Tuesday, March 9, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Nick Bianco did all of the little things, and some big things too, for Old Tappan, which held off Teaneck, 49-47, in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional final on Monday.

OLD TAPPAN -- After what it had been through on Friday night, a five-overtime thriller against Passaic Valley in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional semifinals, the Old Tappan boys basketball team must have felt like it was on Easy Street. After all the Golden Knights had a three-point lead over Teaneck in the section final with 17 seconds left to play. So what if they had just missed a free throw and Teaneck grabbed a defensive rebound with a chance to tie the score on the other end.

That is because to win the title, Old Tappan needed to make just one more play. One more defensive stand, one more rebound, one more anything would send the student section rushing the floor in celebration. And Old Tappan had Nick Bianco, a junior who made a string of hustle plays throughout the game.

Clinging to the two-point lead, Old missed the front end of a one-and-on that was taken off the rim by Teaneck, which was about to head the other way. But the Highwaymen never got the ball over halfcourt because Bianco read the play, got himself between the outlet pass and its intended target, knocked the ball free and then dove headlong after the loose ball and called a timeout.

Chris Jones scored 8 points in the first quarter to get Teaneck off to a fast start.

Old Tappan turned the extra possession into two made Sam Elias free throws and a four-point lead, just enough to hold on for a 49-47 and the North 1, Group 3 state sectional title, its first since 2006 and just the second in the history of the school’s boys basketball program.

Bianco finished the game with just four points, but his nine blocked shots, eight rebounds, two steals and multiple floor burns were the difference maker for the Knights and his hustle play after the missed free throw stood out more than any made basket.

“I really didn’t want to foul, we talked about not fouling in the time out, but they got the rebound and the ball was right there,” said Bianco. “I was thinking tip, tip, tip. I knocked it away, it was loose and there was no way I was going to let anyone else get to that ball.”

The game was a rematch of last season’s thrilling state sectional semifinal that Teaneck won on a coast-to-coast layup at the buzzer by Owen Barnes and, now a senior, Barnes picked up right where he left off. The Highwaymen started the game attacking the basket and the offensive glass. Chris Jones opened the game with three straight baskets, two on hard drives to the hole and another on a steal and a layup as Teaneck opened a 6-0 lead.

Four straight points by Barnes later in the quarter gave Teaneck an 11-3 lead and forced Old Tappan to burn its first timeout 4:54 into the game. Teaneck led 13-5 after the first quarter and bumped its lead into double digits briefly when Jones opened the second quarter with a driving layup. But after that, Old Tappan settled in.

Old Tappan's Thomas Messina scored a game high 21 points and now has 50 in his last two playoff games.

“We talked about it before the game, we talked about taking the ball to the basket and we came out and did it,” said Curtis March, Teaneck’s venerable head coach who has announced that this was his final season on sidelines. “We got off to a good start, but then we became a jump shooting team. I don’t know why, that is not what we wanted them to do, but they are high school kids and sometimes that is what happens. It was a lack of focus there for a while and when we got back to it we were just kind of throwing the ball up there and not getting it all the way to the rim.”

Elias’ three-point play and a Tim Brophy jumper from the corner capped a 9-2 Old Tappan run that got it back in the game. Four straight points by Thomas Messina got the Knights even for the first time at 18 and his two free throws with 35 seconds left in the second quarter left Old Tappan trailing by just two, 22-20, at halftime.

Messina gave his team its first lead of the game at 26-24 on a fastbreak layup and his basket at the end of on an old-school post move, a drop-step to his right that came on a bounced entry pass from Chris Besserer, gave the Knights their only other advantage of the third quarter, 28-26.

Kyle Steinbergin’s two free throws gave Teaneck a 36-34 lead heading into the fourth quarter and Anthony Hargraves’ driving layup gave the Highwaymen their final lead of the night at 40-38 with 4:53 to play. Messina’s three-point play the next time down the floor gave Old Tappan the lead for good and it spent the final 4:24 trying to protect it.

Senior Owen Barnes scored 8 points for Teaneck.

“Everyone stepped up offensively and defensively after the first half,” said Elias, who scored 10 of his 13 points in the second half and 8 of them in the third quarter. “I am not a scorer on this team, obviously, but I got some opportunities and I finished when I got the chance.”

It looked like Old Tappan had the game in the bag when Messina cut to the basket and scored off a pass from Elias then got a defensive stop and step-in jumper from Shane McLaughlin with 2:20 left that put it up 47-41, but nothing has been easy for the Golden Knights in the state playoffs.

Barnes made a layup and was fouled and when he missed the bonus free throw, the Highwaymen got four more looks off the glass, the last of which was put home by Brandon Davis. Two Old Tappan misses from in close on its next possession gave Teaneck the ball back trailing by just two at 47-45, but Bianco owned the final minute plus.

He blocked two shots on the same possession on which Teaneck had a chance to tie to set up the one-and-one that went awry with 17 seconds left. And when that failed, Bianco got the steal that led to Besserer’s two made free throws that had the Knights up 49-45 with 10.3 seconds left, but they still had to sweat.

Jones went coast-to-coast for a layup and was fouled, inexplicably, with 5 seconds left and Teaneck had a chance to draw with one. The ensuing free throw was off the mark, but so was Old Tappan’s chance at a one-one-and with 2.7 seconds left and it kept the Highwaymen in the game to the end. But without a time out and with the ball under its own basket, Teaneck’s final shot was a launch job from the defensive side of half court that was wide right.

Sammy Elias scored 10 of his 13 points after halftime for Old Tappan, which will play Mendham in the Group 3 state semfiinals on Wednesday in East Orange.

Jones (12 points) was Teaneck’s lone double digit scorer and he scored 10 of his points in the first half. Barnes scored 6 of his 8 in the first half and Steinbergin (7 points) and Hargraves (6 points) scored all of their points after halftime. DeQuan Russ had two second quarter field goals and Jonathan Blue had a third quarter three-pointer to round out the scoring for Teaneck in what proved to be March’s last game as its head coach.

“It’s not about me; I am just disappointed for the seniors. I didn’t want to see them go out on a losing note in a championship game. But when you lose a two-point game and you know your kids gave 100 percent, you can’t be dissatisfied,” said March, who plans to spend his retirement in North Carolina. “To tell you the truth, when that final buzzer went off I could feel all the stress just flow out of me, it’s all gone now. It was a satisfying career and I have nothing to ashamed of and neither do my kids for the effort they put out there tonight.”

Old Tappan just keeps on rolling as it heads to Wednesday’s Group 3 state semifinal where it will play North 2 champion West Morris-Mendham in a 7:30 p.m. start at East Orange Campus High School. And they will arrive there was a well-rounded team that can lean on a variety of different players in any situation.

“We are more than just a couple of people, we are a team and that is what people don’t realize,” said Messina, who has scored 50 points combined in Old Tappan’s last two playoff wins. “Sammy Elias was great for us on offense tonight, Bianco hustled his butt off and that is what is about.”

Messina led the Knights against Teaneck with 21 points and Elias scored 13, but the rest of the offense was spread between McLaughlin (7 points), Bianco (4 points), Besserer (4 points) and Brophy’s jumper that provided Old Tappan’s other field goal. But the notion that Old Tappan is heading into the state semifinals with nothing to lose might be a little premature, at least it is for its head coach Dennis Rossi.

“We are going to try to win as many games as we can and I don’t feel like we are playing with house money yet,” said Rossi. “There is going to come a time where, if we keep winning, we are going to run into a team where all of its guys are going to be playing on Channel 2 next year, but I don’t think we are at that point yet.”

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