When Nichols drew Park in the quarterfinal round of the Manhattan Cup playoffs, I thought its season would end there.  Days earlier, I had watched the Vikings go down to the wire against the Pioneers on their home floor, needing overtime to defeat a team missing two of its top players.  

As the game reports began rolling in on the MMA's quarterfinal Saturday , there were two themes – Nichols had jumped out to a 27-2 lead on Park and one of the team's top players, Tanner Schmit, left the game with an injury.  The Vikings cruised to victory, and found themselves staring down Canisius in the semifinals.  Despite playing the second closest game by a team from WNY against the Crusaders this year (13 points), Nichols chances of knocking off mighty Cansius was in my mind, an order taller than Cam Lewis standing on Chris Miner's shoulders.  They wouldn't even have Schmit back for the game.

 However, once again as the game reports began to pile up, Nichols had the advantage at halftime, and took firm control of things in the third quarter.  As everyone not wearing Vikings' green waited for the inevitable Crusader run, it never happened.  Nichols did the improbable – they beat Canisius, in their house, to score the biggest upset in WNY basketball since Sweet Home knocked off a Jonny Flynn-led Niagara Falls in 2007.

All that was left standing in their way of the Manhattan Cup championship was Timon.  It didn't take long before I was hearing about how perfectly things worked out for Timon – that the Tigers could now win the Cup since Canisius was no longer standing in their way.  That certainly wasn't my sentiment…the two wins that placed Nichols in the final were plenty to sway my confidence in them.  But they didn't need me to predict that they would win, and it didn't matter who still doubted they could finish the job.  The Vikings believed they were the best team and weren't worried about whether they were the favorites or the underdogs.  That belief in themselves allowed them to continue to perform like champions – and now they are.

Before a jam-packed crowd at the Koessler Center, Nichols closed the Manhattan Cup Final on a 13-4 run, to earn a 49-43 victory over second-seeded Timon, to win its third Manhattan Cup in school history.  Cam Lewis continued his spectacular postseason play and was named MVP of the tournament, finishing with 18 points.

Seven seconds into the game, Donte Williams (game-high 22 points) swished a 3-pointer from the left side to give Timon the game's first advantage.  The Tigers scored all of their first quarter points (12) on treys and held the lead until the final minute of the stanza, when Lewis scored to give Nichols a 13-12 lead after one quarter.

Nichols built its largest lead of the game early in the second quarter, 18-13, on consecutive buckets from Lewis and Chris Miner (team-high 20 points).  Nearly eleven minutes into the game, Timon got away from the perimeter and looked inside to Tyree Coble, who scored the team's first two-point field goal of the game.  After Jack Vance answered with a floater off the glass for Nichols, the Tigers went on a 9-0 run to match their largest lead of the game at 24-20.  A free throw by Miner and a trey from Vance tied the game for the Vikings, before Williams sank a pair from the stripe for Timon to give his squad a slight edge, 26-24, at the game's intermission.

An ultra-exciting third quarter was the stuff championship games are all about.  That's when the back-and-forth began and the scoreboard continued to flash a different team with the lead when it wasn't showing a tie.  The Tigers went back up by four points early in the quarter, before Nichols came right back to tie things up.  Neither team led by more than three points for the rest of the frame.  With Nichols on top, 39-38, following a basket from in close by Miner, Lewis got a thrilling 3-pointer to fall from the right corner as the buzzer sounded, causing the place to errupt.

In the first minute of the final quarter, Derick Simpson tied the game for Timon at 41 apiece – the game's seventh tie.  One minute later, Miner scored on a putback with 5:52 remaining to change the lead in the Vikings favor.  It was the 13th lead change of the game, and also the last.  Both team's went scoreless for over four minutes of the tightly contested final stanza, before Greg White pulled out the dagger for Nichols, in the form a long-range bomb.  White's 3-pointer gave the Vikings a 46-41 lead with 1:26 left, and gave all the non-believers something to believe in.

As the final seconds expired, Nichols rejoiced at the center circle and were quickly joined by an onslaught of fans who stormed the court to join in the celebration.  They knocked off the four, one, and two seed of the Manhattan Cup playoffs, and finally saw the culmination of a lot of hard work, along with several lumps along the way, pay off.  Nichols achieved its goal – they are the Manhattan Cup Champions of 2014.

-centercourt