Zoo Crew suffers tough loss to Happy Valley Hoopers in The Basketball Tournament

The disappointment will linger with Nelly Cummings after he and his Zoo Crew teammates lost to the Happy Valley Hoopers, 85-82, on Wednesday night in the Sweet 16 of The Basketball Tournament at Petersen Events Center.

After all, a team composed largely of former Pitt players led their Penn State rivals for most of the game — by as many as 14 points in the first half. But three layups by Sam Sessoms in the end-of-the-game session punctuated a thrilling comeback for the Hoopers in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 1,172.

The Hoopers will advance to the Elite 8 of the tournament, a $1 million, winner-take-all event, either Monday or Tuesday against Eberlein Drive, champion of the Butler Regional.

But Cummings and Zoo Crew coach Gilbert Brown saw much more in their three games at the Pete this week than two victories and a difficult defeat. The support from former Pitt players now in the pros — Bub Carrington, Blake Hinson and Justin Champaigne were in attendance — soothed some of the hurt from the loss. Hinson even rebounded for the Crew during warmups.

“Blake didn’t have to do that,” Cummings said. “He could have sat in the pressbox, but that’s not who Blake is. He’s Pitt basketball.”

Brown was understandably upset, but he said it was a great feeling to see fans in Petersen Event Center a little riled up in the summertime. Meanwhile, current and former Pitt players pulled for other former players, even though not all of them played on the same team.

“The fans enjoyed it. I’m sure the (current) Pitt basketball team enjoyed it. You could see their reaction to every play,” Brown said.

“We use this as a learning lesson for the guys because we anticipate being an NCAA Tournament team (next season). Just the importance of how every game matters, every play matters, all the little things, sticking together. All these things matter, if you want to make a deep run or you want to just be a really, really good team. There are tons of examples for them to actually learn from.

“I just think the program’s moving forward, and it’s moving forward fast.”

The game was played in an intense atmosphere — after all, it was Pitt vs. Penn State — but Cummings and Sessions said it never got out of hand.

“When you’re playing for a million dollars, every possession matters,” Cummings said. “It’s one of those things you just wanted to win. It overcomes you. It just makes you go a little harder, to be sure. It’s supposed to be a rivalry. We just played into that. There’s no hatred.”

Said Sessoms: “It’s basketball at the end of the day. We’re not fighting on the court. We’re not going to meet up afterwards and fight. There was a lot of passion. We knew their players. We knew their coaching staff.”

Hoopers coach Ross Condon said he enjoyed the hospitality from the Pitt staff during his team’s three victories in five days at the Pete.

“Pitt’s been awesome to us,” he said. “It’s not always that way with Penn State. I know that.

“We knew what this environment was going to be. Road attitude is what we would say. We knew it was going to be kind of a road game. We probably weren’t going to get the whistle we wanted. Everyone was going to be cheering against us.”

With Jamel Artis out with a foot injury suffered in Monday’s victory, the Zoo Crew played with only a three-man bench, and each of the five starters played at least 29 minutes.

Cummings led his team with 23 points, followed by Mike Young (15), Ryan Luther and Dustin Sleva (12 each) and Nike Sibande and Lamar Patterson (10 each).

Sessoms scored 27 for the Hoopers, and Greg Lee added 23. Four members of the Hoopers played on Penn State’s 2019-20 team that was ranked as high as No. 13 in the nation a month before the pandemic ended the season.