Click the thumbanils to see photos and videos from the weekend. Click the AUDIO buttons to hear interviews with Coach Matt Johnson, Trevor Nolan, Taveon Vann, and Adam Page. Also click to hear halftime interviews with William Kelley and Ziad Abouali.
ESCANABA---The Bay College men's basketball team opened its season with two games on the home court this weekend, and with no starters returning from last year's nationally-ranked team, there were sure to be some growing pains for Coach Matt Johnson's team.
The youth and inexperience showed at times throughout the weekend, but enough guys stepped up to help the Norse beat Minnesota-North Hibbing, 95-75, Friday night, and Rock Valley College (Ill.), 71-68, on Saturday. But the wins were far from perfect, especially on Saturday, when Bay trailed the entire game before the smallest guy on the team willed the Norse to a win that even Johnson admitted may have been a stolen one.
Freshman guard Trevor Nolan, who three years ago helped his Munising High School Mustangs win a state championship as a sophomore, played a key role off the bench in both of this weekend's Bay wins. Nolan, who apparently has not grown a milimeter from his listed 5-foot-8 inch (generously listed) frame, played an oversized role all weekend long.
Nolan came through on Friday night with eight clutch points, with back-to-back triples in the first half when the Norse were struggling to separate themselves from the Cardinals. His first triple gave Bay a 36-34 lead, and his second made it 40-34.
Nolan played an even bigger role on Saturday, when the Norse seemingly sleepwalked through most of the game against a gritty Rock Valley team that sported a nice inside player and another who could (and did) drain triples.
Bay was down, 21-10, midway through a sluggish first half when Nolan buried his now-patented extra-deep three-pointer. To say his triples were from NBA territory would be an understatement. Nolan's triple cut it to 21-13, then he got loose for a rare trip down the baseline for a lay-up and-one, bringing Bay to within 24-22.
But Nolan's biggest moment came in the second half, when Rock Valley led, 46-41, and had the ball. Nolan stole a pass, made an off-balance triple, stole the ensuing inbound, and made a lay-up, tying the game at 46-46. There was still nine minutes to play, and Rock Valley's Adam Brown made a pair of triples to put his team back up six, but Johnson said after the game that Nolan changed the outcome beyond just his ten points.
“I don't even care what the stat sheet says” Johnson said. “He, at that stretch of the game, that's what kept us in it. His energy changed not only him, but it changed all of us. That was the main reason we won the game. It was that stretch that got us back into it. We changed our attitude on the bench. We looked different. We acted different. Our voices were different. Good stuff happened because of it. We're just a better basketball team when we bring that energy. We would be really, really, really good if guys would step up and bring that same energy that Trevor Nolan brings.”
For his part, Nolan, who's played for Johnson since he was a sixth grader on AAU and other youth teams, wasn't breaking his arm patting himself on the back after sparking the Norse to two wins in about 17 hours of time.
“Man, that was fun,” Nolan said. “It takes a team effort to get into a position to get the steal. Just to be able to knock down that shot to put us into that position, it's just amazing. That's (his Munising experience) been huge in my development as a player. I've just learned how to play my role and do what it takes to make us be a winner. I think that translated a little bit into what happened today.”
But Nolan's heroics did not push the Norse over the top on the scoreboard Saturday. That was another freshman, Adam Page, a Chicago boy who scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half, including the go-ahead triple from the top of the key with 16 seconds left to give the Norse a 69-68 lead after they trailed all day, often by double digits.
“We're just all over-excited,” Page said. “It's a big season. We have the chance to do something big. We just want to play hard and prove ourselves. My team trusted me. They saw how I got it going in the second half. I was just playing off of their energy. My boys trusted me with the ball and to take the shot. That gave me a lot of confidence, and the shot just went in.”
But it still wasn't over. Rock Valley still had time to go down the court and win the game. Brown, who had six triples and led the Golden Eagles with 22 points, got a decent look from the corner. That's when Taveon Vann lunged at him. A classic “close-out” that likely helped to make that shot clank off the rim instead of go through the nylon.
“This might have been just as important,” Johnson said. “It was a huge close-out. It stalled them. Got them out of what they wanted to do. It helped win the game.”
The Norse 6-foot-9 freshman from Egypt, Ziad Abouali, got the rebound, got fouled, and unlike earlier in the game when he missed four straight free throws, Abouali calmly made both free throws to make it 71-68. All Rock Valley could do, with no time outs left, was hoist up a desperation triple that actually came close to going in off the front of the rim.
Johnson called it a “steal” of a win.
“We didn't get into our offense and do what we do nearly enough,” he said. “We looked like we were playing Day Two of a two-day weekend (which they were) for the first time. Our energy wasn't there. We started making excuses and saying stuff under our breath. We just didn't do what championship-level teams have to do for probably 35 of the 40 minutes,”
Page had 15 points, Abouali had 13 points and eight rebounds, while Trey Frye and Nolan both added ten points. For the Golden Eagles, big man Jajuan Cozark had 21 points (including four powerful slam dunks) and Brown had 22 points on 6-of-11 shooting from downtown.
Rock Valley probably deserved to win with that inside-out punch. But the smallest guy on the court had other ideas when it mattered the most.
“I've played for Coach Johnson since the sixth grade, and Coach Johnson expects toughness,” Nolan said. “And I think if we apply that, we have a chance to win every game. Man, it feels great, it really does. When that buzzer went, it was an amazing feeling with my teammates.”
“Trev, man, he's the shortest man on the court every time,” Page said. “But I swear, he has the biggest heart. it never stops. It's not just in the game. It's in practice. He never skips . drill. Never skips a run. Every time he's on the court, I just feed off his energy.. We just automatically clicked. He's the first person I met when I came to Bay. We've clicked ever since.”
In Friday's game, Bay wasn't in danger of losing down the stretch, but Hibbing played hard and gave the Norse a push. Bay led by just seven points (66-59) with seven minutes to go, thanks in large part to the performance of Hibbing's RJ Walker, who scored 34 points.
But the Norse pulled away down the stretch to keep Johnson undefeated in all-time matchups against his former team. Vann led Bay with 21 points. Page added eleven on 5-of-9 shooting and big man Savion Johnson was 5-of-8 from the floor and scored 13 points.
So, Bay College is 2-0, but with a lot of work to do to meet the standard set by the last few Norse teams that were nationally-ranked.
The Norse will have a little more than a week off to fine-tune their game before the Gogebic Community College Samsons come from Ironwood for a game on November 12.
