Coffman’s Colin McClure drives past Orange defender Ellis Appiah during a down-to-the-wire OCC matchup. McClure shot the lights out with 39 points, but the Rocks fell to the Pioneers 68-66. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Brian Bayless)
Devin Brown totaled 27 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out six assists for Olentangy Orange, which has lofty expectations after two regional final runs. A narrow win over Coffman, however, showed the Pioneers that they still have work to do.
Dublin, OH – The message from coaches to players typically rings loud and clear: Just improve from practice to practice, game to game and the process eventually will reap rewarding results in the win-loss column. Translated in basketball terms, championships are won in March, not December.
On the heels of back-to-back regional runner-up seasons, the Olentangy Orange program and its fans certainly carry high expectations into 2025, but there is a fine line to balance.
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“When you go 26-2 and return four out of five starters and seven of your top nine guys, you’d certainly better have high aspirations,” Pioneers coach Anthony Calo said, “but at the same time, you’ve got to take care of business every day, emphasizing a lot of minute details, in order to better because our opponents are going to give us their best shot every night. Tonight was a perfect example of that. It was just another reminder that we have to get better.”
Veteran central Ohio columnist Steve Blackledge writes the OCC and sports at large for Press Pros.
In an Ohio Capital Conference Central Division showdown featuring two sure-fire All-Ohio caliber players who put on a terrific show, Orange managed to come away with a 68-66 win over feisty Dublin Coffman Friday.
Senior standout Devin Brown racked up 27 points, eight rebounds and six assists to pace Orange (4-0, 2-0), which used an 18-2 run in the first four minutes of the third quarter to build a big – but obviously not insurmountable – lead.
The ultra-versatile Brown, who has signed with Davidson of the Atlantic 10 Conference, did his best impersonation of the school’s most famous alum, Stephen Curry, knocking down a career-high seven three-point shots. By the way, did we mention that Brown stands 6 feet, 6 inches tall?
Devin Brown puts down 2 of his 27 points on the night.
“I don’t know that I’m putting any more emphasis on shooting threes this year, but I guess that’s just how it happened,” said Brown, who made second-team All-Ohio as a junior. “Obviously, I’m going to be playing more of a wing in college, so I work on that a lot in the offseason. I think I shot a pretty good percentage tonight and that’s what matters most.“
Despite Brown’s sharpshooting, Orange led only 30-28 at halftime.
But the Pioneers came out blazing out of the break with Treyton Schroeder, Ellis Appiah, Levi Davis and Brown all canning threes during the run. Keegan Knupp also slammed home a dunk off a brilliant pass from Brown, prompting Coffman coach Adam Banks to call his second timeout in a span of 90 seconds.
“Coach didn’t do any yelling at halftime,” said Knupp, a 6-4 senior who has signed to play baseball at Eastern Michigan. He supported Brown with 17 points. “He just told us to stay resilient and be tighter on the defensive end. We can play a lot better defense than we did tonight.”
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The big run revived flashbacks of what made Orange so good the past two seasons. The Pioneers take pride in defending, running the floor and shooting the three.
Keegan Knupp goes hard to the rim, adding to the Orange lead in the first half.
“We definitely challenged them at halftime,” Calo said. “For a veteran squad, we were making too many turnovers and allowing them to score too easily.”
After surviving the deluge, Coffman made a stirring run of its own in the fourth quarter behind the magnificent play of 6-0 senior guard Colin McClure.
A Thomas More signee, McClure scored 19 of his career-high 39 points in the fourth quarter. He did most of his damage from the three-point arc and on tough one-on-one drives to the hoop. Many of his shots came with defenders in his face.
“I think six of my players raised their hands when I asked if they thought they played good defense on McClure,” Calo said. “That was just an insane performance – one of the best performances I’ve ever seen for sure.”
McClure made a run at the program’ single-game scoring record of 46 points in 2002 by guard Chris Quinn, who went on to star at Notre Dame and play six seasons in the NBA. He is in his 11th season as the top assistant coach for the Miami Heat.
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“Colin has worked really, really hard to get to this point,” Banks said. “He’s an incredible competitor. He did this against one of the toughest defensive teams around.”
McClure nailed a 27-foot three-pointer at the 1:35 mark to cut Orange’s lead to 62-58. He converted a three-point play on a nifty spin move to make it 64-61 with 17.6 seconds left.
Levi Davis scans the Coffman defense as he advances the ball across mid-court during an OCC Friday night brawl with Dublin Coffman.
Davis and Brown combined to sink 4 of 4 foul shots to give the Pioneers a big enough cushion to weather yet another three at the buzzer by McClure.
In defeat, youthful Coffman (3-1, 0-1) made a statement that it could well contend with Orange, Olentangy Liberty, Upper Arlington, Hilliard Bradley and perhaps others in an always competitive OCC Central.
“We go into every game expecting to win,” Banks said. “We were just a couple minutes from beating a very good team tonight. I’m proud of the way our guys fought and we can take a lot of positives from this.”
Orange’s top area competition in the big-school division is expected to should come from defending regional champion Delaware, district champion Newark, Reynoldsburg and Pickerington North.
“We all know the sky’s the limit for this team,” Brown said. “It’s basically the same team we’ve had the past three years, only that we’re a year older and hopefully better. To say there’s an expectation for us to get over the hump and get to the state, I wouldn’t really say that. We’re just focused on getting better and doing the best we can.”
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