Miller Grove nearly blew a 19-point lead but held on to beat Richmond Academy 83-69 at the Arena at Gwinnett Center on Wednesday night to advance to the Class 4A championship game. “That game you all saw was not Miller Grove High School basketball,” said Wolverine head coach Eddie Johnson. “That was not us. I don’t know who that was out on the floor. […] We’ll take the victory, but I’m not happy about the way we won.”
“We showed domination, but other than that, we didn’t even really play our best game,” said Wolverine point guard Mfon Udofia. “That’s what made them come back. We gave them confidence and they came back in the game.”
Richmond Academy cut the Wolverine lead to just 61-59 on a Raston Brown layup with less than five minutes remaining in the game and Brown, after Miller Grove tried to surge out in front, cut the lead to 67-64 on another 3-pointer, this time with less than two minutes remaining. With the Musketeers down 69-64, Brown, who led his team in scoring with 23 points, missed a 3-pointer and Richmond Academy subsequently began to foul. Udofia, who led all scorers with 32 points, hit 9-of-10 free throws in the final minute to help seal the victory. “We’re just battle tested,” Udofia said. “We’ve been here [so we can] weather that storm.”
“Regardless of how we play, I have returnees and senior leadership that is not going to lose,” Johnson said. “They’re going to find a way to win. Even when we’re playing our worst basketball, they’ll dig down deep and make those big plays when it counts.”
One area that Johnson thought was crucial in his team’s effort against Richmond Academy was on the defensive end of the court. “We still played spurts of great defense, [although] we know we can play great defense all the time.” he said.
When Miller Grove played great defense Stephen Hill was usually the beneficiary. Hill finished with 15 points, 14 of which came via spectacular dunks, several of those off of Musketeer turnovers. “That’s our spark. The team fed off of his energy,” Johnson said. “That’s our game. We get out on the break and beat the other team down the court. Every time we did it, it worked, but we didn’t do it consistently like we were supposed to.”
Yet even Hill was not totally satisfied with his own performance. “It was decent. I could have played defense a little bit better,” he said.
Defense will be very important when the Wolverines match up with their Region 6 rival Tucker, a team they are familiar with, having defeated the Tigers twice this season. Tucker features Manny Atkins, one of the top scoring threats in the state.
“All we have to do is play hard,” Hill said. “Even though Manny is a good shooter, sometimes he does miss shots, so we have to box out. That’s our biggest thing, boxing out.”
For Miller Grove it will be its first time playing for a state championship, but the Wolverines are looking to do more than just show up. “It feels good to make it to the championship game,” Udofia said. “But we also want to achieve that goal to win it all. “We’re happy that we’re here, but we’re still humble and we’ve got to take it Friday.”
Tucker, on the other hand, has won a state championship as recently as 2007 and Hill remembers a bit of history from that season. “Columbia beat Tucker two times and Tucker came back and beat them in the final,” Hill said.
But Hill added that he and his teammates are determined not to let that happened to them. “We’re trying to just get to that goal “3-13”, which is two days from now,” Hill said. “That’s what we’re trying to do; we’re trying to beat Tucker.”
Miller Grove takes on the Tigers on Friday at 4:45 p.m. at the Arena at Gwinnett Center.
Butler can be reached at jbutler@scoreatl.com.
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