And the Houston Blaze, coached by former longtime Houston Rockets player Robert Reid, certainly gave them one.
Temple had its 14-point lead with eight minutes remaining sliced to two with two minutes left, but Davon Morrison made a crucial 3-point basket and the Leopards made enough plays to stave off the Blaze for a 110-107 victory at TC Gym.
Sophomore forward and Temple High School graduate Russ Permenter scored a game-high 28 points for the Leopards (8-4), who needed almost all of them to defeat an eight-man Blaze team consisting mostly of former college players, some of whom have played professional ball overseas.
“They have good players and they played hard, so this was a good game for us,” said TC coach Kirby Johnson, whose squad hadn’t played since its 101-82 home loss to defending NJCAA national champion South Plains on Nov. 24. “What we tried to do was wear them down.”
Complementing Permenter’s production, Chris Ellis (Harker Heights) scored 16 points, Jordan Brown (Killeen) had 15, Allyn Cooks contributed 12 and Jamar Beasley (Killeen Shoemaker) added 11.
“I thought Russ did a good job tonight, Allyn hit four free throws down the stretch and Davon hit three 3s, and that’s what he needs to do,” said Johnson, adding that standout sophomore wing J.B. Conley won’t play again until January because of a stress fracture in a toe on his right foot. “And Jamar did a good job playing in J.B.’s place tonight.”
The Blaze roster included former Temple High School assistant basketball coach Karron Taylor (11 points), ex-Wildcat Ashton Sanders (nine) and Harker Heights graduate Jejuan Plair (16).
Patrick Pellerin made six 3-pointers and paced the Blaze with 23 points, Tim Van scored 21 and David Mercer had 18.
“I’m real proud of my guys and what impressed me tonight was that we were able to communicate out there,” said Reid, who lives in Houston and has coached the Blaze against junior colleges such as Blinn, Tyler and Lon Morris this season. “We had no practice together before this, but being professionals we were able to communicate.”
Reid played for the Rockets from 1977-88 and helped Houston reach the NBA Finals in 1980-81 and 1985-86, both losses to the Boston Celtics. He also played for the Charlotte Hornets, Portland Trail Blazers and Philadelphia 76ers before retiring in 1991 with a career scoring average of 11.4 points per game.
Reid spent the 1994-95 season as an assistant coach with the Washington Bullets and has coached in the CBA, USBL and in Hungary. He will guide a Blaze team to Chile for a one-month stay in January.
The early portion of Wednesday’s game didn’t indicate that a close finish would be part of the deal. Beasley’s basket, Permenter’s baseline dunk and two inside hoops by Brown gave the Leopards a 9-0 lead with less than two minutes gone, and a Cooks layup made it 17-8 four minutes into the game.
However, Plair drilled a 3 to begin the Blaze’s comeback and Taylor’s 3 at the 11:35 mark gave Houston its first lead at 25-23.
A Permenter hoops and a Morrison 3 put TC back on top at 28-25 and the Leopards expanded their edge to 57-50 by halftime when Marlon Miller (Belton) grabbed Cooks’ on-the-run bounce pass and made a reverse layup four seconds before the buzzer.
Permenter’s strong play in the low post and the versatile play of Ellis and Beasley helped Temple keep the lead and stretch it to 96-82 with eight minutes remaining, but outside gunner Pellerin and lanky post Van powered a comeback that drew Houston within 105-103 with two minutes left.
But Morrison answered Mercer’s basket with a quick-trigger 3-pointer to make it 108-105, TC’s defense came up with a stop and Cooks sank two free throws with 14.2 seconds left for a 110-105 game. After the Blaze missed again and fouled, Permenter missed two free throws but Houston only had time to make the final margin three on Taylor’s last-second layup.
The Leopards will complete their fall-semester schedule on Saturday with a 4 p.m. game against Dallas Diesel on “Chick-fil-A Night” at TC Gym.
