CIF Second Round: Granada Erases 18-Point Deficit, Wins on Big Red's Putback at Buzzer
A San Francisco native hit the winning shot against St. Ignatius.
It simply had to be Cortevious Taylor.
The San Francisco native who moved to Livermore and transferred to Granada for his senior year had to be the one to get the final shot for the Matadors.
He took Marco Wilde’s inbound pass with 3.8 seconds left, snaked under one defender, missed a layup but got his own rebound and scored just before the buzzer, beating a St. Ignatius team filled with his childhood friends and AAU teammates 68-66 in the second round of the CIF Division I Tournament.
“I told coach I wanted that one,” said Taylor, who’s known as “Big Red” to teammates, coaches, friends and even people who have barely met him. “We ran a double screen, I missed the first one, I had to follow up the second one and I ended up getting it done.”
For fourth-seeded Granada (25-4) to win because of an offensive rebound was only fitting. The Matadors had 19 offensive boards for the game, including four as they held the ball for the final 1:03 after the Wildcats had tied the game at 66.
St. Ignatius (21-8) led by 18 in the second quarter, but Granada progressively chipped away at the lead. After a 16-0 run put the visitors up 34-16, the Matadors got within eight by halftime, tied it when Taylor’s putback with 2:14 left in the third capped off an 11-0 run and took their first lead on a Marco Wilde free throw with 5:34 left. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Spencer Langowski and NaVaughn Long gave the hosts a 66-61 edge with 2:46 to go, but Marcus Bast hit his fifth and final 3-pointer on the next possession and Raymond Whitley scored through a foul to tie the game with 1:03 remaining.
Whitley, who scored 18 points, missed the ensuing free throw. Granada sophomore Damien Miles, who played the final 3:39 after Lennon Lomba fouled out, secured the rebound off the missed free throw, then rebounded his own miss off the side of the backboard 25 seconds later. Head coach Quaran Johnson called timeout with 35.3 left on the game clock and seven on the shot clock, calling an inbound play for Long. The senior missed, got his own rebound, missed again, grabbed yet another rebound and missed a third attempt. Wildcats center Theo Lamb came down with it, but Long and Wilde forced a held ball before SI could call timeout, and the possession arrow went to the Matadors with 26.8 left and the shot clock off.
St. Ignatius nearly averted disaster when the ball went out of bounds with 3.8 left after Langowski’s attempt to drive, but the official on the baseline ruled that the ball grazed a Wildcat defender. Johnson then used another timeout, and the San Francisco kid ended the Wildcats’ season.
“It’s pretty big, man,” said Taylor, who led all players with 22 points and 12 rebounds. “I’ve known those guys since I was, what, six or seven years old?”
Granada’s student section stormed the court, with a few fans choosing to taunt St. Ignatius players instead of celebrate with their own team. The situation was ultimately quelled, ending with no more than a short and cordial conversation between SI coaches and a Livermore police officer.
Even without the postgame extracurriculars, the Wildcats already had more than enough frustrations, beginning with traveling calls in the second quarter and continuing throughout the night.
“My guys played as well as they could have against a really good team,” said head coach Jason Greenfield. “Some of the differences, we couldn’t make up. That last call out of bounds, I don’t think that was off us.”
Just as nearly every close game could swing the other way on a couple of calls, nearly every comeback has a spark from a surprise contributor. That was true for the Matadors, who got a key 3-pointer from Gavin Couture after falling into behind by 18.
The fifth-seeded Wildcats hit four 3-pointers in the first four minutes of the second quarter, taking a 34-16 lead when Bast connected from well beyond the arc with 4:04 left in the quarter, but Granada scored the next eight, capped off by wing three from Couture, who had been inserted after Lomba had quickly picked up his second and third fouls.
“I’ve been telling Gavin, ‘you need to stay ready, because your night will come,’” Johnson said. “We had experiences last year where Nate Keaney, Kevin Grant, those other guys came up big-time for us. I was telling those guys, ‘be ready, be ready, be ready.’”
Keaney and Grant were supporting players during last year’s run to a Northern California Division I title, as were Langowski, Lomba and Wilde. That run included a second round win at No. 1 Clovis West; the Matadors will visit the top-ranked Golden Eagles once again this year, only one round later.
Wilde dished out a game-high six assists, including the backdoor pass for Long’s dunk that sent the hosts into halftime down 36-28, and Lomba’s and-1 kicked off the 11-0 run after SI had taken a 47-36 lead on Bast’s third 3-pointer. That run also included a 3-pointer from Long, who finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Taylor followed with his own and-1 off an inbound, then tied the game at 47 with a putback.
Bast, who finished with 18 points in his final high school game, answered with a 3-pointer with 1:57 left in the third, then sent the Wildcats to the fourth up 53-50 after driving for his own and-1 with 2.9 on the clock.
Taylor’s putback with 4:04 remaining in regulation tied the game at 60, but Bast made one of two free throws with 3:39 to go to put the visitors back in front after Lomba’s fifth foul, one that likely should have been called on Langowski instead.
“Lennon told me when he fouled out, ‘do it for me,’” said Taylor, who previously played at Riordan and Lincoln but has become a favorite of his teammates in his lone year at Granada. “I just kinda did that one for him.”
Lomba fouled out with seven points, while Langowski was called for just one foul and scored 15. He knocked down four of Granada’s seven 3-pointers.
Whitley matched Bast with 18 points to lead the Wildcats, scoring 10 in the first quarter to help the visitors out to an 18-14 lead. Lamb, the only other senior on the roster besides Bast, hit a pair of threes during the 16-0 run and scored 10 of his 12 in the first half.
“Marcus and Theo are huge culture guys for us,” said Greenfield, who took over the SI program when the two were incoming freshmen. “God, we’re gonna miss ‘em.”
Lamb is committed to Division III Babson College, while Bast is choosing between a handful of D-III programs. The Wildcats started two sophomores in Whitley and Steele Labagh, who finished with nine points, and had two other sophomores featured in the rotation. Na’o Tito backed up Lamb in the post and occasionally played alongside him before injuring his hip in the fourth quarter. Shawn Boquiren, SI’s sophomore backup point guard, missed the postseason after suffering a broken jaw when he got screened late in the regular season finale against Serra.
While SI only had two seniors, the Wildcats looked like an extremely seasoned group, knocking down 3-pointers and beating the Matadors on backdoor plays to take the aforementioned 34-16 lead. Bast was no small part in the 16-0 run to get them there, bookending the chain with 3-pointers and dishing out three assists before Granada’s defense finally adjusted.
“They shoot the crap out of that basketball, and they’re just a well-oiled machine. They’re not here for no reason,” Johnson said of the Wildcats. “Once we got a beat on what they did well, we settled down and we started to play our game. It started to become Granada basketball instead of SI. They shoot it so well, they automatically pull you out of that paint. But we had to go back to our defensive principles that we talk about every night. That’s what grounded us, and that’s what got us the win.”