St. Vincent-St. Mary too strong for Ursuline

By Jon Moffett

Turnovers doomed the Irish, who played LeBron James’ alma mater.

AKRON — When asked what he and his team could take away from a lopsided 81-45 loss to Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, Ursuline head coach Keith Gunther was very specific with his answer.

“You don’t want to take anything away from this game,” he said. “You want to wipe the slate clean and think about the next one.”

Ursuline (4-8) didn’t exactly get a warm reception when it traveled to the Rubber City Tuesday. Despite playing a team with the same nickname, Ursuline was pushed around early and often.

Gunther was so hoarse from barking instructions from the sideline that he could barely answer questions following the game. But he was able to make out what he thought of his team’s performance.

“In the first quarter, we were right in the ballgame,” he said, referring to his team being down 10 at the end of the first period. “The one thing we talked about before the game was that we had to remain calm against the press.”

But when the press came, Ursuline’s composure began to falter.

St. Vincent-St. Mary (8-4) brought pressure and caused Ursuline to force shots and commit turnovers.

Ursuline turned the ball over early in the second half, which led to two points from SVSM sophomore guard Treyvon Carter. Gunther called a full timeout to try to get his team’s head back into the game.

“The biggest problem is that we turned it over and they got a lot of easy buckets out of it. That’s the biggest thing. And then we started to panic and we stopped played with strong fundamentals.”

SVSM had 21 points off of Ursuline turnovers. Ursuline had 10 such points.

Gunther alluded to the SVSM gym as being a hallowed place for high school basketball recently because of how well the team has played. A less subtle reminder was a framed Lebron James jersey from when he played for the Irish.

But Gunther was quick to dispel any notion that James, who played for SVSM in the early part of the last decade and is now the face of the Cleveland Cavaliers, and his aura affected his team.

“I don’t think it’s because of a famous alum, I think it’s just because they’ve been so good for so long,” he said. “And I told our kids before the game, No. 23 [James] is not coming out of the locker room with them.”

Doing his best LeBron James impression for SVSM was junior guard Richard Johnson Jr.

It was evident from the beginning that SVSM’s offense went through the 5-foot-10 guard. His 15 points were second on the team and he also had five assists and a pair of rebounds.

Sophomore guard Lorenzo Cugini, whose 22 points were a game high. Cugini also contributed seven rebounds.

“We’ve got to gain experience and we’ve got to understand that we’re playing against the game, not against any team,” Gunther said. “We’ve just got to play the game the right way.”

Gunther said he hopes his team learns something from its performance Tuesday, and uses the game as motivation to play with a chip on its shoulder for the rest of the year.

jmoffett@vindy.com