Army's Brown Is Too Much

Army 69, Navy 67

The Army-Navy men's basketball game yesterday in Annapolis came down to this: With the score tied in the final seconds before a sellout crowd, Army senior Jarell Brown, the second-leading scorer in the Patriot League, was being defended by Navy senior Greg Sprink, the league's leading scorer.

Brown got past Sprink, the other defenders were too slow to react and Brown scored on a driving layup with 13 seconds left for the final points in Army's 69-67 victory before 5,710 at Alumni Hall.

The Midshipmen (9-11, 2-3) had two shots on their final possession. Freshman Mark Veazey missed a 10-foot jump shot with 1.3 seconds left and sophomore Chris Harris missed a three-pointer at the buzzer.

"We got a great look," Harris said. "I feel like I was set, I just missed the shot."

And the day belonged to the Black Knights (9-10, 2-3). Brown, a 6-foot-2 guard, finished with 35 points. It was the most by an Army player in the series since Kevin Houston scored 38 in a 58-52 loss in 1987. Brown took 26 of Army's 57 shots (46 percent), nine of its 13 three-pointers and scored 14 points in the final 6 minutes 17 seconds.

On their final possession, the Black Knights set at least a half-dozen screens for Brown until he finally broke from the defense and got the ball.

"He's a great player," Navy Coach Billy Lange said. "We could have thrown the whole Navy fleet at him. They run their plays, they run their entire offense around him."

Said Army Coach Jim Crews: "Jarell moves without the ball very well. We tried to change up the offense, we kept changing our emphasis and spacing."

Brown entered averaging 19.1 points; Sprink averaged 21.1. Sprink finished with 20 points but was left to rue two points that he did not convert.

With around six minutes to play and the Midshipmen leading 58-52, Sprink was alone with the ball at the basket in front of Navy's most boisterous fans. He eschewed a layup and virtually certain two points and instead tried a spinning dunk, which he missed. A few seconds later, Brown was fouled as he made a layup; following the three-point play, Navy's lead was 58-55.

The game featured several oddities. Army scored the game's first 11 points yet, a few minutes later, turned over the ball on six straight possessions.

Meantime, Navy did not make a two-point basket until around eight minutes were left in the first half.

Navy took its largest lead at 46-37 following a basket by Sprink with 15:27 to play. Sprink and Harris each finished with a team-high 20 points. Veazey added nine points, all in the second half.

But the result yesterday kept intact one other oddity: Army and Navy have alternated wins and losses in their past 10 meetings dating from 2003. Navy leads the series, 66-41.

"We didn't lose the game because of Jarell Brown. We lost the game because Army played great and made the plays they needed to," Lange said. "We are still learning how to play mature and execute when we need to. The game was decided early on when we fell behind 11-0."