Orange Men’s Basketball

Orange defeated Chapel Hill 61-59 on Tuesday night at Tiger Gymnasium, its second straight win over the Tigers. Junior forward Kendrell Brooks scored Orange’s final two field goals, including a running one-hander with 5 seconds remaining as the Panthers claimed its eighth victory of the season. Joey McMullin led Orange with 20 points. Brooks and Jerec Thompson added 17 each. Enjoy highlights from the game from Thompsonteamfilms.com

At the turn of the year, the Orange men’s basketball team essentially started over.

Center Machai Holt was dismissed from the team on January 3 after a sensational start to the season. He was Orange’s leading rebounder and was the spark plug behind a 7-1 start, the best stretch of Panther basketball since winning the Big 8 regular season championship in 2016-17.

Holt’s teammates learned of his departure mere hours before a long road trip to Vance County. Many of his classmates had played with Holt since they were in 5th grade and were stunned. That shock carried over to the court, where the Vipers romped to a 31-3 lead and cruised to a 74-57 win.

Without Holt, they were a different team. After a disappointing homestand where the Panthers lost three consecutive games last week, the new version of Orange can say definitively they’re making progress after upsetting Chapel Hill earlier this week.

Though Southern Durham defeated Orange 88-70 on Friday night at Spartan Gymnasium, the Panthers fought all the way against a more talented and experienced group led by former Orange Coach Greg Motley. Spartan senior Ricky Council, who is being recruited by Cincinnati, UNC Greensboro and Elon, scored 28 points to lead the Spartans (10-3, 4-1 in the Big 8 Conference). Ahmad Hamilton added 26, including 14 points in the third quarter.

Unlike losses to Vance County and Northwood, Orange didn’t back down despite a barrage of highlight reel ally-oops and 3-pointers from Southern. Joey McMullin scored 24 points while junior Jason Franklin added 21. It was Franklin’s highest total since he scored 27 against Southern Alamance on December 6 in Graham.

The Spartans hit ten 3-pointers in the first half, yet Orange only trailed 26-20 at the end of the first quarter. McMullin scored nine points in the second quarter to keep things close, but Southern’s T.J. Richardson had 11 of his 15 points in the 2nd to help the Spartans build a 15-point halftime lead.

Orange junior Kyle Stanley had a career-high 12 points, and likely would have had more if it hadn’t collected three fouls by the 6:08 mark of the second quarter. Without Holt and Stanley, the Panthers didn’t have any rim protectors and the Spartans had open season along the offensive glass.

None of which was lost on Orange coach Derryl Britt, who wasn’t discouraged by his team’s performance.

“I was really happy with the effort,” Britt said. “The guys fought. We didn’t stop playing. We knew what we were coming into. Southern’s really athletic, they have one of the best players in the state. And he’s surrounded by some pretty good basketball players. It was good to see our guys fight and execute against a quality basketball team.”

It is Southern’s seventh straight win over Orange. The Panthers last defeated the Spartans on Connor Crabtree’s running-one hander with :05 remaining to win 80-79 on January 27, 2017.

Orange is now halfway through its conference schedule, one that started with a 50-point win over East Chapel Hill. But that was the old Orange team, and glances backward will only lead to steps backward at this point. McMullin, a senior, hasn’t been to the state playoffs since his freshman year when Orange advanced to the state quarterfinals. No one else on the team has sniffed the state playoffs.

They will work the next three weeks trying to get there. Orange enters a week off and won’t take the floor again until they face the same East Chapel Hill team next Friday, one that won’t forget what happened to them before Christmas.

Britt just wants to keep building.

“We know we’re trying to get back to playing a brand of basketball that’s going to work for us,” Britt said. “Some teams are more physical than us, and Southern is one of them. There are some things we could have done better tonight. We will bounce back and we’re so looking forward to next week.”

SOUTHERN DURHAM 88, ORANGE 70

ORANGE: J.J. Thompson 4, Jason Franklin 21, Kyle Stanley 12, Joey McMullin 24, Hunter Birch 2, Tucker Miller 2, Kendrell Brooks 5.

SOUTHERN DURHAM: T.J. Richardson 15, Ricky Council 28, Ahmad Hamilton 26, Xavier Sorenson 10, Jaybron Harvey 2, Alex Phelps 5, Todd Wall 2.

Call it fate. Call it karma. Call it good luck.

For whatever reason, the Orange men’s basketball team has had its most clutch moments inside Chapel Hill High School in recent years.

It’s where they defeated Southern Durham in 2016 to win the Big 8 Conference Tournament, its first postseason championship in over 25 years. It’s where Machai Holt came to life last year with 16 points in the final eleven minutes to lift the Panthers past Chapel Hill in double overtime.

The latest shining moment inside the house that Ken Miller built came from Kendrell Brooks on Tuesday night.

Brooks hit a one-hand runner with :05 remaining as Orange defeated Chapel Hill 61-59 to end a seven-game losing streak. It was the Panthers’ first win since December 18 when they routed Walter Williams.

Joey McMullin led Orange with 22 points, while Jerec Thompson added 17. Brooks finished with 13.

Colin Himmelberg and Jake Chisholm each scored 12 for Chapel Hill (7-8, 2-3). Curiously, Himmelberg barely played in the final minutes.

With the scored tied 51-51 going into the fourth quarter, Orange went without a field goal for five minutes. Chapel Hill, who went with an all-reserve lineup for most of the fourth quarter, didn’t seize the moment in that span, scoring only five points to take a 56-51 lead. Backup guard Keshawn Brown scored the Tigers’ only two field goals in the final quarter, including a five-footer in transition with 13 seconds left that tied the game in a thrilling final sequence.

Chapel Hill led 56-55 with 2:00 remaining when Kyle Stanley took a lightning bolt of a pass from Tucker Miller to score on a lay-in. Issac Sinclair split two free throws on Chapel Hill’s next possession to even the game at 57.

Each team missed the front ends of one-and-ones on subsequent possessions. Brooks took a McMullin screen and danced down the lane to give Orange a 59-57 lead before Brown tied it.

“Kendrell stepped up and played a very good game tonight,” said Orange Coach Derryl Britt. “Down the stretch, we played team basketball when we trusted each other. That’s what we needed. The guys trusted the game plan. It paid off for us in the end. We finished the game playing team basketball.”

Unlike last year’s double overtime game where Chapel Hill led for the vast majority, this game was nip-and-tuck. Chapel Hill’s largest lead was six points. Orange didn’t lead by more than four. Of the eleven Tigers that played, nine scored.

After three disappointing home losses last week, all against Big 8 Conference opponents, the Panthers found their shooting stroke once again. Of Orange’s 12 field goals in the first half, seven were 3-pointers. McMullin had 13 points in the first half, and added seven more in the third quarter.

“The best thing I saw all night was the way we communicated with each other,” Britt said. “Offensively and defensively, down the stretch, the way we congratulated each other. It didn’t matter who hit the shot or who got the defensive stop. As long as we got it as a unit, everybody was happy and everybody celebrated.”

Next up for Orange will be, almost certainly, the most surreal matchup in school history regardless of sport. The Panthers will travel to Southern Durham, coached by Greg Motley, the all-time winningest coach in Orange history. For years, Motley stood on the sidelines for Orange when Southern Durham, coached by Kendrick Hall, was the Panthers’ biggest rival.

Motley still teaches at Orange and includes several Panther players among his students. In November, Motley replaced David Noel, who left Southern Durham after one season as head coach to become an assistant with the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA Gatorade League.

ORANGE 61, CHAPEL HILL 59

CHAPEL HILL: Colin Himmelberg 12, Seth Morton 4, Issac Sinclar 1, Jack Grubbs 6, Jake Chisholm 12, Matt Polsky 2, Jermaine Burnette 8, Keshawn Brown 11, Grant Ferris 3.

ORANGE: Jerec Thompson 17, Jason Franklin 3, Kyle Stanley 6, Joey McMullin 22, Kendrell Brooks 13.