Upperman Beats Howard On Late Free Throws, 44-42

It looks like the Cleveland Blue Raiders will be the only team from the Chattanooga area playing in the boys state basketball tournament next week at MTSU.

The Blue Raiders won and advanced, but that wasn’t the case for Class AA teams Howard and Tyner.

Howard was defeated by the Upperman Bees by a 44-42 final while Tyner lost at York Institute, 54-52.

Howard had gotten over a tough hurdle by beating Tyner in the Region 3-AA final at East Ridge on Thursday, but the Hustlin’ Tigers just couldn’t extend that success to the most important game of the season.

Turns out the winning points were scored by junior Isaiah Allen, who calmly sank a pair of free throws with 5.1 seconds to play, giving the visitors from Baxter a 44-42 advantage.

Howard had a tough time inbounding the ball and saved a turnover with a timeout.  The Hustlin’ Tigers were able to get it in on their second try, but the Bees had tough half-court pressure.

Howard finally crossed the half-court line, but Xavier Fisher’s 30-footer from the center of the court bounced off the back of the rim as the final horn sounded.

It was a perfect setting for a great high school basketball game as Howard’s Henry Bowles Gymnasium was packed almost to capacity. 

Howard coach James Talley said before the game started that a key for his team would be rebounding and their ability to hit key free throws. 

The Bees had an unofficial 29-26 advantage on the boards and Upperman made eight of 11 at the charity stripe while the Hustlin’ Tigers could only connect on 10 of 20.

“We’ve got to hit free throws in a game like this,” Talley said as he sat in the Howard dressing room afterward talking quietly with his assistant coaches.

“Nobody expected us to be here as we had to overachieve, but Upperman came to play tonight.  I thought we played hard too, but we just couldn’t get it going.  We’ll be back and we’ll set the bar high again.

“The result is not what we expected, but that’s what we got and we’ll live with it,” Talley concluded after his team’s season ended at 24-8.

Howard has been better than average from long range this year, but had a bad night as the Hustlin’ Tigers didn’t make a single shot beyond the arc all game.

Upperman coach Bobby McWilliams was all but speechless following a short discussion with his team in the visiting dressing room.  Considering all those folks in middle Tennessee have gone through the past week, winning a sectional basketball game and qualifying for the state tournament may have been a blessing in disguise after a tough six-day span.

“I can’t begin to express what we’ve gone through in the last week.  Our community knows a lot of folks who lost everything they had and there were a lot of lives lost too, but my guys were ready to play tonight and more mentally focused than we were when we lost to York in the region final,” McWilliams said after his team improved to 30-3.

“This was a great high school basketball game and you love it as a coach when you come out ahead.  Howard came after us hard in the second half, but we had worked on facing that kind of pressure and I thought we kept our composure.  I thought we made the big plays when we had to.

And what about Allen’s game-winning charity tosses at the end?

“That kid has ice water in his veins.  He normally hits about 75 percent from the line, but it’s been closer to 85 percent in recent games.  I felt really good when he got that opportunity,” McWilliams said of his junior, who finished with six points.

Howard scored eight straight points midway through the first quarter to turn a 5-4 deficit into a 12-5 lead following two free throws by Calvin James with 1:56 left in the stanza.  The lead was still 12-9 at the first break.

Collin Gore scored on a drive along the baseline to tie the game at 17 before putting the Bees ahead with a layup 20 seconds later.

Kerrick Thorne scored on a putback with 2:05 before halftime to tie the game at 21 for Howard, but Allen and Filip Babic scored the final four points as Upperman took a 25-21 lead into the dressing room at intermission.

The Bees scored seven of the first nine points of the second half to build their biggest lead of nine at 32-23 with 5:11 left in the third following a layup by Alexander Rush.

Howard turned up the defensive pressure and scored the next eight points, but Babic scored on a putback at the buzzer to keep Upperman ahead at 36-33 with one quarter remaining.

The Hustlin’ Tigers never regained the lead, but Fisher’s two free throws with 14.5 seconds knotted the score for the final time at 42.

Upperman, which did a really good job handling Howard’s man-to-man defense, got the ball in Allen’s hands before he got fouled with 5.1 seconds left.  He calmly sank both for the winning points following an Upperman timeout.

Gore scored 13 points to lead the Bees while Babic was next with a dozen.

Fisher was the leader for Howard with 12 points while Thorne added 11, despite being in foul trouble most of the second half.

Donoven McCallister had eight rebounds for the Bees while Babic snagged seven as Upperman had an unofficial 29-26 edge on the glass.  Thorne had nine rebounds for Howard while Fisher claimed six.

(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)