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Prepping for Preps: Salesianum (Del.)

11/04/2015, 9:30am EST
By Kevin Troilo

Donte Divincenzo (above) is now at Villanova after leading Salesianum to the last two DIAA titles. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Kevin Troilo (@kevin_troilo)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of CoBL's "Prepping for Preps," our series of articles previewing area high school teams for the 2015-16 season. For the complete list of schools previewed so far, click here)

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The 2014-2015 season was one to remember for the Salesianum School.

Although the Wilmington, Del. school’s basketball team finished its regular season with just a 10-10 record, the Sallies’ season culminated with their second straight Delaware state title after a dominant run through the playoffs.

Their senior leader, Donte DiVincenzo, took home state Player of the Year honors, averaging 22.9 points, nine rebounds, and four assists a game.

Head coach Brendan Haley called the run “magical” and said that DiVincenzo, a 6-foot-4 guard, played “absolutely bananas” en-route to a state championship.

But that was last year.

DiVincenzo has since graduated and is now playing his college ball at Villanova, where he figures to be firmly in the mix for solid minutes as a freshman.

To get an idea of just how dominant he was, DiVincenzo averaged 27.5 ppg in four state playoff games, accounting for 111 of his team’s 223 points in the tournament--that’s 49.8 percent of his team’s total scoring.

“We were sort of as reliant as one team could possibly be on one guy,” Haley said. “Donte did everything for us.”

He is not the only piece of that championship team to finish his time at Salesianum. Guards Shane Clark and Jake Sherlock have graduated and left big shoes to fill for the younger players on this Sallies roster.

“For as much as we lost, we have a pretty good freshman crop that came in, probably as highly-touted as we’ve ever had,” Haley said. “We expect a couple guys to have an impact. They’re familiar faces from people doing rankings and AAU stuff.”

One of these freshman is 6-8 center Tariq Ingraham, a New Castle (Del.) native who has played his AAU ball for the nationally recognized Team Rio. Without being too cliché, the sky is truly the limit for Ingraham with his size advantage over nearly everyone at the high school level.

Joining Ingraham is Trevon Alderman, a 5-10 point guard whose father, Donovan Alderman, has coached high school basketball and football at John Dickinson High School for years. Alderman has drawn plenty of attention for his court vision and ability to operate as a “true” point guard.


Trevon Alderman (above) is one of a few talented youngsters just starting his high school career. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they [Ingraham and Alderman] ended up starting,” Haley said. “They’ll be in the top seven at the very least.”

Sophomore Jamal Whittlesey was in the regular rotation as a freshman last season and will almost certainly start this year. The 6-4, 275-pound power forward is a big body in the post and is widely considered one of the best players in the state at his position.

Also returning is sophomore Paul Brown, a 6-6 forward who scored 10 points in the team’s victory over Poly Tech in the state championship.

“We do have a few returning seniors on the roster but they haven’t played much at all,” Haley said. “Breyon Holmes, Juwel Campbell and Luke Bianchino are those guys. Bianchino has seen a little time."

Salesianum will start their season with a home game against Howard HS of Tech, a team they lost to on the road in last year’s opener.

Their schedule includes games against Appoquinimink, Mount Pleasant, Smyrna, Sanford, St. Elizabeth and Concord High School’s. All six of these schools made it to last season’s state quarterfinals.  

It will be interesting to see how this young team gels early on. Adjusting to the loss of a Division I talent is not easy under any circumstance, let alone when the majority of your talent is made up of sophomores and freshman.

Besides youth and inexperience at the high school level, Haley cited scoring and shooting as two of the team’s biggest issues coming into the season.

“We’ve got size and we’ve got kids that are pretty shifty with the ball who can split defenses, but we don’t shoot the ball very well,” he said. “Donte was that kind of do-it-all guy for us.”

Losing DiVincenzo won’t be easy, but with a young team comes a lot of potential to grow.

Haley is excited for the challenge that awaits.


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