s played basketball.
“I think I have a knack of finding when guys are going to be open,” Kaiser said. “It’s easy to get assists when guys are knocking down shots. I can’t get an assist if they don’t hit the shot.”
With about eight minutes left in the game, and with St. Vincent mounting a comeback, senior guard Christian Koroly knocked down his sixth 3-pointer of the game.
“That Koroly kid is ridiculous,” Harris said. “Six-for-10 from three, you’ve got to be kidding me. We couldn’t stop him at all.”
On the next possession, Koroly stole the ball and was fouled hard into the bleachers. Koroly did not return to the game, and his injury is not known. After Koroly left the game, the Bearcats instantly went on an 8-0 run to take their first lead of the game.
Christner said the loss of Koroly hurt the team’s depth more than anything, as freshmen Nick Valentic and Frank Bozicevic were not available for the game due to sickness and injury, respectively. He also said the loss of Koroly was evened out by St. Vincent losing one of its starters, junior guard Jason Capco, late in the first half.
With a four-point deficit and only two minutes left to play, junior wing Jon Knab, Waynesburg’s leading scorer, hit a 3-pointer. After a defensive stop, Kaiser was fouled and hit both free throws to give the Jackets the one-point lead before Kromka made the game-winning layup.
“They’re the four-time defending champs, so we’re going to try to put our best foot forward,” Christner said. “We were right there. Obviously the result is disappointing. I think we played with a lot of resolve and showed a lot of grit. To be quite honest there’s nothing to hang our heads about. If they are who we think they are, which is a top contender in the league, then I say we are too.”
In a physical game on both sides, St. Vincent shot 33 free throws to Waynesburg’s 13, scoring 13 more points from the line than the Jackets. While Christner wasn’t happy with the free throw disparity, he said his team needs to shoot two-point shots better.
“We shot the three really well, but we didn’t shoot the two well the whole game,” Christner said. “We had some layups we missed in the first half, and some mid-range jumpers we missed in the second half that we usually hit.”
Bearcat junior guard Matt D’Amico led all players with 22 points on 8-11 shooting, while Waynesburg had two players in double figures in Koroly and sophomore wing Brennan Smith, who hit four threes on the day. Sophomore wing Nate Gearhart, whose playing time thus far is dependent on whether or not he’s hitting his 3-point shots, scored eight points, including two 3-pointers.
“We’re trying to develop him overall as a player, but he does have some work to do, certainly on the defensive end and on the boards,” Christner said. “We would like him to be more than a one-trick pony, but that’s what he sort of is right now.”
The game, with no implications other than a normal December PAC game, had the atmosphere of a playoff game, said Harris, who believes his team’s resiliency and expectations to win its fifth straight PAC title is what led them to the win.
“We want to win a championship, and championship teams have to find a way to win on the road,” Harris said of beating a Waynesburg team that entered the game 16-3 in its last 19 games at the Rudy Marisa Fieldhouse.
The Jackets do not play again until Saturday, Dec. 17, when they host the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg in a nonconference game. Tipoff is slated for 1 p.m.