Jordan denies Sage Hill boys' basketball first CIF championship

Sage Hill's Carter Bryant slam dunks during a CIF championship game against Long Beach Jordan on Saturday.

By Matt SzaboStaff Writer

Feb. 25, 2023 9:58 PM PT

There is an analogy that Sage Hill School boys’ basketball coach D’Cean Bryant has used this year involving cows and buffaloes.

Both of them can sense storms. But they react in totally different ways.

“The cows run away from the storm, and the buffalo goes to it,” Bryant said. “The buffalo always runs toward the storm. If you ever think about it, after the storm, it’s always clear. Things are pretty, right? But you’ve got to go through the storm. Everything you want is on the other side of hard. You keep running like the cows, you’re going to get tired, you’re going to get swallowed up.”

The Lightning made it through a rough preseason to win the Pacific Coast League title, and brought an 11-game winning streak into the CIF Southern Section Division 4A title game against Long Beach Jordan.

Sage Hill's Gage Talleur (12) drives to the basket and is fouled in the process during Saturday's game.

On a rainy Saturday afternoon, Bryant said he again felt that Sage Hill ran toward the storm. But this time it was in a losing effort, as No. 2-seeded Jordan won 68-57 at Edison High.

No. 4-seeded Sage Hill (15-12), making its second CIF finals appearance, was denied its first title.

Junior Carter Bryant had 22 points and 16 rebounds for the Lightning, who battled back from a slow start but were ultimately unable to overcome an 0-for-11 shooting night from three-point range. Senior guard Andrew Cobb added 12 points, while senior guard Shaan Patel and junior post Johnny Mayhew had eight points each.

Senior guard Dennis Redmond Jr. scored a game-high 23 points for Jordan (21-12), and senior guard Kane Young added 17 points.

Sage Hill's Carter Bryant (24) makes a fall-away jumper during Saturday's game.

But it was a third senior guard, Franklyn Chambers, who came alive in the fourth quarter to score 10 of his 14 points.

Jordan also pressured Sage Hill into committing 23 turnovers, well above what the Lightning have been averaging lately.

“Hat’s off to [Jordan],” D’Cean Bryant said. “We made a run, kept pushing and pushing and they responded with some big-time buckets. We lost some defensive assignments in transition, and that’s how they scored. It wasn’t anything that we didn’t see. I thought we made a better adjustment to their pressure in the second half, which allowed us to stay in the game and have a chance at winning it.”

Sage Hill only led briefly in the second quarter, but made a late push. Down 56-47 after three quarters, the Lightning pulled within three, at 56-53, on a dunk by Carter Bryant off a steal with 5:10 remaining.

Johnny Mayhew, right, walks off the court after Sage Hill was defeated by Long Beach Jordan on Saturday.

The deficit was just six points inside of four minutes, but three straight layups by Chambers helped seal the deal for the Panthers.

“Both teams earned the right to be here,” said Jordan coach Chris Francis, who led the Panthers to their fourth CIF title and first since 1996. “I just think it was us sticking to J-Town basketball — controlling the tempo, sharing the ball. I thought we did a tremendous job on Carter Bryant. He’s a special talent, obviously, and I thought we slowed him up just enough to get the hardware.”

The season isn’t over for Sage Hill, which will compete next in the CIF State Southern California Regional playoffs next week.

Sage Hill's Andrew Cobb (22) makes a reverse layup in the third quarter of Saturday's game.

D’Cean Bryant said he expects another deep run.

“You come into a new program and you’re not sure,” said Bryant, who previously coached at Fountain Valley. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. [Our season] is just a testament to [the players] having faith in the coaching staff, and bigger, having faith in themselves. And then, ultimately, the administration having faith in us as a coaching staff that we could put this together. For us to make this run is amazing. I know we came up short … but ultimately you just get to a point where you ask, what did we learn from this?

“I felt like we ran right toward the storm.”