City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2016-17 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed so far can be found here.)

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If Francis Bowe needs a reminder of how far his Valley Forge Military Academy program has come, he only needs to look at the quality of the coaches who come through the gym.

When he first took over the basketball program at the Wayne (Pa.) boarding school three years ago, scarcely a college coach at any level came to see his Trojans.

Last month, Bowe welcomed in Kevin Ollie, the head coach at the University of Connecticut.

Temple’s Fran Dunphy, Saint Joseph’s Phil Martelli and Drexel’s Zach Spiker have all come by, as have assistants from programs from Lehigh to Virginia at the Division I level and all sorts of Division II and Division III schools.

“It just blows my mind,” Bowe said.

Indeed, there’s something developing at Valley Forge, which didn’t have a league to call home during Bowe’s first season in 2013-14 but now has a bona-fide Division I center in junior Abraham Deng -- the target of Ollie et. al’s attention -- and several other players who will certainly continue their careers in college at a level still to-be-determined.

Last year, VFMA went 11-11, including a 5-9 mark in the Bicentennial Athletic League. That represented a step up from a 6-16 (2-12) record the year before, and earned the Trojans a trip to the District 1 AA playoffs, a four-team affair that only saw its champion advance into the PIAA state tournament bracket.

In that semifinal matchup, Valley Forge matched up against BAL foe Church Farm, which had taken two regular-season matchups by three points apiece. And in what was a physical battle between two towering frontcourts, the Griffins’ experience again paid off in a 36-29 win and eventual district championship.

It was a game that served as a wake-up call for the entire Trojans squad -- but most especially Deng, who’s had an offseason that saw him go from a prospect who was just entering the Division I periphery to one with offers from Temple, Old Dominion, Saint Joseph’s and more.

Deng, a native of South Sudan who came to Valley Forge for the first time as a sophomore, is a lanky, athletic 6-foot-10 forward with a ton of upside. Though his offensive game is still very much in development, he’s a defensive force with his length and timing, and finishes anything his guards throw up for him near the rim.

“He hit the weight room hard this past spring and summer, and you can just tell...he doesn’t get balls slapped away from him, he finishes hard at the basket,” Bowe said. “It was that Church Farm game, it was that district playoff game; he came like a man on a mission and the sky’s the limit for him, it really is.”

While Deng’s development will certainly be a large factor in how much of a step Valley Forge takes this year, he’s not the player that Bowe is relying on to step up and lead the way.

Senior point guard Myles Bunyon, who averaged 15 points and three assists per game in his first year at the school last season, will have to shoulder the load as the team’s primary ball-handler as well as the only currently healthy senior on the roster.

He’s another player who’s bringing college coaches to VFMA’s gym; after an impressive summer, he’s been garnering attention from Division II schools like Bloomsburg, Kutztown and West Chester.

But the soft-spoken, 5-foot-9 guard needs to become a leader, something that’s helped along by the school’s background.

“We have workouts every day, skill development,” Bunyon said, “and then because it’s a military school, we’ll eat together, we’ll always be together, so it’s like team bonding.”

“He’s always led by example, but I need him to be more vocal, especially when he plays at the next level,” Bowe added. “And he’s learning that role; the nice thing is, he knows he doesn’t have to have the team on his back. He knows that he has players that are all unselfish and make the right play and play as a team, and he’s been doing a great job of it.”

Also returning from last year’s squad is 6-8 junior Will Colleran, a combo forward with a penchant for spotting up from the 3-point arc, but Bowe will need to rely on several newcomers on his nine-man roster.

Combo guard Arion Lewis, a 6-4 junior and transfer from Roman Catholic, will play his first varsity minutes this fall. So will 6-9 junior Marius Ntwari, a Rwanda native, and 6-4 sophomore wing Rye Ahronson, who’s from England by way of Bermuda. Devin Hill, a 6-3 transfer from Delco Christian, suffered a knee injury in the offseason; the Trojans are hoping to have the combo guard back at some point during the season.

“There’s a lot of kids that are coming in that they like what they saw last year and they want to be a part of this program, I’m not going to say no,” Bowe said. “These kids, they do everything, they wake up at six in the morning, they do formation, they go to class, they do their homework and that’s the type of program we’re running, that’s the type of attitude we have, and it’s nice, it’s really nice.”

It’s certainly enough talent to win a District championship this time around, though it’ll be against a different opponent; VFMA is now in the 3A classification, where they’ll be in a bracket that includes Devon Prep, New Hope-Solebury and several District 11 schools for their district tournament.

But now that his team has that playoff experience, Bunyon feels they’re ready to face that challenge this time around, a year older and -- more importantly -- wiser.

“We were just learning how to face adversity,” he said. “They threw a bunch of different looks at us, and we weren’t really that prepared. Now we can come together, restart and try to make that state run.”