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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Over his first eight years at Bishop Shanahan, Ken Doyle has raised the profile of the boys basketball program.

His ninth year will see the Eagles taking another step up, but Doyle is confident he’s got a group that’s ready to handle the competition.

The restructuring of the PIAA has brought Shanahan from AAA up to the new 5A classification -- still one level away from the biggest schools, but clearly in a whole new ballpark when it comes to playoff competition.

Last year, as the fourth seed in the District 1 AAA playoffs, Shanahan (15-9, 7-5 Ches-Mont) had to go up against Pope John Paul II and then Lower Moreland. This year, if they make the district tournament, they’ll be in the same bracket as Chester and Upper Merion, plus Phoenixville, Chichester, Wissahickon, Academy Park and more former AAAA schools with district-quality teams.

The biggest “name” of those is undoubtedly Larry Yarbray’s Clippers, the eight-time state championship winning program who most recently took home the 2011 & 2012 AAAA titles.

“It’s like Coatesville for us but even a higher level,” Doyle said of the reigning Ches-Mont champions and 2001 state title winners. “We have that mentality with Coatesville in our league because they’re in our division, and just dealing with them, and Chester’s a step above that. We’re used to it, but it is an interesting dynamic to throw in there.”

“I’d say we’re looking forward to the challenge,” junior point guard David Angelo said. “It’s definitely the next level from where we were at before.”

Playing those teams, of course, would mean that Shanahan qualifies for the 16-team tournament, out of the 26 teams in District 1 5A -- an achievable feat, with a group that doesn’t have much in terms of returning experience but a lot in terms of team chemistry.

Angelo and fellow junior Thomas Ford, two swing varsity/junior varsity players, have been teammates since kindergarten. In sixth grade, they were joined by classmate Kevin Dodds; now, they’ll form the core of the Shanahan basketball team.

Angelo will take over the reigns at point guard, and it’s a job he’s been waiting for his whole life. As a child, his father showed him videos of “Pistol Pete” Maravich, and the 5-foot-9, 140-pound guard certainly has a little flash in his game.

“He was a flashy point guard, if you see his highlights from the NBA, he was always doing the moves,” Angelo said. “He was just a gamer.”

Dodds, a 6-6 forward, is the only returning starter on the team, as the Eagles graduated four seniors: Jordan Ambrose, Drew Dolan, T.J. Booth and Doug Costin. Angelo and Ford will slide onto two of those spots, that much is certain.

The Eagles do have one other player with starting experience, as well; senior guard Danny Brown, who transferred into the school last year, was a starter as both a freshman and a sophomore at Delco Christian, where he established himself as one of the top 3-point shooters in the Bicentennial Athletic League.

Though he came to Shanahan with more than 600 varsity points under his belt, it took some time for Brown, a 6-3 guard, to adjust to a group of players who knew each other so well. This offseason, he’s look much more settled into Shanahan’s offense, leading the team in scoring numerous times in spring/fall leagues and other events.

“At first, it wasn’t really difficult, but it was definitely different,” he said. “I could feel how (my teammates) were more bonded together since they’d been playing for a few years together on freshman team, JV and slowly coming up the line. They were comforting, not only with basketball but outside of basketball as well. We got close kind of quick and things started to come together pretty quickly.”

The fifth could be senior John Kozinski, a 6-3 forward with shooting range; senior Brendan Dearing, a 5-9 senior guard who can help Angelo with the ball-handling duties, or 5-10 sophomore Joe O’Malley, whose father was on the Shanahan squad that won the Class AA state championship in 1986.

None of the three were varsity contributors last season, but will all see significant roles this year around.

“We went from having a couple of guys that are swing players that are going to be real significant this year because of the spring and summers and falls that they had,” Doyle said. “We went around and played a lot of people, and the kids did a lot of growing up this summer, a lot more than we were -- not expecting, but we could expect from a group of kids who were swing kids not playing a ton.”

With Kozinski, Dodds and even the 6-4 Ford, Doyle has been running an offense this summer that’s got a healthy dose of the pick-and-roll, especially featuring Angelo and Dodds.

It’s a style that works well for the Eagles, with several active forwards who can set screens and get to the front of the rim, as well as knock down jumpers if the defense backs down. In the past, Doyle has had teams with size and teams with good guards, but this is the first group he had that’s really put those elements together.

“We have some core things that we do as a program, year after year, but in general I play to the team. So like we’re running offense and defense based on the groups that we have this year,” Doyle said. “Some of it is similar to what we’ve done in the past, but some of it, most of it is different because the core group is different.

“Do I prefer to play that kind of style and things? Yes, because it means we have more talented, skilled basketball players.”

Shanahan’s schedule will certainly prepare the Eagles for the new PIAA classification. They start off against Oxford in their tip-off tournament, which also features Chichester and Lampeter-Strasburg; before December is over, they’ll have traveled to Plymouth-Whitemarsh, Coatesville and Upper Merion, with only one home game -- against upstart Avon Grove -- before the new year and the bulk of Ches-Mont National competition.

Welcome to the next level.

“We scheduled some games because we were hoping to be a little stronger and be able to do some things,” Doyle said. “We have a tough non-league schedule, tough early schedule, only one home game before the first of the year, so we’re really hoping to get off to a fast start and a solid start.”

If they can prove themselves against that lot, anything’s possible.