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John Carroll University Athletics

home of the Blue Streaks
2024 MBB Team photo OAC Champs
Sam Herr
Clutch efforts abounded in the home victory for the Blue Streaks.
86
Mount Union MTU 20-7,12-6 OAC
88
Winner John Carroll JCU 25-2,17-1 OAC
Mount Union MTU
20-7,12-6 OAC
86
Final
88
John Carroll JCU
25-2,17-1 OAC
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 OT 1 F
Mount Union MTU 36 43 7 86
John Carroll JCU 48 31 9 88

Game Recap: Men's Basketball | | Dylan Feltovich & Jack Stephens, Staff Writers

ONE FOR THE AGES: #3 Men's Basketball Beats #24 Mount Union for OAC Championship

UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, Ohio — In front of a max capacity crowd, the John Carroll Men's Basketball team defeated the Mount Union Purple Raiders, 88-86, in a nail-biting contest between two nationally ranked squads. 

The dramatic overtime victory is John Carroll's first Ohio Athletic Conference Tournament Championship since 2018 and sixth overall.

"This game is a huge momentum boost for us going into the NCAA tournament," junior guard Luke Chicone commented after the game. "It feels great at the moment because we came up short last year, but we still have more work to do."

With that win, JCU extended their home record in OAC Championship games to 5-1, and the first ever to feature an overtime. 

The Blue Streaks electrified DeCarlo Varsity Center with a 14-0 run in the first five minutes led by eight points from star junior Luke Frazier. JCU's fast start continued as the lead ballooned to 22, their biggest of the first half. The run came off buckets from Henry Raynor, Will Yontek, Chicone, Frazier, and Jerry Higgins III. 

Mount Union quickly responded with buckets from Jahlil Graham and Darrell Newsome. The duo led a 13-0 run for Mount Union that cut the lead to 12. Newsom accounted for 14 of the Purple Raiders first-half points.

UMU's run was put to bed after a Purple Raider technical foul put Frazier on the line, which then sparked a 9-0 Blue Streak run. Mount Union continued to hang around going on runs of their own to stay in the contest. Caleb Laurich began to make his presence known in the paint adding nine points and two rebounds in 15 minutes off the bench. 

After going cold from the field, down the stretch of the first half, Chicone got a must needed Blue Streak bucket on a tough drive to the basket. This brought the John Carroll lead back to 12 to conclude an electric first half of basketball where the Blue Streaks found themselves up, 48-36.

Frazier had the hot hand for the Blue Streaks, ending the first half with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting, and 3-of-5 from behind the arc. Accompanying him, Raynor finished the half with 10 points of his own and five rebounds. On the defensive side, Chase Toppin and the rest of the JCU frontcourt held Collen Gurley and Christian Parker to a combined four points.

The tide of the game drastically shifted in the second half. The physicality of the Purple Raiders was ruling the day, and with their shots starting to fall, the massive Blue Streak lead evaporated. Along with offensive woes, Toppin would head to the bench with five fouls in the middle of the second half.

Gurley, who struggled to get anything to go in the first, suddenly couldn't miss as he scored 23 points in the second half. Two free throws from the graduate student tied the game with under a minute to go, and then chaos ensued. 

In a span of one minute of game time, nobody could get anything going. With eight seconds left Chicone missed a three that set up a two on one Purple Raider fast break, but a shot clock malfunction caused an official timeout that gave Mount Union an out of bounds play with 2.6 seconds left. Elijah Farrington would be fouled on the inbounds pass sending him to the line with minimal time remaining by Yontek. This was Yontek's fifth, so he would head out. 

Farrington sank both, forcing a quick inbounds pass to Chicone, who drove up the left sideline and was fouled with 0.4 seconds on the clock. In front of a full crowd of anxious fans, the Mentor product made both, sending the marathon of a game to overtime. 

"Just had to make two free throws," Chicone said on his two free throws. "Just kept it simple and did my job."

Both teams traded buckets at the beginning of OT, but a clutch triple from Higgins III gave the Blue Streaks a 86-83 lead with under three minutes on the clock. 

"I had been in a bit of a shooting slump and I just had to make sure I went back to my consistency," said Higgins. "Mentally, once I had the opening I knew I had to take it. Once the shot went off, it looked good." 

Both squads would go scoreless for over two minutes of action and after checking in for a fouled out Luka Eller, David Gentry connected on two massive free throws to grow the lead to two possessions. 

"I had the whole team behind me," said Gentry, in reference to his clutch free throws. "I had the confidence to go out there and sink both free throws and do what Coach [Moran] asked."

Gurley once again answered with a deep trey ball, but the Blue Streaks would hang on after Higgins put the clamps on defense in the final seconds. Securing the win for the Blue Streaks. 

Receiving an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, John Carroll awaits their first round matchup, with the potential of hosting the first two rounds on Friday, March 1 and Saturday, March 2. The NCAA Division III Tournament Selection Show is Monday at 1 pm. 

2024 Ohio Athletic Conference All-Tournament Team

Tournament MVP: Luke Frazier, John Carroll 

Luke Chicone, John Carroll
Collen Gurley, Mount Union
Christian Parker, Mount Union
Eric Panning, Heidelberg
Sahmi Willoughby, Marietta
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