City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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CHESTER, Pa. -- Atlantic City head coach Gene Allen didn’t expect Ahmad Biggins to be making crucial shots for his team so early in the year.

In fact, Allen didn’t even expect the senior guard to be on the Vikings’ roster at all--“I’m not one to really keep too many seniors, so I thought it would be a numbers game,” he said.

But after barely playing varsity minutes as a junior, Biggins put in long hours in the gym during the offseason, and when push came to shove, the coach couldn’t cut him.

“In preseason, he had done all the right things, I thought, to solidify himself,” Allen said. “I didn’t know how much time he was going to get.”

After three games, it’s going to be tough for Allen to keep Biggins off the court.

The 5-foot-9 senior guard dropped 14 points to help Atlantic City to a big early-season win, knocking off Philadelphia powerhouse Martin Luther King 61-48 on Tuesday afternoon at Widener University.

After scoring 18 against Timber Creek on Dec. 20, Biggins showed he wasn’t just catching lightning in a bottle.

“(Coach) was kind of skeptical (in the offseason), but I knew that so I came out and played hard,” he said. “I knew I didn’t have a secure spot from the jump so I just played hard.”

Biggins’ most important stretch against King came in the final three minutes of the third quarter.

After making four foul shots on three 1-and-1 situations to keep his team up five points, a contested 3-pointer from the left corner at the buzzer gave his team a 45-39 advantage heading into the final stanza of play; in total, he scored nine points during the period.

“I wasn’t worried about nothing but my shot,” he said about his triple, which came with a hand flying in his face. “I don’t even think about the defense.”

The Vikings (2-1) hadn’t had the start to the season they wanted, losing to Timber Creek by four in a game that was followed by a nine-day layoff.

But knocking off a program that went to the 2015 PIAA Class AAAA final and won a Public League title the year before should help get things moving in the right direction.

“It’s a huge win, because Martin Luther King is a perennial final four team in the city of Philadelphia,” Allen said. “It’s been six days since we played and we’re not really accustomed to losing a lot. It gives confidence to us going into our regular season.”

Both Allen and senior guard Lamar Thomas agreed that the team hadn’t been playing “Atlantic City basketball” over the first two-and-a-half games of the year, before turning up the defensive pressure against King.

Thomas took over in the fourth quarter, opening with two tough left-handed layups to help his team opening up a double-digit advantage for the first time. That lead would grow as large as 18 in the final minute of play before King scored the final five points of the contest with the game out of reach.

“Today proved we are who we say we are,” Thomas said. “We played a good game, finally, I just feel happy that we finally got one off the good way.”

With senior wing Leon Daniels a day away from finding out if a medical condition will cost him his final season of high school basketball, Allen and the Vikings are leaning heavily on Thomas, who had a team-high 24 points in the win.

“I’ve been trying to stress that to him, that’s he’s the glue to the team because he has more experience than everybody else,” Allen said. “He played the ‘2’ for us as a freshman and sophomore, but at the ‘1’ position you’re the quarterback of the team, I’ve seen him grow and I’m very pleased to see what he’s doing now.”

Martin Luther King’s sixth loss in 10 games played leaves them only three shy of their total from last year, when they won 23 games and came a win over Roman Catholic away from a state title.

Senior guard Jabri McCall led the Cougars with 26 points.