The last two times the Bucks Centurions and Philadelphia Community College met the games were claimed by Philadelphia, but only by a few points. When the Centurions went to Philadelphia this past week in an end of the season tune up for the playoffs, Philly once again looked like the better team. Philadelphia beat the Centurions with a team effort lead by Fred Dukes with 14 points in a 79-58 win on Mon. Feb. 13. Philly players Marcus Johnson and Kiari Salisbury helped their team with 13 and 11 respectively. Shooting guard Emmanuel Pittman also scored 18 in a losing effort. Centurion center Tariq Benn scored a game high 21 points in his hometown, but left the game late, because of foul trouble. The Centurions took a 4-2 lead early, but that was last time they would lead as Philly then went on a 16-4 tear to open up a 18-8 lead. Bucks made early mistakes with turnovers and offensive fouls to aid in the deficit. It seemed every time the Centurions would make a charge, Philly would answer back. Near the end of the half Philly let the Centurions back into the game, who slowly started to round into form, but they were still behind 32-22 at halftime. In the second half, Philly was with three quick fouls which sent the Centurions a chance to make up some points from the foul line.  After an 8-2 run by Philly, early foul trouble for Philly proved beneficial for the Centurions as they ended up in the penalty early.   Unfortunately the Centurions were not able to cash in from the strike, missing far too many foul shots throughout the night.   With the Centurions inept at the foul line, Philly really poured it on offensively running away with the score at 52-33. The Centurions ended up making some late buckets, but it was too little too late as they ended their regular season with a record of 8-7 with the final score 79-58.

Centurion Coach Steve Coyne seemed more fired up then depressed when he said, “We will play these guys again this Saturday and we will win this time.” As far as his analysis of the game Coyne said, “You know what turnovers killed us again, they really killed us.” The Centurions went with a bigger lineup for most of the night.  Explaining his reasoning behind the change, Coyne explained, “We knew they were going to be very athletic, and we thought a bigger lineup might slow them down, because they did not really have a big man.”

Philadelphia Coach Dondi Desiteies said afterwards, it was a lot different this time around, because last time we had to come back from 18 down, but we were missing some guys we do have now and the team is more seasoned this time. One major thing we get these guys to work on is defense, because defense without offense is nonsense.”

Centurion center Tariq Benn seemed a little down when he said, “I’m kind of disappointed man, we were not able to take advantages of our opportunities and we let them get ahead of us.