Star Tribune
After a batch of buzzer-beaters, Orono boys basketball team celebrates spot at state
Barry Wohler joked that he made a pit stop on the way to work Friday morning.
“I went and bought some On Cloud shoes,” he said, “because I’m walking on clouds.”
The entire town of Orono is there with him after Wohler’s boys basketball team earned a spot in the state tournament next week with a script that reads like fiction.
Facing Benilde-St. Margaret’s in a Class 3A section final Thursday night, the teams combined for a buzzer-beater at the end of regulation, a buzzer-beater at the end of the first overtime and a buzzer-beater at the end of the second overtime.
The final dagger was a halfcourt bank shot by Nolan Groves that gave Orono an 86-84 win and set off a raucous celebration.
“I don’t have any words … three buzzer-beaters in one game,” Groves said Friday morning after barely getting any sleep. “I was so tired after the game I almost threw up in the parking lot.”
Can you blame him? The junior guard played every second of the game and finished with 45 points, 18 rebounds, 11 assists and a memory that will stay with him a lifetime.
Wohler is a member of the Minnesota High School Basketball Hall of Fame. So when he says, “I don’t know if I’ve been a part of a crazier game, and I’ve been in a lot of them,” the game’s details are immune to hyperbole.
Benilde-St. Margaret’s coach Damian Johnson, the former Gophers standout, called it “probably the best game I’ve ever been part of” as a player or coach.
“There were just so many buzzer-beaters and plays where it’s like, ‘Man, that was just crazy,’ ” he said.
The competitive fight that his team showed comforted Johnson a day later.
“I can’t even be too upset, to be honest,” Johnson said. “It was a halfcourt shot to lose the game. It definitely hurts, though.”
Orono led by three with 2.4 seconds left in regulation. Wohler elected not to foul but instructed his players to guard outside the three-point line. They sagged too far off, allowing Benilde’s Jaleel Donley to fire up a three-pointer at the buzzer.
Overtime.
“When he shot that, I was nervous because he was closer to the basket than I thought,” Groves said. “Of course, he banks it in.”
Benilde’s players and fans stormed the court in jubilation.
“Their crowd goes nuts,” Wohler said.
Groves told himself to remain calm as he walked back to the bench. He tried to get his teammates refocused in the huddle.
“The momentum had completely shifted,” he said. “I was telling everybody, ‘Hey, we cannot let this rattle us.’ “
Orono trailed by two points late in OT. Wohler called the play “Luther” — a ball screen for Groves. They rehearsed that play well in practice, with Wohler telling Groves to expect a double-team as he came off the screen.
Sure enough, Groves got doubled, so he passed to point guard Riley Nelson, who drove the lane and dished off to Brady Wooley for a layup with less than a second left.
Groves felt his calves cramping before the second overtime.
“The adrenaline is high,” he said, “and we kept fighting because the whole season is on the line.”
Orono trailed 84-83 with six seconds left with Benilde-St. Margaret’s at the free-throw line. Wohler called timeout to go over strategy. They had a set play designed on a made free throw. On a miss?
“Get Nolan the ball and get the hell out of the way,” he said.
The free throw missed, but chaos ensued. Groves grabbed the rebound, but the ball got knocked out of his hands. He battled two Benilde-St. Margaret’s players for possession.
“As I was fighting for that rebound, I knew time was running out,” he said.
He finally gained control of it.
“As soon as I ripped the ball out of there,” he said, “I immediately looked up and saw that there was two seconds left. I was like, all right, I’m going to have to shoot it from halfcourt.”
He took three dribbles and let it fly.
The ball banked in.
Orono’s student section poured out of the bleachers to celebrate.
“I was getting crushed against the wall,” Groves said. “I had to tell people to back up.”
When the team finally retreated to the locker room after the awards ceremony, “we had a pretty good dance,” Wohler said.
On the bus ride back to school, a teammate told Groves that he had just lived out every kid’s dream.
“It’s literally what you dream of when you’re a little kid in your driveway playing basketball,” Groves said. “You hit a halfcourt game-winner to send your team to state.”
He stayed up late talking to his parents when he got home. His phone has been “erupting” since the shot went in.
“I can’t even get back to all the people,” he said.
Now it’s on to the state tournament. Time to refocus.
But 50 years from now, he’ll still smile over the craziness of that night and a halfcourt heave that left him squeezed against a wall, exhausted, in euphoric celebration with his teammates and classmates.
“It’s a memory I’ll always have,” he said
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
