PHX Reporter

Ottawa University-Phoenix issued the following announcement on June 19

The 2019-2020 season had many wins over ranked teams, and in particular over top ten teams for OUAZ programs. But January 30th, 2020 marked not only the most stunning upset by an OUAZ team, but maybe the most stunning upset across the country during the year.

Karriem Simmons put back a Brian Carey miss at the buzzer, and the Spirit snapped then-7th ranked The Master’s 47-game home court winning streak with a 78-76 win on that wild Thursday night. It was the first loss at The MacArthur Center for the Mustangs since January 7, 2017, where they lost 88-56 to Hope International. 

It was a game that the Spirit led by 12 at the half, and The Master’s made a huge push in the in the final 20 minutes. The Mustangs tied the game at 59 with 8:06 to go, but OUAZ never allowed The Master’s to lead by more than three points after that point, and the Spirit were able to get the final bucket. 

The Spirit got the final possession with 24 seconds to go, and called a timeout. Carey had been arguably the Golden State Athletic Conference’s player all year long, and the coaching staff decided to get the ball in his hands for the final play. 

“Coach asked me what I wanted to do, and he wanted to put me in a ball screen,” Carey said. “I told him I didn’t want a ball screen, I just wanted to take [the defender] one-on-one. I knew that if the ball screen would come, they would trap me.”

Carey scored 19.5 points per game, second best in the conference, and did it in plenty of difficult ways. He drove right, and put up a floater that hit the back rim. With only a couple ticks left on the clock, it would take a perfect bounce in order for the Spirit to get another opportunity. That is exactly what they got when the ball fell to Simmons and he quickly put up the game winning jumper.

I though BC’s (Brian Carey) shot was going in, it looked good from our angle. One thing we did strategically is…we had our bigs cross-screen from the blocks to get inside position for an offensive rebound.

The ball bounced our way. We had games this year where…so many of them come down to three or four possessions. That one bounced our way and Karriem bailed us out.

OUAZ Assistant Head Coach Adam Hepker

While Simmons may have seemed to be the unlikely hero from the outside, it did not come as much of a surprise to his teammates. Simmons improved all year long, and he made it a regular to show some heroics in practice.

“I saw Karriem, [and] I know Karriem always makes big shots in practice,” Carey said. “He always does that to us, at least once a week in practice. So I knew it was going in the second it left his hands.”

On February 22, senior Dimetres Moore scored career point No. 1,000 in the second half of a 90-69 loss at Hope International. Also known as ‘D’ around the program, he became the first player in OUAZ to reach the milestone. 

Moore transferred over from Penn State Beaver after playing a year out East. He returned back to the Valley, where he is originally from Mesa, and continued his college career in Surprise. Getting to the milestone was one that may not have been in the cards, especially since he played 18 games and averaged just ten minutes in his first year with the Spirit. 

He played a prominent role in his junior year, averaging 14.5 points per game and scoring nearly 400 points in 2018-2019. Moore then put up 22.1 points per game this past season, which led the GSAC and ranked 11th nationally. He put in a lot to the program during his time, and was greatly rewarded. 

It shows that hard work pays off. At the beginning of my sophomore season, I don’t think I played my first 12 games. I sat at the end of the bench, and I had to learn quickly how to adjust to a new scene, a new scenario. Then, one thing led to another, and I started playing a lot more.

Dimetres Moore said of his feat

When continuing to build a budding program, it is nice to point to a player who showed the dedication, and the results followed the buy-in. Having great facilities such as the O’Dell Center and Faith Arena can be nice when it comes to trying to grab recruiting, but showing the success of Moore can attract other similar great players. 

“When you start a program, you don’t have THAT guy to say ‘this is how we guard, this is what boxing out looks like. This is what playing fast looks like for us, or rim-running’ or whatever it is,” Hepker said. “ ‘D’ is now that guy that we can point at and say ‘he was with us from the beginning, he believed in what we were preaching, he bought in, he gave himself entirely to the program, and here’s the result’.”

Original source can be found here.