St. Anthony's-Linden is the Final
- Thread starter Kbee3
- Start date
I hope it is a great game. Being a Linden grad I was there again. Linden beat St. Augustine 59-56. St. Augustine only led 3-0 and 8-7. Otherwise Linden led every second after that. I think justice was served as Linden led St. Augustine in every week since December in the state rankings yet St. Augustine got the #2 seed and Linden #3 after St. Augustine won Parochial A and Linden won Group IV. It seems as if the parochials always get the preferential treatment in the TOC seeding. St. Anthony beat Teaneck 67-30 in the other game. They looked outstanding and are on special level. Linden will need a perfect game to win and St. Anthony is so much bigger too but maybe a miracle can take place. Just a few weeks ago St. Anthony beat St. Augustine by 9 points so perhaps there is some hope.
The team from my former home and the High School I graduated from will win it all......GO TIGERS !!!! I know @RUforJERSEY agrees with me. ;
Linden doesn't care how much they score as long as you score at least one point less than they do. They win with defense first. But they can also score when they're in that kind of game.
St. Anthony's full court pressure was the difference. Proud of my Tigers for getting that far. Young team also. They'll return 4 starters because this was supposed to be somewhat of a rebuilding year after they lost 7 seniors from the previous year's team.
St. Anthony's goes 10 deep and their pressure caused LHS to turn it over about 4 times for easy layups. Linden played hard but St. Anthony's is the better team. This year Linden only returned one starter (Crawford). Next year they return 4 starters but they lose their tallest starter, Phelps who is 6'4". They also lose one guy off the bench who was 6'5" (Moncion) so they will be a smaller team. Jones a soph was their high scorer at almost 16 points per game. St. Joe's of Philly offered him a scholarship already about 6 weeks ago. I hope Pikiell keeps his eyes on Jones. He is already a star player and might just make one of the All State teams. He is about 6'2" as a shooting guard and maybe will still grow a bit more.
There's a reason that a public hasn't been able to win the TOC since 2000. If a non-Public like St. Anthony's, The Patrick School or Roselle Catholic needs some size they just go out and get it. From another town, another state or even another country. If you're Linden or another public school you just have to hope a big man comes up through the ranks. Linden has rarely had players over 6'5" going back to when I was in high school.