City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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Every morning on his way to his first period class, Joe O’Malley passes a picture on the wall at Bishop Shanahan High School.

The photo is of the Eagles’ 1984-85 boys basketball team, which won the Class AA state title. Pictured with the 11 other members of that year’s squad is O’Malley’s father, Michael O’Malley, who makes sure his son doesn’t walk by without taking a look.

“He tells me to look at it every morning just to rub it in,” O’Malley said. “Sometimes I glance at it and hope we can do that with this team.”

The legacy of O’Malley’s father is visible in the gym at Bishop Shanahan High School as well. His name is printed on the school’s banner recognizing its 1,000-point scorers. He totaled 1,082 points during his career. Right next to it, his name appears on the banner commemorating that 1984-85 championship squad.

O’Malley, a junior guard, and his teammates are leaving some marks of their own on the Eagles’ basketball program. They’re inarguably the best Shanahan team since his dad’s playing days. A season ago, the Eagles advanced to their first Ches-Mont title and made it to states for the first time in 22 years, the last time being the 1984-85 squad. This year’s Bishop Shanahan squad is on the precipice of something even bigger.

They took home the first Ches-Mont title in school history with a win against Coatesville earlier this month. Behind a 17-point, five-assist performance by O’Malley on Saturday afternoon, the No. 2 seed Eagles knocked off No. 7 seed West Chester Rustin, 63-50, to advance to the District 1 Class 5A semifinals and qualified for states for the second year in a row.

“I’ve talked to him about what his team was like and the chemistry they had,” O’Malley said, “how they did how they did, so I can talk to my team and we can try to do the same thing that they did because what they did was special. We want to leave a mark here that’s just as special.”

What started out as a close contest on Saturday afternoon between Shanahan and Rustin, broke into a one-sided affair in the third quarter. O’Malley scored nine points in the period to help build a four-point halftime advantage into a 17-point lead before entering the fourth quarter up 47-34.

Despite the efforts of Jake Nelson, who led Rustin with 15 points, and Taj Asparagus, who had 12 of his 13 points in the second half, the Golden Kinghts were overmatched, never cutting the deficit to single digits.

“In the first half we were stagnant, and then when we got into the halftime huddle we started talking about moving the ball better and finding each other, getting each other better looks, and that’s what we did,” O’Malley said.

Michael O’Malley, who has followed the Shanahan basketball program since his playing days, said there are some similarities between this Shanahan team and the 1984-85 squad. His team played five to seven players each game, and any one of them led the team in scoring on any given night.

O’Malley, who was the first player off the bench as a sophomore last season, is joined by seniors Kevin Dodds, Tom Ford, David Angelo and Danny DiBeneditto in the starting lineup. Junior guard Phil Chenard comes off the bench. Dodds led Shanahan with 18 points against Rustin, but O’Malley had 17, Chenard had 11, Ford had nine and Angelo added eight points.

Both teams shared the ball too he said. On Saturday, the Eagles tallied 14 assists on their 24 made field goals. Everyone in the rotation had at least one.

“It’s really neat and they’re really good kids,” Michael O’Malley said. “There’s no ego on that team. They don’t care who scores, who does whatever, their main thing is winning.”

O’Malley said he started going to games frequently with his father around sixth grade. He said when he showed up to the gym for big matchups like Coatesville and Downingtown West it sparked his interest in the program.

Bishop Shanahan head coach Ken Doyle described O’Malley’s father as basketball royalty at Shanahan. By the time O’Malley got to seventh and eighth grade he was around the program. As a very good student, O’Malley had other options for high school, but he decided to come to Shanahan and try to replicate his father’s success.

“I don’t know what it was,” Doyle said with a laugh. “He was either following in his father’s footsteps or he liked what I was selling and he decided to come here.”

Doyle describes O’Malley as the energy guy or spark for this team. That includes getting in his teammates faces if the effort and energy aren’t there.

That trait has been there since his first year at Shanahan. As freshman O’Malley called out then-senior Doug Costin, a 6-foot-2, 285-pound defensive lineman who know plays at Miami (Ohio) .

“That’s when I knew I was alright, when he wasn’t taking it from a senior,” Doyle said.

O’Malley has come a long way since he was a scrappy freshman. He was the first guy off the bench and finished the games on the floor for last year’s squad.

This season games like Saturday’s performance are becoming more and more frequent.

“You know what’s really grown for him is his confidence,” Michael O’Malley said. “He finally believes that he can do it. He’s always had the intelligence. He reads the floor really well. He’s got the confidence now in himself.”

Three years after coming to the school, O’Malley is trying to makes sure his father’s name and picture aren’t the only one on the walls at Bishop Shanahan. Maybe by this time next year, he’ll be walking by one of himself and his teammates in the hallways as heads to class.

After this point last season, Shanahan didn’t win another game, losing to Upper Merion in the district semifinal and falling to Martin Luther King in the first round of states. The Eagles will play either No. 3 seed Chester or No. 6 seed Upper Merion on Wednesday at the Liacouras Center for a chance to keep making history and for O’Malley to earn bragging rights from his father.

“I told him he still hasn’t done anything yet,” Michael O’Malley said. “I said you gotta win the districts and then we’ll start talking.”