By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
That was no mere basketball game they presented Tuesday night at Welsh-Ryan. That was taut drama, compelling entertainment, the kind of theater that is suitable for a Broadway stage. There were improbable plot twists and a boundless cast of characters who took a turn under the spotlight, implausible segues and a cornucopia of plays that left the observer agape in disbelief.
No Hollywood writer could have authored this script and gotten it put on the screen. It would instead have been rejected out of hand as just-too-fantastic to be believed. Really! Who would believe that JerShon Cobb, beset by injuries all year and a non-combatant in the `Cats previous six games, would dress for Senior Night and gut out 33 minutes and end with 14 points, eight rebounds, a pair of assists and a steal?
Or that Dave Sobolewski, another senior playing for the last time on his home court, would smartly choreograph his team's offense over his 27 minutes while spelling the ailing freshman point Bryant McIntosh? Or that the 270-pound center Alex Olah would do pirouettes down low while going 12-of-18 from the field on his way to 25 points?
Or that even Tre Demps, who treats game-ending situations as his personal plaything, would hit not one, but two big threes, the first to send this one into overtime, the second to send it into double-overtime? Or that the `Cats, so woebegone just three weeks ago, would finally top Michigan by four in that second overtime to post their fifth win in six game?
This was all the stuff of an Instant Classic. But, no. Simply, no. No reasonable reader would swallow that kind of script. But that is just what occurred on this evening, an evening that befuddled even `Cat coach Chris Collins, who after it finally ended would avow, "I'd love to be able to know what to say right now. But I'm still trying to figure out what happened.
"That was an unbelievable college basketball game. You don't get a chance to see games like that very often."
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This was just-another game through its first 23 minutes, which ended with Michigan up a dozen, and nothing about it presaged the drama lurking around the bend. But now, over the next nine minutes, the `Cat defense tightened and Olah took his turn on center stage. He hit conventional layups and a reverse layup, he dropped a short hook and an offensive rebound, and when he was done he had scored 10 of his team's 16 points and given it one-point lead at 7:58. "I felt like I was, how do people call it, in the zone I guess," he would later say. "I knew I had a mismatch and I knew I could score. I hit one, two, three, I was like, why not keep going and see what happens."
What happened now was a Michigan spurt, which put them up six at 2:50, but then here came Cobb, who replaced Olah under the spotlight. "I thought he was done for the year. I really did. I didn't expect him to play tonight," Collins would later say. "Really, yesterday, I thought I was coaching LeBron (James) or something. He just came up to me and said, `I'm playing tomorrow.' I said, `Well, thanks for telling me.'
"Not only did he play, he was tremendous. It is not easy to play when you haven't played in a month. I don't care how talented you are, I don't care how good you are. When you haven't played and have stress fractures and a banged-up body and you come out and get 14 and eight and help your team win, it's a special night for that guy and I'm really happy for him."
"There was," said Cobb himself, "a lot of adrenalin. That time off really did me well. My body was feeling a lot better. But there was a lot of adrenalin in this game."
There was surely a lot of adrenalin in him here and, in quick succession, he hit a three from the left wing, one-of-two free throws and a three from the right corner that left the `Cats down one at 1:23. Welsh-Ryan was rocking now, rocking as it hasn't in recent memory, and after a Spike Albrecht jumper pushed Michigan back up by three, here came Cobb again, this time outmuscling a pair of Wolverines to corral an Olah miss and lay it back in.
Just 34.1 seconds remained now and the `Cats were down one, but then Michigan's Zak Irvin dropped a pair of free throws and McIntosh, bedridden the previous two days ("He's been sick as a dog," said Collins), stepped on the end line during a drive and turned the ball over. Again, at :15.4, the `Cats sent Irvin to the line, and here his front end was short and Cobb grabbed the rebound and kicked it to Demps, who pushed it up the court with Albrecht shadowing him. "We wanted to give Tre space," Collins later said. "We told everyone to get out of his way. We wanted him to make a play."
"He did a good job jumping in front of me," said Demps of Albrecht. "But I was fortunate enough to get just enough space to get it off."
He got it off after taking a step left, and it dropped cleanly through at :02.4 to send this drama careening into overtime, and in it he quickly put the `Cats up two with a driving layup. Now Irvin missed a jumper and Vic Law hit a three and the `Cats were up five, but back again came Michigan to itself go up five at :16.4 with Albrecht going to the line.
He is deadly there, a 94.7 percent shooter from there. But here he missed the first of his two before making the second, and that left the `Cats down just three after Demps dropped a three from the deep right corner at :09.7. "I was actually going to drive," he would later say of this shot. "But I heard someone shout go for three, so I pulled it out and I just kind of fired it and it happened to go in."
Now Albrecht, with Law in his face, tried to inbounds to Irvin. And Irvin, harassed by Sanjay Lumpkin, bobbled his pass away. And the `Cats, with :07.7 remaining, had the ball back in front of their bench.
The sideline out-of-bounds play like they now confronted is a staple in the NBA, where their assistant Brian James worked for 18 years. "He has a million of them," Collins would later say and now, during the time out, he drew one up. "The guys executed it perfectly," Collins went on, and here the ball went from Law to Cobb on the right baseline and from Cobb to Demps deep in the left corner.
"Coach James just drew up an unbelievable play, and JerShon did a great job of catching the ball and making that pass to the corner," he would later say. "A lot of people are going to talk about me hitting that shot. But you've got to talk about Coach James and JerShon. Those were the guys who did the hardest part. I just had to shoot it."
This one was now in a second overtime after he shot it and dropped his second three in just over seven seconds, and now its script was beyond the fancy of even the most-imaginative Hollywood writer. Then Olah added to the moment by opening that second overtime with a straight-on three of his own and, just over two minutes later, he took a beauty-of-a-pass from Demps, pirouetted deftly, and kissed home the layup that put the `Cats up four at 1:58.
Then Irvin hit a three and Law hit a three. Then Irvin missed a three and Demps hit one-of-two from the line. Then Irvin hit a three to pull Michigan to within two and McIntosh, willful even in his depleted condition, went to the line at :18.1. Calmly, as cool as this winter, he dropped a pair cleanly through, and after two more missed threes by Irvin, this one was finally over and its audience could exhale.
The battered Cobb, on this night that was so emotional for him, now dutifully shook each Wolverines` hand. But then, that protocol observed, he hugged Nathan Taphorn and McIntosh, hugged Lumpkin and Jeremiah Kriesberg, hugged any number of folks who appreciated the courage had had manifested throughout this season. These were no perfunctory gestures. They were deep, meaningful hugs, like those hugs proud parents share with their children on graduation day.
"That told me how tight this team is, how much I love those guys," JerShon Cobb would finally say when asked about them. "I'd do anything for them. When I went through all the injuries, they're the ones who had my back, who told me to take my time, that when I came back it was going to be right on time.
"And we got this win tonight. I love these guys I'm with. I love the coaching staff. It was a great atmosphere tonight. I couldn't imagine losing this game."
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