Thurgood Marshall Picks Off Two Ranked Teams

HARLEM, NY – The most susceptible teams in the NYCHoops.net Top Ten are the top two and the bottom two. This weekend previously unranked Thurgood Marshall Academy Panthers decided to tackle the rankings low hanging fruit. After busting up #9 ranked Wings Academy by twenty on Friday, T.M.A. knocked off #10 ranked Curtis during Saturday's finale of the Brown vs Board of Ed. HS Classic.

The 75 – 71 victory marked a significant step up for the Manhattan PSAL Class “AA” squad according to T.M.A. head coach Abdu Torrence there’s still work to be done. “I give us a B. We had a solid, good win against Wings. Tonight, we were up by 18 [points] and almost gave away the game.”

Sparked by a thunderous dunk by high flying George Varmah ’19, Thurgood Marshall went on a 9 – 2 scoring spree. Darnell Askew ‘19 clapped back for the Curtis Warriors with buckets in the paint plus a slam dunk but the Panthers held on to a 12-point advantage going into the second quarter.

“Our strategy was to keep Darnell out the paint and try to make [Curtis] work as hard as possible,” said Torrence. While that plan slowed the senior down a bit, it was the additional offense by Jaylen Denny ‘19 and Arthur Dukes, Jr. ‘19 along with sparse offensive assistance to Askew's efforts that extended T.M.A.’s lead to 47 – 31 at the midway point.

T.M.A. maintained its first half lead even though uber athletic Varmah road the bench with foul trouble. Early in the third quarter, with the senior back in the lineup, the Panthers increased its advantage to 18 points before Curtis got up off the canvas.

Askew started playing way above the rim while Adeleye Okekanmi ‘19 and Robert Mitchell ’20 provided back-up, the Staten Island public school tied the game a 71 with 1-minute left in regulation. Clutch baskets down the stretch by Varmah and Denny pushed the Panthers back out in front by four points as time ran out.

Coach Torrance said that the duo are the twin engines that make the team go. “Varmah is one of the best players in the city. He’s out glue as far as defense, rebounds and blocking shots.” Regarding Denny, Torrance said “He’s a kid that everyone wants to play with because he does everything it takes to win. He’s like my coach on the court.”

Denny led Thurgood Marshall Academy with 22 points with Varmah adding 16 points. Askew scored a game high 25 points.

Nyhem Garrett ’21 paced the Tigers with 30 points