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Bryan Caver to represent familiar colors as new Conwell-Egan hire

05/22/2017, 10:15am EDT
By Jeff Griffith

Jeff Griffith (@Jeff_Griffith21)
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Bryan Caver is pretty familiar with the color combination of blue and white.

In his playing days at McCorristin Catholic High School – now Trenton Catholic Academy – and Seton Hall University, Caver also grew familiar with success. In high school, he led Iron Mikes to back-to-back state titles, before going on to help the Pirates to one of their best records in recent memory -- a 28-7 mark in 1992-93 -- as well as two Big East titles.

And although the switch to blue and white was made at Trenton Catholic after his time in high school had ended, he’s started to notice the trend as well.

“I was just looking at that myself,” he said with a robust laugh. “The trend ever since I left high school has been blue and white which is amazing. It’s incredible.”

Caver now hopes to bring the team-first, winning mentality he gained during those experiences to his new players at the similarly uniformed Conwell-Egan, where he was hired as the boys’ basketball head coach on Thurs., May 11, following a month-long hiring process.

“It’s just an incredible opportunity even just to compete in the Philadelphia Catholic League,” he said. “As an athlete when I was younger, hearing about the Catholic League, it was always the I’m just ecstatic about that opportunity, just to be competing in that Catholic League.”

That process began about a month after former head coach Eric Kindler stepped down from the head coaching position. In Kindler’s lone season, the Eagles finished 10-15; two years prior, under Frank Sciolla, they had won the PIAA Class AA championship.

Caver, who considers himself a defensive-minded coach by all means of the term, spent his first few years out of college playing for a pair of teams in the Continental Basketball Association, as well as the overseas Sydney Kings, before becoming an assistant coach at Emily Fisher Charter School in 2006.

In 2008, Caver took an assistant position at Mercer County Community College, where he remained for three years until taking another assistant job at Trenton High.

Now, at Egan, he’ll have his first chance to play the role of head coach, and will do so first and foremost by implementing his defense-first mentality.

“I’m absolutely a defensive-minded coach, that’s exactly what I am,” Caver said. “I know that offense, regardless of talent and ability, sometimes the shot’s not going, sometimes the ball’s just not going in. The one thing I know you can bring day in and day in, night in and night out is your defensive intensity. It doesn’t take talent, it just takes effort.”

While he hasn’t been able to spend much time with his new team in the week since he’s been hired, Caver knows his fair share about the Eagles and the kind of players he’ll be able to utilize in his system.

The Eagles return their top three scorers from 2016-17 and will be led by rising senior guards Patrick Robinson (17.9 ppg) and Eric Esposito (12.4 ppg). Robinson, who can score in a variety ways as the team’s main facilitator, finished in the Catholic League’s top in terms of total points scored.

As for Esposito, he will likely be the team’s primary shooter at 6-foot-5, as he displayed a wealth of range during his junior season at Egan.

James Leible, a fellow rising senior at the forward position who controls the post in a 6-foot-7 muscular frame, was the team’s third-leading scorer at 9.9 ppg.

“I got to watch a few of them last year,” Caver said. “We get started this Monday, I just have to finish some paperwork and do some background stuff … it’s going to be about honing in on their strengths and definitely developing on their weaknesses through this offseason.”

According to Caver, while winning at Egan is certainly a goal of his, it’s his players’ futures that come first and foremost in his mind.

“I want to win, we want to win a Philadelphia Catholic championship, we want to win a state championship,” he said. “I want my guys to go Division I and to play at the next level, for all the kids to graduate and move on and play in college. Those are ultimate goals, but what we put in is what we get out of it.”

And if his trend of success continue just like his trend of uniform colors, there could be a bright future in store at Conwell-Egan.

“I’ve had some different colors but as far as myself, my alma mater is blue and white, Seton Hall, my alma mater, is blue and white, and now I’m coaching at Egan, which is blue and white,” he said. “It’s kind of funny that it worked out that way.”


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