City of Basketball Love

READING, Pa. -- The central part of the Keystone State is developing a reputation for turning out talented big men.

Hershey's senior center, Dylan Painter, has blown up this summer with more than 20 high-major offers. Manheim Central junior Taylor Funk, a 6-8 stretch forward, has a few D-I offers already and could go through a flurry similar to Painter’s next summer, when schools are focused on their 2017 recruiting classes.

Following in Painter and Funk’s footsteps is Trinity’s Sean Good, a rising sophomore who has a chance to be the best yet.

And they know it.

“He, right now, is better than I was at that age,” said Painter, who’s added offers from Providence, North Carolina State, Pitt and Clemson in the last two weeks alone; Penn State, Iowa and Xavier are also in pursuit. "I was only like 6-8 and he’s 6-10, he’s grown into his body a little more than I was at that age, so he’s a lot further along than I was, and if he keeps working, he could definitely be pretty good."

All three are following in the footsteps of a few other recent District 3 forwards who have done well at the Division I level. Scott Eatherton, who also starred at Hershey, scored 1,500 points between four years at St. Francis (Pa.) and Northeastern. Central Dauphin East’s Devin Thomas just averaged 12.0 ppg and 8.8 rpg in his junior year at Wake Forest.

A 6-foot-9, 195-pound forward, Good certainly looks the part of a future high-level big man at this point in his development, which he showed at The Hoop Group’s Elite Camp this week . He’s got a solid motor and a well-developed offensive game, including shooting range out to the 3-point arc.

“I’ve been working on that and I’m trying to prove it this camp,” he said of his shooting, “and I think I’ve done so.”

Defensively, Good does a solid job of altering shots with his reach, and pulls in most rebounds that come to his area.

As a freshman, he averaged a little more than seven points per game for a Trinity squad that went 19-8 overall, losing to Mastery Charter North in the PIAA Class AA state playoff second round. In a sign of what’s to come, he finished that game with a double-double.

Good is still largely an unknown quantity in recruiting circles, though he said he’s been getting letters from Notre Dame and Ohio State; Penn State had him up to its prospect camp this spring, where he got a chance to meet PSU coach Pat Chambers.

While all of those schools could potentially offer in a year or two, Good still has plenty of work to do to get to that point, especially in terms of his body.

“I would definitely say he definitely has to get in the weight room,” Painter said. “I was skinny like he was, getting in the weight room and getting more strength and more size on me has really helped me...keep working hard and stay humble.”

Recently, they went head-to-head in a summer-league all-star game, where Painter got a chance to see and evaluate Good up close and personal.

“He had a really good jump shot, mid-range, elbows, top of the key, that kind of stuff,” Painter said. “And he could finish with either hand, it was pretty impressive.”

While Painter got a chance to see what Good could do, the younger forward got to see where he stacked up against his older counterpart. And he’s using Painter’s presence as inspiration and motivation moving forward.

“It’s good to have somebody like that, just slightly better than you but still on par with you, to keep yourself going,” Good said. “There’s always room to get better, always, no matter what.”

If he continues to get better over the next three years, Good will be much more than his name by the time he gets to college.

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Photo credit: Josh Verlin