City of Basketball Love

CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
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Here’s a notebook from the second and final day of the Temple basketball high school team camp, which took place Saturday on N. Broad St.:

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Delaware state champs re-tooling for repeat run

Smyrna’s high school basketball team never thought too much about the fact that their program had never made it past the DIAA quarterfinals.

“Today’s youth doesn’t care about the past too much,” head coach Andrew Mears said. “I think sometimes coaches get so wrapped up in the school history and history in general and these kids are living in the moment.”

That mentality served them well, as the Eagles finished the season with a 23-2 record, ending with a victory over Caravel in the state championships this past March.

“For them, they knew where their goals were, and their goals were lofty to start the year,” Mears said.

Now, going into the coming season as reigning champions, the Eagles will have some restructuring to do after graduating a healthy class of seniors.

However the cupboard will not be empty as the core trio of Caleb Matthews, Azubuike Nwankwo and Jaymeir Garnett returns for the Eagles after combining for 52 of their team’s 61 points in the title win.

“We’re going to rely on the pieces that did a lot of the damage for us last year,” Mears said. “We have a core group coming back but there are a lot of new pieces and young pieces...I’m anxious to see how they gel and how they take on this big label.”

Nwankwo, a towering 7-foot-2 rising senior, brings size to the middle that few teams in the country -- let alone in the First State -- are able to match. Garnett, a husky 6-3 wing, dropped 28 points in the state championship.

Matthews a 6-2 guard who contributed 16 points in that championship game, is embracing his leadership position on the team, getting in on every play while making sure to open up possible shots for his teammates.

“We felt great [winning states], but it’s time to start letting it go really and realize that we lost eight players from that team,” Matthews said. “It’s going to be a tough rebuild but we’re learning and we’re working hard.”

With patience, Matthews and his other teammates are focusing on getting the team through a rebuilding period and making sure the younger players on his team are comfortable playing at a higher intensity.  

Nwankwo was a new addition to the team for his junior season and found himself towering over his teammates. His height forced the team to alter their game and create new chemistry.

“It’s a lot different, a lot of centers in Delaware are 6-4 so a 7-2 guy takes some getting used to,” Matthews said.

“(Nwankwo) is well-established as a big part of who we are,” added Mears.

Among the new additions is Greg Bloodsworth, a rising senior point guard transferring from St. Thomas More. They will also have to rely on several underclassmen.

Already this summer the team is pushing forward, taking advantage of the new opportunities their title will bring, like playing in the high level Temple team camp for the first time, but not letting the big win get to their heads.

They got the camp off to a good start Saturday morning, downing Philadelphia Catholic League squad Archbishop Ryan 67-66 behind a 26-point effort from Matthews, who downed a pair of game-winning foul shots with five seconds left.

“There’s a lot of impressive teams and a lot of competition so for us we’re just soaking in the experience,” he said. “[We’re] Grateful for the opportunity.”
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Cooper takes advantage of starting opportunity

For the last few years, Danny Cooper has made quite an impact on Plymouth-Whitemarsh head coach Jim Donofrio.

Mostly in practice.

Workout after workout, Cooper faced off against the Colonials’ starting backcourt of twins Ahmad Williams and Ahmin Williams, a pair of 6-1 guards with not-insignificant advantages on the 5-10 Cooper in size, strength, athleticism and experience. But after sitting the end of the varsity bench as a sophomore, he spent the majority of his junior year once again mostly playing spectator while the Williams twins helped lead P-W to 25 wins and a state quarterfinal appearance.

And yet, practice after practice, Cooper never let it bother him.

“What you hope for is you get kids like Coop because they just have a great perseverance,” Donofrio said, part of a three-minute monologue about Cooper. “You think ‘man, that kid’s got to be getting frustrated, I hope he has enough heart, I hope he has enough perseverance or wherewithal to hang in there’ because he’s good. He’s good.”

This weekend, Cooper got his chance.

When P-W’s starters took the floor Friday night against Team St8ment (Md.), it was Cooper out there with the Williams twins, and he more than held his own in a Colonials romp. With Cooper starting yet again, P-W didn’t have too much trouble against a talented Poly (Md.) squad in a 58-45 win on Saturday afternoon.

“It feels great,” Cooper said. “Coming up as a freshman and sophomore, watching guys like Xzavier Malone, Andre Mitchell, so now that I’m actually playing, it’s exciting, it’s an honor.”

Cooper didn’t look fazed in the slightest even going up against future Division I players like Poly’s Demetrius Mims and Team St8ment’s Jay Heath, among others, and was able to hold his own offensively as well. And considering the results, it’ll be tough to argue Donofrio shouldn’t give Cooper another shot. Tough to think Cooper won’t reward him, either.

“We’ll go with size and strength and athleticism and toughness, love all that stuff, but at some point...one of the old adages in coaching, the best ball-handler and the best-rebounder aren’t coming out of the game,” Donofrio added as part of that same answer. “Coop is pushing to make his argument in a big way.”

Like the Williams twins -- notorious gym rats about whom Donofrio has jokingly complained regarding their propensity to want to put shots up at odd hours -- Cooper is also a non-stop worker, heading to the P-W gym at 6pm three times a week even after school has already let out.

That sting of losing to Lonnie Walker and Reading in the PIAA 6A quarterfinals still hurts in a gym that’s hosted state championship winners of its own. This group wants to become the first to hang such a banner since C.J. Aiken and Jaylen Bond did so in 2010.

“Ever since we lost to Reading in the state quarterfinals, we’re in the gym every day working together,” Cooper said. “We’ve got to move the ball a lot more, (work on) overall skills, just get better. If we get better, I think we’ve got a really good shot.”

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Quick Hits

-- This summer will be an intense one for Josh Alexander (2018/Iona Prep, N.Y.), as he prepares for his senior season with his high school team and plays with Team Rio on the Under Armour Association circuit. With Rio, he’s part of the same team that boasts some of the country’s top prospects in Ranny School 2019s Bryan Antoine and Scottie Lewis, who are both being pursued by the blue-bloods of college basketball. Also in the Rio program are top 2020 prospects like Jabri Abdur-Rahim and Noah Farrakhan, among many other Division I recruits.

“Its definitely a great experience playing with them, they’re high-level kids,” Alexander said. “They work all the time, they’re always in the gym working to get better, so it’s great to see the work ethic and trying to be like them.”

Alexander, a 6-8, 225-pound forward, is using this time before his senior year to work on his 3-point shooting and to add to his growing list of college offers.This coming week he is heading on official tours of six out of the 15 schools he has offers from, making stops at Hampton, Howard, American, Towson, Lehigh and Lafayette. He’s hoping to gain a sense of the campus life and to see “the different types of environments, see what will best fit me.” While most of his offers currently lie in the low-to-mid range, Alexander said he’s also hearing from “Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, St. John’s, DePaul [and] Georgetown.”

-- For a defender to take his eye off Jay Heath Jr. (2019/Woodrow Wilson, Md.) for even a second can be a dangerous mistake. The 6-foot-tall guard, who spent his first two high school years at Bishop O’Connell (Md.), has a lightning-quick first step to blow by opponents and get to the rim, but he also showed over the course of a strong weekend that he can pull up and knock down shots from the perimeter with ease. “I can play point and shooting guard, I prefer to play shooting guard, though,” he said.

At the moment, Heath has two offers, from James Madison and Louisiana Tech, but he’s starting to hear from some high-major programs like Oklahoma State and Marquette, among others. As part of a Team St8ment AAU squad loaded with impressive 2019 and 2020 prospects, expect to see the offer list grow if Heath plays at this level during Adidas Gauntlet events in Atlanta and Las Vegas as well as the Elevate Hoops Showdown in Philadelphia during July.

-- In an early-morning win for Team Speed over Episcopal Academy, the NJ-based AAU program benefitted from a 25-point, four-assist outing from Owen McGlashan, who’s really starting to developing into a solid D-I target. A 6-6 wing, the rising junior has a lanky, athletic frame and a solid motor; if he starts to really play as hard as he could, the sky’s the limit. He can raise up and knock down shots from the perimeter, can rip past his man off the bounce and finish above the rim and push the ball on the break, though he’s no better than a secondary (or tertiary) ball-handler at this point. How he develops in the next few months will say a lot about whether he’s a low-to-mid-major or mid-to-high when he hits the AAU circuit next year.

--Mount Pleasant (Del.) wing K-Vonn Cramer may have earned the title of Camp Ironman. He played in five total games on Saturday, competing for both his high school team and his AAU team, Team Final. The rising junior, a 6-6 wing with a tremendous wingspan, recently picked up his first Division I offer, from Hartford, which came as a little bit of a surprise to him.

“At first, I didn't really know until people started texting me, saying congratulations and stuff,” he said. “So when I (found out) I was really excited.”

In addition to his first offer, Cramer has been receiving interest from Ohio State and Richmond, as well as from the Owls. He flashed his off-the-charts athleticism and ability to slash, even in his last game of the day. He is hoping to show his improved shot and handle and could see his offer list grow if he plays well during the July Live Periods.

--Virginia Academy center Qudus Wahab made the trip up to North Broad to play for the TU All-Stars, a team comprised of Temple recruiting targets. A potential top-50 prospect in the 2019 class, Wahab has picked up a number of high-major offers from the likes of St. John’s, Seton Hall, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Rutgers, and Pittsburgh, among others. He stopped at Temple as part of a Northeast trip which also included a visit to St. John’s, during which the Red Storm offered him a scholarship. One of the top low-post bigs in the country, Wahab is working to expand his offensive game, and he showed off an improved jumper in knocking down a couple deep twos in a win over Abington. Look for him to continue to rack up high-major interest playing with Team Loaded NC’s 17U team this July.