On a cold Tuesday night, on Jan 17, when most Bucks students should have been resting up for the first day of the spring semester, Emmanuel Pittman and the Centurion men’s basketball team were staying up late to win a game.
The first half of the men’s  basketball season had been underachieving, but their playoff hopes remained alive with a 4-4 record. Coach Steve Coyne was optimistic before the game that his team was ready to play, despite the long layoff between school semesters. “Hopefully our guys stayed in shape over the break, because it’s going to be a tough stretch right away with four games in six nights.”
Centurion guard Emmanuel Pittman was clearly not being a couch potato during the break as he scored 21 points to lead the Centurions to victory over the Luzerne Trailblazers 64-47. Pittman revealed a big factor in his success by saying, “I practiced some old high school drills during the break and that played into me staying in shape. I feel when I’m playing at the top of my game that draws the defense to me, and opens things up for my teammates.”
Both teams showed obvious rust in the early going by turning the ball over and committing offensive fouls multiple times. The Centurions committed slightly fewer errors and  soon opened up an 11-3 lead.
Luzerne finally got going halfway through the first half, and drew the game close with the Centurions still leading 18-15. Centurion Center Tariq Benn helped his team get some breathing room to close out the first half, but took a lot of punishment under the net as he was hacked and fouled multiple times. Still the Trailblazers remained within earshot of the Centurions only down 32-24.
The start of the 2nd half got some good play by the bench players to allow the starters to come in and pull away 48-35.
Centurion forward Tyler Nichols recovered from a bloodied nose in the first half to come in and contribute mightily in the second half with rebounding and defense. Sometimes when a player returns from injury, he can prove to be a nonfactor. This was not the case with Nichols and he gave his thoughts on the situation by saying, “I try to take my frustration and aggression out on the other team, rather than feel sorry for myself.”
The Centurions were in control for much of the half until the young upstart Trailblazers made it a game again with 5 minutes remaining with the score at 48-43. But patience and hard-nosed play by the Centurions proved to be the difference as they closed out the Trailblazers 60-47.
Coyne gave his analysis on his team’s play after the game, saying, “Defensively I thought we played pretty good, but as far as taking care of the ball offensively, not so much. We implemented our 3-2 defense that is effective against shooting teams and that allowed us to get outside pressure on them and cause them to turn the ball over and get offensive fouls.”
Trailblazers guard Chris McGarvin was one of the smaller players on the court, but played bigger than most of his team by hustling and fighting for the ball all night. He was not disheartened by the loss though when he said, “I think we played our best game of the season actually, we were able to stay close and not let them get comfortable with a lead” McGarvin said.
David May said after the game, “I think we played okay, we were kind of sloppy coming off the break, but we were able to come out with the win.”
The team was able to play the full 40 minutes with intensity and that is a good start to the second half.