City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When North Penn senior David Giuliani was on a visit to Merrimack College, he noticed something specific about the school’s basketball team.

“They have three undersized bigs -- 6-[foot]-4, 6-5, who can run the floor, shoot the ball, get the ball in the post, lay it up, can do a little bit of everything,” he said.

Those were all familiar qualities to Giuliani, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound combo forward with a terrific inside-out game. So he’ll be heading to the North Andover, Mass. institution next fall on scholarship, committing to head coach Joe Gallo and the rest of the Warriors program on Saturday.

All of Giuliani’s skills were on display Tuesday night, as Giuliani dropped 17 points to help power North Penn to a 63-53 lead over Central Bucks West in front of a friendly home crowd.

The win leaves the Knights (11-4, 6-1) alone in first place in the Suburban One League’s Continental division, breaking the tie that had existed with the visiting Bucks (9-6, 5-2).

It’s the second time this season North Penn has beaten Central Bucks West, the defending Suburban One League champions; the Knights won by 13 at the Bucks’ home gym in December.

“We wanted to beat them really badly,” Giuliani said. “We were coming into the game off a not-so-great practice, but when we got out on the court tonight, definitely in the second half especially, it showed that we really wanted this win and we worked hard to get there.”

Central Bucks West was led by a 24-point outing from junior wing Collin MacAdams, who had a dozen of those in the fourth quarter.

Giuliani has been a big reason that North Penn has already matched its win total from a year ago as it goes for its first SOL Continental title since going 11-3 and splitting the title with Pennridge in 2010-11.

“Last year, I’d say we didn’t really have a big man presence, we were more guard-oriented. And this year, to have him back at North Penn, I think is a big help,” fellow senior Reece Udinski said. “You can see the defenses collapse on him down low and it helps our guards out on the arc.”

Though he was at the massive Lansdale school as a freshman, Giuliani spent the last two years at tiny Phil-Mont Christian, where he helped the Falcons to a Bicentennial Athletic League championship and appearance in the PIAA Class A semifinals this past season.

Now, he’s brought that winning experience back with him.

“The big one is the theme for last year for Phil-Mont was ‘press on,’ we’ve just got to take it one game at a time,” he said. “I think here, with all of our guys and everything, we really understand it’s a one-game-at-a-time type of sport. We’re doing really well, and hopefully we can keep it up.”

Giuliani isn’t the only bringing a winning attitude back from a different team. The North Penn football team won the District 1 6A title and made it to the state semifinals this fall, and several stars from the gridiron are also standouts on the hardwood.

Udsinki, the team’s starting quarterback and a VMI commit for his ability to sling it a, had 14 points in the win over CB West; Ricky Johns, a 6-4 athlete headed to West Virginia, added seven points and eight boards.

“Me and Ricky, we came back from football season...and of course coming into the season we wanted to win the league,” Udinski said. “That’s still our goal and we’re just going to keep pushing towards that goal.”

North Penn was coming off its only loss of the season, to Central Bucks East, and after 16 minutes against West it looked like the losing streak might hit two.

Central Bucks West held a 22-19 lead at the break, largely controlling the tempo thanks to MacAdams and fellow junior Jake Reichwein, who had nine and seven points at halftime.

But the Knights turned up the defensive intensity to begin the third quarter, and it wasn’t close for long. A Giuliani 3-pointer and driving layup by Udinski kick started an 8-0 run to give North Penn its first lead of the game; the stretch reached 15-2, and a 20-5 third quarter led North Penn up a dozen going into the fourth.

“We really came out of our halftime talk being down at halftime with a lot of intensity because we knew we beat this team before, we knew we could beat them again,” Giuliani said. “And our defense really showed, got a lot of stops and a lot of transition points and played really well.”

Senior Lance Ford helped seal the win with all of his 10 points coming in a fourth quarter that saw North Penn hold a double-digit advantage the whole way through.

It was no coincidence that the run occurred as Giuliani got going. An active post-up player who can also handle the ball on the perimeter, Giuliani got his buckets in almost every way possible: spotting up for 3, getting put-backs, on dump-ins and pick-and-pop situations.

On a team that starts four seniors and relies heavily on experienced upperclassmen, he makes them a dangerous threat not just in the SOL but in District 1 6A as well.

“He’s a competitor, and he brings an attitude from Phil-Mont Christian where they won a lot of games, he brings an attitude of winning and he brings out the best in the kids around him,” Conrad said. “So yeah, we’re very fortunate to have him back.”

North Penn will go for its sixth win in seven games when it takes on William Tennent (3-11, 0-7) on Friday at 7 PM; C.B. West gets district rival Central Bucks South on Thursday to try to snap a two-game losing streak.