Boeheim’s Army was eliminated from the 2022 The Basketball Tournament (TBT) by The Nerd Team, and squared off with them again this year. This time, however, the Army would be victorious with an 83-75 revenge exacting win in the second round of the TBT led by 28 points from Grant Riller.
Monday’s matchup got off to a bit of a slow start for Boeheim’s Army, but after a Round 1 beatdown on Team Gibson, they came out looking loose and firing away early. BJ Johnson, fresh off a #SCTop10 appearance from his Monday night boomshakalaka, got Boeheim’s Army going with 10 first-quarter points, although he would get injured midway through the second quarter and wouldn’t play in the second half. Johnson wasn’t the only Orange dealing with injury concerns. Dwight Buycks took a shot in the ribs in the second quarter, and while he came back briefly in the second half, he and Johnson were far cries from their Monday selves.
After dominating most of Monday’s matchup with ease, Rakeem Christmas got all he could handle in the post from a combination of Kevin Marfo and Kyle Casey in the post. The Nerds lacked dynamic high-end talent, but their cohesion and ball movement kept the game hotly contested most of the first half. However, Grant Riller’s 11 second quarter points sparked a 17-1 run over the last two minutes of the second half and gave Boeheim’s Army a comfortable 14-point cushion going into halftime.
The Nerds would not be put away that easy, especially after knocking the Orange out of last year’s TBT tournament. Desi Washington came out with seven quick second half points, and Nerds quickly sliced the Orange lead in half halfway through the third quarter. It was back and forth for most of the third and the start of the 4th, but a Jimmy Boeheim corner three with 6:17 left gave the good guys a 14-point lead, and that effectively sealed the deal. It got as close as five before the Elam Ending set in as former Notre Dame guard Prentiss Hubb (knock Orange killer) started to heat up late, but Grant Riller answered the bell time and time again, scoring four points in the Elam ending for Boeheim’s Army and ending the game with a game-high 28 points. Tonight’s win setup a semifinal matchup between Boeheim’s Army and the defending TBT champs and Buffalo-based Blue Collar U. Only time will tell on Friday who will get that golden ticket to Philly for a chance to claim the million-dollar prize and claim TBT supremacy in upstate New York.
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