Jefferson Rams Pick Up 18th Win
Saturday night in Lakewood, New Jersey, the Jefferson University Rams came into the home of the Georgian Court Lions for an evening CACC matchup. The game started off back and forth with both teams trading 1 point leads for the first few minutes. Then, Jefferson started to pull away as Antonin Kemkeng began to dominate the paint in the first half. He picked up 15 of his 21 total points in the first half from down low and at the free throw line. The sophomore big man from France took the game into his hands forcing Georgian Court to double team him early. After the Lions shut down Kemkeng it began to open up opportunities for the Blackwood native and St. Joe’s alum, Darius Kinnel and Junior 6 '5 guard Deondre Bourne, to add to the score sheet.
After halftime, Georgian Court came out hot with their lone senior Davon Floyd doing most of the scoring in the first few minutes of the half. With Floyd getting most of the attention, that opened up lots of chances and attempts for Junior guard Jelani Jackson to add to his scoring total. In the waning seconds of the game, both teams traded three pointers with Clint Wright Jr hitting a jumper beyond the arc to give Georgian Court a 56-53 lead with minimal time left on the clock. On the ensuing inbounds play Jefferson’s Deondre Bourne grabs a 3 of his own to tie it up with under one second left to play. Georgian Court was unable to answer back with any time left before the final buzzer signaling the end of regulation. With the game tied up at 56 and 10 minutes on the clock for overtime, Jefferson got hot on the stat sheet and that was all she wrote.
The Rams picked up a 74-67 win over Georgian Court which tallied another win for the legendary coach at Jefferson University, Herb Magee. Deondre Bourne led all scorers with 25 points and Antonin Kemkeng put up 21 of his own points. After the game I had the chance to catch up with Coach Magee and talk to him about how his guys played as well as his illustrious coaching career. When first informed of his win total on Saturday night, Coach Magee was shocked to have found out that the game his team had just won was his 1,141st win of his career. 53 of the 56 seasons Magee has coached, have been seasons where his teams have gone over the .500 win percentage mark. “The ability for us to recruit good, solid basketball players has come from my ability to recruit assistant coaches to bring in those players to help run our system. It’s been a matter of practicing and perfecting our plays on both sides of the ball.” Magee says the biggest difference for him over his coaching career has been the three point line which was implemented back in the 1970s. He also mentions the 40 second shot clock as a huge part of the change in the game over the years.
Coach Magee expressed his enjoyment of coaching and getting to develop these young men into basketball players as the reason as to why he has continued to coach for so long along with the relationships he has built over the course of his career which was evident on his coaching staff as over the years his assistants have been mainly compiled of former players of his. Despite being inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011, Magee continued to coach for another 11 years as this season will be his final one. Magee, also known as “The Shot Doctor”, has worked with the likes of Charles Barkley and Jameer Nelson over the years as a private instructor.
Chris Baker from NJ Athletics. You can reach Chris on Twitter (@cbake_51) or you can reach him by email (cbake2025@gmail.com). Be sure to check out NJ Athletics on Instagram (@NJAthletics) and on Twitter (@nj_athletcs)