Hapoel Jerusalem mounted a late comeback to knock off Aris 90-85 as Jared Harper continued to make his case for EuroCup MVP as the Reds moved their record to 8-5 which will keep the capital city side in second place of Division B. The Greek team led for most of the way as it looked as Ioannis Kastritis’s squad was going to walk away with the win thanks to stellar play from Trey Woodbury, Sharife Cooper, Darral Willis and LJ Figueroa. But Harper along with Justin Smith, Tarik Phillip and Yovel Zoosman all contributed over the course of the final frame to take the victory.

Jared Harper started the game off well for Hapoel Jerusalem but Darral Willis and Joshua Roberts scored early for Aris as they took a slim 19-18 lead after ten minutes of play. Harper kept finding the bottom of the bucket for the Reds however, Trey Woodbury and LJ Figueroa countered to extend the lead to 41-37 at halftime.

Sharife Cooper and Woodbury bumped the Aris advantage up to double digits, but Khadeen Carrington, Justin Smith and Tarik Phillip were able to close the gap back down to 67-59 after thirty minutes of action. Smith and Harper kept scoring for Yonatan Alon’s team, Figueroa kept the Greek squad ahead but Yovel Zoosman knocked down the game tying triple and added free throws down the stretch to complete the Jerusalem comeback.

Harper scored 29 points, Carrington added 15 points while Smith and Phillip each scored 14 points in the win. Cooper and Woodbury each scored 17 points while Willis and Figueroa both put in 16 points in the loss.

“If Hapoel Jerusalem wants to go somewhere this season everyone has to take a good look in the mirror and this can never happen again,” Alon said following after his team needed to put together a big comeback to take the win. “We need to learn from this and we do need to be happy about the win. One of the reasons we were able to comeback was because Tarik Phillip started defending on the ball like crazy and Chris Johnson who was sick with the flu really showed the guys how to play.”

“After a good third quarter, the fourth quarter we tired and had foul trouble so we had a short rotation. we have seen this happen to us a number of times this season,” Aris head coach Ioannis Kastritis said.

The game MVP Jared Harper spoke about the win, “The first couple of quarters we didn’t play well and we knew that. We got back into the game, stayed together as a team and this was a big one for us. I think there were a multitude of things [that caused us issues] and not every game will be our best game, but we can control what we can control, turnovers and the like but if we do that the offense will come.”