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NEBL Notebook: Thurs., June 27

06/28/2017, 12:30am EDT
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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The Northeast Basketball League’s quarterfinals took place on Tuesday night, the final four-game night at Mayfair Rec Center’s annual spring league. Here’s a notebook from our last night of coverage at the NEBL:

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Shane McCusker (above) estimates that C.B. West has played more than 50 games this offseason already. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Bucks making way through another torrid offseason

This past season, Central Bucks West’s boys’ basketball team played a grand total of 23 games. That’s about a solid month, certainly not more, at the Bucks’ offseason pace.

Since the start of the spring, estimates rising senior guard Shane McCusker, C.B. West has played double the amount of games it played in-season.

Just about every week night and most weekends in May and June, Central Bucks West basketball was playing.

“We play here, we played at Penncrest, we played at St. Joe’s, West Chester, Temple, the Christopher Dock and the William Tennent league that finished,” McCusker said. “Fifty, maybe 60 [games], I don’t know.”

“Maybe more, actually,” chimed in his classmate, Collin MacAdams.

This isn’t a group of high schoolers that’s feeling tired or worn out as the summer drags on; rather, they’re used to a pace that takes them all over the Delaware Valley to stay sharp on the court.

“It benefits us for sure,” McCusker said. “We’ve seen everyone, we’ve played everyone, we’ve seen all sorts of teams. We’re ready for anything that’s thrown at us.”

What’s perhaps most impressive about the Bucks’ busy schedule is that it’s not a rotating cast of characters that head coach Adam Sherman needs to put together. C.B. West’s varsity roster shows up night in and night in -- even rising senior forward Jake Reichwein, injured until September with a leg injury suffered in a football workout, who’s come to just about every game they’ve played.

Coming off a 15-8 season that ended with a loss to Hatboro-Horsham in the first round of the District 1 6A playoffs, the Bucks return three starters, including the 6-5 MacAdams and 6-2 McCusker, who led the way in a 72-57 win over Bensalem in the NEBL quarterfinals on Tuesday night.

Both McCusker and MacAdams graded their teams’ offseason a “B+,” with each mentioning the importance of getting several younger Bucks players worked in. In the win over Bensalem, rising sophomores Mika Muhari and Jack Neri combined for 21 points on 9-of-13 shooting; rising junior point guard Jack Mulhearn had 10 points and dished out five assists while his classmate Luke Benson had seven points.

“Get the younger guys ready, varsity experience, get their confidence levels up, that’s pretty much [it],” MacAdams going well. “It’s going well, Jack Mulhearn’s playing great, Jack Neri’s been playing great, and Luke Benson’s playing awesome, too. In practice I encourage them to get better and get their shots up.”

With MacAdams (22 points, 13 rebounds) leading the way, this looks like a Bucks offense that’s going to be more potent than the form it took a year ago, when the two seniors were still feeling their way around the Suburban One League. Though Sherman’s group won’t likely put up 72 too often in the regular season, the fact that everybody in the seven-man rotation scored at least five points bodes well for avoiding the kind of 32-point performance it put up in the district playoff loss.

“We basically played together for a season, so we have a season under our belt,” McCusker said. “So the experience is there, and now we’ve got guys coming in, and the offseason gives them experience that they didn’t have last season...we’ll be ready.”

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Quick Hits

-- Winning the other three quarterfinals were Neumann-Goretti (over Math, Civics & Sciences), Imhotep Charter (over Cherry Hill East) and Archbishop Wood (over Abington). That sets up a powerful pair of semifinals on Wednesday night: Neumann-Goretti vs. Archbishop Wood and Imhotep Charter vs. Central Bucks West. One game will be played at 7 PM, the other at 8 PM. The final will take place on Thursday at 7:30 PM. Our prediction: Imhotep Charter takes it over Archbishop Wood.

-- For the second week in a row, Abington and Archbishop Wood met at Mayfair Rec Center, and this one was a battle right until the end. Rising seniors Andrew Funk (24 points) and Tyree Pickron (17 points) led the way as the Vikings took it 60-57, a much closer affair than the 85-61 result last Thursday evening. Freshman guard Rahsool Diggins once again got the start for Wood, scoring 11 points and grabbing four rebounds as well. Highly-touted junior Eric Dixon led Abington with 20 points and 12 rebounds (seven offensive) and Luas Monroe added 15 points, seven rebounds and three assists for the Galloping Ghosts.

-- After narrowly missing out on the District 1 6A playoffs a year ago, Bensalem will be a tough out this season, with a pair of high-scoring, athletic guards in Tuakerser (“Taco”) Douglas and Ward Roberts, who combed for 40 points in the losing effort on Tuesday night. Bensalem is without its 6-3 forward Kris Shields, who is out another month or so with an injury, so Roberts and Douglas have to shoulder a heavy load for this summer, but they’re up to the challenge. Also hitting double figures for Bensalem was point guard Carlos Gonzalez, who missed his first four 3-pointers but then dropped four straight to finish with 12 points.


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