City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Here’s a notebook from Saturday morning’s action at the St. Joe’s Commuter Team Camp:

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Second opportunity not wasted as Carr joins Girard

A year ago, the timing wasn’t right for Donnie Carr.

Though the former La Salle University and Roman Catholic standout, a Big 5 Hall of Famer, had an opportunity to take the head coaching job at Girard College High Scchool, he wasn’t ready.

Carr had only been hired as the Coordinator of Player Development at Hartford University the year prior, and felt he had more to learn from coaching at the Division I level. In addition -- and perhaps more importantly -- his son, Kisaan, was about to be a senior at Hall HS in West Hartford.

Turning down his first head coaching gig was a difficult decision but, as Carr said, “it was something that I had to pass [on].”

One year later, the same opportunity came around again, after Clyde Jones resigned citing philosophical differences between himself and the administration.

And this time, not only was Carr ready from a professional standpoint, but from a personal one: his daughter, Siana, will be starting high school in Philadelphia this fall.

“The timing this year,” he said, “was good.”

Carr was named the new head coach at Girard College on May 24, but his first summer will be unlike the vast majority of first-year coaches in the region. Instead of a rebuilding task on hand, Carr has a roster almost entirely back from last year’s 24-win squad, which captured the District 1 Class A championship and advanced all the way to the state title game before falling short, 73-56 to Kennedy Catholic.

As he watched his team thoroughly dismantle a Pennsbury squad that’s not without size, talent or athleticism, Carr said it was “exciting” to have a group that includes 6-foot-7 forward Mikeal Jones, 6-6 wing Brandon Smith, 6-4 shooting guard Daiquan Copeland and more. The same five that started at St. Joe’s were the same five who started in the state championship game at Hershey.

This is a group that’s not expecting to miss a beat from last year, while also adding a few new wrinkles to the tune as a still-young team gets older.

“I think that every situation has its unique challenges...and obviously we have a lot returning, but my job is just to come in and try to leave it better than I found it,” Carr said. “Coach Clyde Jones and his staff did an unbelievable job in helping these guys get to the state championship game, and I just wanted to build off of that success, and that’s going to be a challenge but it’s a challenge that I relish.”

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Quick Hits
-- Bergen Catholic has an impressive group of underclassmen, and that’s with two promising young forwards (2019s Myles Wilmoth and Zach Freemantle) currently sidelined by injury. In a win over the Haverford School, it was the youngest of the group, rising sophomore Matt Zona, who really stood out. The 2020 prospect stands 6-8 and is a muscular 225 pounds, has range out to the 3-point arc, is a quick and impressive passer out of the post and runs the floor well. Not much going on in terms of his recruitment just yet, but he’s a sure-fire Division I prospect with a chance to be quite a good one with continued work. A starter on a team that won 22 games and made it to the North Jersey Non-Public A sectional final before losing to Don Bosco Prep, the same team that then beat them in the Non-Public A state final -- by a single point each time.

-- Conestoga’s trying to make a statement with a strong offseason, and that continued this morning with a 52-46 win over a St. Joe’s Prep squad that was without 2018 PG Darius Kinnel but otherwise intact. A trio of junior guards led the way for the Pioneers: point guard Zach Lezanic hit two 3-pointers as part of 16 points, Scott Martin connected on 6-of-7 shot attempts for 15 points and Shane Scott had nine points. They had trouble with Prep big man Ed Croswell, who 18 points and 11 rebounds, but got scoring from seven different players to make up for it. Lezanic, a lanky 6-0 point guard, plays the game at a high speed and gets up and down the court in a hurry; with continued refinement, he’s got a Division I ceiling.

-- Every year, Tasis Dorado makes the trip up from Puerto Rico to compete in the St. Joe’s team camp and various other camps in the area for a three-week span; it’s a trip they’ve been making for about a decade, the last five of which have included a stop to Hawk Hill. And though they’re often quite out-gunned against the more battle-tested squads from this area, they gave Boyertown a run for their money before falling short in overtime. Special mention goes out to rising junior guard Jesus Vela, who hit several clutch shots down the stretch in regulation, including a smooth crossover/step-back 3-pointer, and rising senior guard Alejandro Montalvo, who hit a game-tying 3-pointer off a broken play with three seconds left in regulation to send it to overtime. But led as usual by Jerry Kapp, Boyertown prevailed in the extra session; fellow seniors Alex Salata III and Marcus Thomas also chipped in.