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SJU Team Camp Notebook: June 20

06/20/2015, 5:00pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Saint Joseph’s commuter team camp continued on Saturday morning, as the 20-some schools involved each took to the courts for a pair (or trio) of games in the second of three days of competition.

Here’s a notebook from the action:

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Lower Moreland working on Bicentennial repeat
Before Seth Baron took over at Lower Moreland in 2011, the school could hardly be called a powerhouse in the Bicentennial Athletic League.

Despite being one of the league’s founding members in 1975-76, the Lions had never won a boys’ basketball title, until that 2011-12 season that saw them go 11-1 in BAL play to earn the regular-season crown. They fell short in the conference playoffs that year to Holy Ghost Prep, one of the traditionally strong programs in the league.

Now, Baron has Lower Moreland in a position it has never been in, as both defending regular season and tournament champions. The Lions are coming off a 25-2 season that saw them go 14-0 in BAL play, taking down Phil-Mont Christian for the tournament title as well.

“Undefeated in the league, you can’t hate that,” Baron said. “We expect to compete for the Bicentennial (again), we always do...it’s going to be a tough year, but we expect to be right there at the end of the year.”

While Lower Moreland goes for the repeat as a team, one of its players is working on a three-peat of his own. Senior point guard Danny Duffey (pictured above) has won the BAL Independence Division’s Most Valuable Player award each of the last two seasons, and his coach knows there’s only one way to follow up that legacy as a senior.

“You win it three years in a row,” he said. “Most Valuable Player is an understatement. These guys all have talent...but these guys take the feed from Danny, he comes out there with such grit and determination, he’s a coach on the floor.

“He has no problem turning to one of his closest friends after they’ve made a mistake and say ‘yo, this is how it has to be,’ and they listen. He brings a certain tenacity to the court, and it trickles on down.”

The 5-foot-10 point guard showed why he’s one of the top players in the whole 15-team conference in a win over Puerto Rico’s Tasis Dorado at SJU on Saturday, continually penetrating the opposing defense and finding open shots for the guards around him. And when he was able to find a hole in the defense he was just as quick to pull the trigger, knocking down shots from all over the court.

He and fellow seniors Dicky Rhodes, Nick Smolda and Ty Milan give Baron a solid cadre of guards, though they’ll be without rising junior Matt Cerruti, a two-year varsity contributor who’s transferring out of the school.

The Lions will also need to replace the inside work of graduated senior Phil Madden, a 6-4 forward who also led the team in charges; they’re certainly a little vertically challenged without him on the court.

“We are going to be short this year, we are short,” Baron said. “Any kid feels like growing five inches in the offseason, we’ll be happy to take them. We have one or two kids that are away now for the summer, so we have a little bit of height to fill that void, and hopefully they get the job done.”

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GA’s Alter looking forward to a healthy season
It’s been a tough 18 months for Gabe Alter.

First, the now rising senior at Germantown Academy suffered torn labrums in both of his hips thanks to inflamed femur bones, forcing him to undergo surgery in January 2014 that cost him his sophomore season. Then, after getting back to full health and just a few weeks shy of beginning his junior year, Alter tore his patella tendon in a fall league game.

“I’ve got a bad lower body,” he said. “I’ve got an old man’s body.”
But now Alter is healthy again, and--knock on wood--looks like he’s ready to contribute for a program that’s won the last three Inter-Academic League titles.

The 6-foot-4 wing forward played very well for a shorthanded Patriots squad in a loss to C.B. West, knocking down at least four 3-pointers and playing tough around the rim as well.

Though he still has some rust to knock off his game, Alter certainly looks like he’ll be a solid member of GA’s rotation in 2015-16 and might even break into the starting lineup, with two spots opened up by graduating seniors.

“I can’t wait, it’s been hard to watch the last two years,” he said about the opportunity to finally play varsity basketball. “Obviously it’s easier to watch when we win two Inter-Ac championships in a row...it’s still been fun, but it’s frustrating.”

Head coach Jim Fenerty needs to replace both size and shooting thanks to the graduations of 6-6 Colgate-bound forward Sam Lindgren and 6-2 shooting guard Tim Guers (St. Anselm). Two of the top players in the league as juniors and seniors, Lindgren and Guers combined to score 1,693 points in the latter half of their high school careers as the team went 41-14 in that time.

But more than the numbers that the two put up over the last two seasons, Alter wants to emulate the way that they approached the game.

“They always cut everything out, they just played ball,” he said. “They play hard, they’re smart players, they play GA ball and it got them into college. They’re great role models...if we can play like them next year, then we’ll be fine.”

Though his college recruitment is still very slow at this point due to his being mostly unknown thanks to his injuries, Alter has a goal to play Division I basketball, even if it means walking on at his dream school.

“I’d like to go to Cornell,” he said. “Cornell’s my top choice right now, I love the school; even if I have to walk-on, that’s what I would do.”

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Quick Hits
--Very strong morning from Shipley senior wing Arvelle Jones, who’s been a promising prospect for a few years but hadn’t yet quite lived up to his full potential. He’s starting to finally be the assertive scorer he’s built to be, knocking down shots and attacking the rim whenever he gets some space. Jones, a 6-4 wing, had a slick crossover-pullup from 15 feet and drained a few 3-pointers off the bounce; he also made some nice drop-off passes when he was driving to get teammates easy layups.

--Have to love the way Central Bucks West moves the ball. At a point in the offseason that’s still a lot of basic motion offenses and somewhat-wild play as many young athletes are adjusting to minutes at the varsity level, the Bucks look like they’re in midseason form with their senior guards. Adam Sherman has done a great job in getting this group playing unselfish, with numerous possessions that featured no fewer than four or five drive-and-kick situations; Billy Power, Luke Irons, Ben Riegel, Connor Lynch and Cal Reichwein were all getting involved in keeping that going.

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Photo credit: Josh Verlin/City of Basketball Love