O’Connor defeats Basha in the open quarterfinals
Sandra Day O’Connor took the long trip from Deer Valley to Chandler to take on the Basha Bears, and they did not come home disappointed, defeating the Basha Bears 69-64 to advance to the open division semifinals. Basha was without star guard Mason Magee in this one, and it showed as the guard play was lacking from the Bears all night. O’Connor got huge performances from Michael Simcoe and Colton Watson, with both bigs having double doubles and huge, key blocks to help propel them to victory.
FIRST HALF
The game started with a Kingston Montague three point basket to get the home crowd fired up. Michael Simcoe would drive down and respond with a triple of his own, showing off his versatility. Montague would answer right back with a floater of his own, muscling his way past TayVion Wilson. Wilson would hit a three in response. Michael Simcoe would then find John Simcoe, showing the chemistry between these two brothers. Lleyton Leonard also had some clutch buckets in the first half, he would end up leading the game with 32 points on the night, a valiant effort by the freshman. Basha would take a timeout leading 11-10. Both teams were very efficient from the field at the start of this one, missing hardly any buckets. Desean Middlebrook would come out of the timeout to extend the Bear lead, and he would score on the next possession as well. Wilson would end the first quarter with a crafty layup to cut Basha’s lead to 16-12 after 1. Landon Wilson would get the first points of the second quarter with a triple, showing his sharp shooting abilities. Basha would take a timeout leading 18-15 after turning the ball over. Buckets would be exchanged and O’Connor would take a timeout, trailing 22-21 with 3 minutes left in the half. Colton Watson came out of the break driving down the lane for the lead, getting the easy deuce. Halftime would come around and it would give us a 25-24 score at the break. Both teams were playing extremely well on defense, but the offense was sloppy with many turnovers and tough breaks for both teams, but they scored when they needed to.
SECOND HALF
The latter half started off with Simcoe laying it up and in, this would be a common theme later on as Basha could not stop O’Connor’s bigs. Basha would take a timeout after the Eagles got out to a 30-27 lead. Lleyton Leonard came out of the timeout with a layup after securing a clutch offensive board for the Bears. Colton Watson would then drive down the court to get an easy bucket inside. Wilson would have a layup of his own on the next possession for O’Connor. O’Connor would call the next timeout, leading 38-37. Michael Simcoe would get a three pointer out of the break, and then Ryker Hughes would get one on the very next possession. After 3 quarters, O’Connor led 44-40. Michael Simcoe and Colton Watson would absolutely control the fourth quarter, going inside with ease or kicking it out to the wing for wide open triples. Michael Simcoe went into the quarter with 9 points, and finished the quarter with 23. He was simply unstoppable in the quarter, but Lleyton Leonard was giving the Bears life, scoring 9 in the final frame. He finished the night with 32 points, doing it all for the Bears and giving them a spark when it seemed to be over. O’Connor got a steal with around 50 seconds left in the game, and Colton Watson tossed a no-look lob up to Michael Simcoe and the UCSB commit slammed it home, serving as an exclamation point on the victory.
POSTGAME
After the game, I interviewed star forward Michael Simcoe and asked him what this win means to him and his school, punching their first ever ticket to the semifinals. He said “It feels great, this is obviously the first time in program history, it’s really special to do it with these guys…and it's here now, we got one week left and it's do or die…we had some adversity but we faced it and were moving on”.
WHAT’S NEXT?
O’Connor will take on the Perry Pumas this Wednesday at Chaparral, in what should be a highly contested game between two Arizona basketball juggernauts. Perry is one of the top teams in the country, but star forward Koa Peat has suffered a season ending injury to his shooting hand, which should make things extremely interesting in this one.