City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

The Roman Catholic basketball lineup is filled with future Division I talent.

Senior guard Allen Betrand is committed to Towson. Junior wing Seth Lundy already has offers from the likes of Oregon, UConn and Temple, among others; his classmate, guard Hakim Hart, has a couple D-I scholarship offers under his belt as well. And sophomore point guard Lynn Greer III? Well, he’s only been invited to USA Basketball camps and has offers from Penn State and his father’s alma mater, Temple.

Then there’s John Kelly. A Roxborough native, Kelly played basketball in grade school, but came to Roman Catholic with zero thoughts about eventually donning a Cahillites uniform. He knew the history and talent level of the Roman program, and knew that he wasn’t exactly bound to play at the highest levels in college.

“I read into it before I came,” he said, “and I was like, ‘I definitely can’t play here.”

He was wrong.

Kelly worked his way up from the freshman team to the junior varsity squad, where he played as a sophomore and started as a junior, sitting on the varsity bench. Over the summer, the 6-foot-4, 240-pound forward began to find himself in the starting lineup of various events; when the regular season began, that role didn’t change.

And on Monday afternoon, there was Kelly, at the foul line with Roman clinging to a one-point lead and 1.2 seconds left on the clock in a crucial Catholic League tilt against La Salle College High School, knocking down two big free-throws to ensure his team walked away with a 65-62 win.

“It feels great honestly, it took a lot of hard work,” Kelly said. “Coming from last year, not playing much, and now starting, it feels great.

“I still don’t believe it sometimes,” he added.

The win keeps Roman (11-5, 6-2) tied with Archbishop Carroll for third place in the league, behind one-loss Bonner and Neumann-Goretti; the Cahillites get Father Judge on Wednesday and then travel to Conwell-Egan on Sunday. La Salle (12-6, 5-4) drops into a tie for seventh with Archbishop Ryan; the Explorers travel to rival St. Joe’s Prep (6-3) on Friday for a 3:30 PM tip.

Kelly isn’t needed to do any heavy lifting in the scoring column for Roman, not with the wealth of talent around him at all times; the seven points he scored against La Salle were his most yet in a PCL game. But he certainly can’t be the weak link, either; if the Cahillites want to reclaim the Catholic League crown this year, they’ll need Kelly to step up when called upon, like he did against La Salle; he finished with those seven points and two rebounds in Roman’s win, hitting all four foul shots he took in the fourth quarter, including a 1-and-1 earlier in the period.

“I call him the ‘Pride of Roxborough,’” head coach Matt Griffin said. “[He’s] a great all-around kid, has a great energy and a positive attitude every single day. When you work hard and have a positive attitude, anything’s possible. He’s an example of a kid who just worked and worked and worked and found himself in a starting position at Roman Catholic, and deservedly so.”

While Roman has plenty of scoring ability -- Lundy went for 19 (and eight rebounds), Hart 16, Greer 10 and Betrand 8 against La Salle -- the one thing the Cahillites lack is size. At 6-5, Lundy is the tallest starter, though he’s really a ‘3’ who’s turning into a high level ‘2’ more and more every time he takes the court.

So Kelly saw a path for himself into the rotation as the team’s only true forward, with the girth necessary to push around even some of the Division I-bound big men in the league.

“He’s going to guard the biggest guy, the strongest guy and their best offensive rebounder every single night,” Griffin said. “Which takes a tremendous load off of Seth and Allen to rebound the ball, in addition to that it frees up some rebounds for those guys.”

Roman and La Satte battled for all 32 minutes, yet another tight contest in a Catholic League that has no fewer than seven teams that have a real chance at winning the league title.

The Cahillites looked like they made the decisive move with under four minutes to play, getting three consecutive steals in a 25-second span; first came a swipe-and-layup by Hart, one that ended in a Lundy dunk and then a Greer steal which resulted in Hart cleaning up a missed layup to put Roman up 60-51 with 3:29 left.

But La Salle senior Sean Simon hit two foul shots and then a 3-pointer to bring the Explorers within three with 1:45 left. Several turnovers later, La Salle took a 62-61 lead when Simon hit two more foul shots to cap off a 22-point, seven-assist outing.

But after Roman missed two foul shots, Hart came up with a big-time strip steal and layup to give the home team the lead. La Salle missed a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, and the Explorers coaches’ calls for a foul went unheeded as Kelly knocked down his game-winning foul shots.

“It wasn’t pretty at all, but we’ll win ugly in this league,” Griffin said. “I think we’ve just got to continue to grow and get better. Ultimately we want to be playing our best basketball in February, which is right around the corner.”

A two-sport athlete for Roman, Kelly is also the starting first baseman on the Cahillites’ baseball team.

But like the rest of the Roman starting lineup, he won’t be finished playing basketball after this season. He’s already committed to play hoops at D-III Juniata (Pa.), a member of the Landmark Conference.

Not too bad, considering he wasn’t even sure he’d ever be able to play basketball in high school.

“I get calls from people...that are like ‘I’m so proud of you,’” he said, “‘and I’m like ‘thanks, I’m proud of myself.”