Durant captures tourney crown with victory over Jesuit

For the Durant High boys basketball team, small steps become a lot larger when the Cougars walk away with championship hardware at the end of the night.

The Cougars won the Jesuit Invitational on Tuesday, beating the host Tigers 48-47.

Durant won with 31.4 seconds to go when Sean McChord pulled down an offensive rebound following a 3-pointer from Jordan Mitchell that rimmed out. McChord battled for the loose ball and converted to give Durant the one-point lead.

Durant barely missed the postseason a year ago and Coach Trent Tice said his team doesn't expect his team to miss the playoffs again this year.

"We are still taking steps," Tice said. "We are working to get to the point where we can win a tournament like this. This is where we want to be."

Said Durant guard Jeff Thomas, named the tournament's Most Valuable Player: "All we want to do is go to practice every day and work hard. If we work hard every day and do everything, we can take care of all of our goals."

Durant got off to a hot start behind center Andre Nation, who dominated the first quarter by scoring nine points, but he only scored two points the rest of the way as the Jesuit defense collapsed on him.

That left it up to the Durant perimeter game, which came through at the end. The Cougars led 38-32 entering the fourth quarter, but Jesuit fought back. Tim Ganther scored on a free throw and a layup to cut it to 38-37, but Durant took a 43-40 lead.

Ganther hit a layup and Austin Schonbrun took a feed from Ganther to put the Tigers ahead 44-43 with 2:12 remaining.

Thomas scored to put Durant ahead and Jordan Mitchell hit a free throw to make it 46-44, but Ganther hit a short jumper and was fouled. He followed with a free throw to put Jesuit back ahead.

But after Mitchell's 3-pointer rimmed out, McChord followed with his basket to give Durant its winning margin.