City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It wasn’t difficult for Jhamir “Jig” Brickus to keep track of how many points away his teammate, classmate, and brother DaPree Bryant was from scoring his 1,000th. The scoreboard at West Chester East made that all too clear, displaying the point total for each player on the court.

So as the Coatesville senior inched closer throughout Thursday night’s game, Brickus did whatever he could to get Bryant the ball, including flipping it ahead for a fast-break layup at every opportunity. 

“We had realized that he needed only a couple points, we were feeding him the ball as much [as we could],” Brickus said. “Last year, when I needed a couple points to get mine and break the [Coatesville single-game] scoring record, he was feeding me the ball, so it’s only right to feed my brother back and do the same thing for him.”

The milestone finally came early in the fourth quarter, on the third such layup of the stanza, Bryant getting upended but still managing to flip the ball through the hoop. There was a roar from the crowd, a stoppage of play, a brief team-only on-court celebration, and play resumed.

Afterwards, Bryant played it cool: “I wasn’t really worried about 1,000,” the Red Raiders’ senior said. “I just wanted to get my team the win.”

That part came easily enough; Bryant (22 points) and Brickus (18) both shined in a 64-40 win, which came between two programs that had yet to take a loss in the early goings of the season. But that’s nothing new for Coatesville (4-0, 3-0 Ches-Mont National), which has relied on the production of the two senior guards for all four years they’ve been part of a program with a long and proud hoops history.

The Red Raiders made it to the PIAA 6A semifinals a year ago, losing to eventual champs Kennedy Catholic after a 29-win season, one of the team’s strongest since its only state championship run in 2001. But citing his health, head coach Fred Thompson stepped down in his only season since replacing Chuck Moore, and so now former Church Farm boss Marc Turner is Coatesville’s third head coach in as many seasons. 

And he knows he’s got a group that’s ready to win, and do it often. Along with Bryant and Brickus in the starting lineup are three more seniors: guard Donovan Brickus (Jhamir’s cousin) and forwards John Proctor and Anthony Stukes. Proctor had 10 points and five rebounds against East (5-1, 2-1), playing key defense on the Vikings’ Delaware-bound star wing forward Andrew Carr (18 points, 11 rebounds).

A former Villanova assistant, Turner had spent the last 22 years as the head coach at Church Farm, a small private school in Chester County, after a brief stint at Kennedy-Kenrick. Now he’s coaching one of the biggest and proudest programs in the state, with the 13,000-person city at his back.

“We gave away Thanksgiving dinners over the Thanksgiving holiday to 1,000 families, and I would have random senior citizens grab me, or put their window down, little grandmas yelling ‘Coach, you better win a state championship,’ so yeah, that’s a little different,” he said. “But it’s all good, I’m going to continue to do what we do, and we’re trying to just get better every day.”

Turner knows he’s got a group that’s got the ability to not only win the District 1 6A championship but go deep into the state tournament yet again. He also knows part of that involves trusting his seniors, which is why he had no qualms about sharing with Bryant just how close he was to that 1,000-point mark.

“I told them I’m a truth-teller, I’m always going to tell you the truth, good bad or indifferent, it’s coming,” Turner said. “I think they’re old enough, we’ve got a senior-laden group, let’s try to take advantage of the leadership that we have.

“Let’s not sugarcoat it –– everybody expects us to go out and be good, let’s be good.”

At first glance, there wasn’t too much different about Coatesville from the last few years: two terrific lead guards, a full-court pressure defense that forces turnover after turnover, and a supporting cast that can knock down shots and make plays in the open court.

But Bryant, who’ll be playing for Villanova football next year, swears that Turner’s come in and tweaked some things that make them even more dangerous on that end of the court.

“It’s definitely a technique thing...help defense and helping off the scorers, keeping their scorers off the glass and stuff like that,” he said. 

The Red Raiders have a few big tests coming up, including Play-by-Play Classic games against Reading (Dec. 21 @ Unionville), Malvern Prep (Dec. 28 @ Widener), and Cheltenham (Dec. 30 @ Widener), before they get back to league play with a home game against Downingtown East on Jan. 2.

During one of those contests, one Red Raider will hit another milestone: Brickus, who scored his 1,000th point late in his sophomore season, is now less than 40 from 2,000. You can guess who’s going to make sure he gets there as quickly as possible.

“We talked about it every day at practice,” Bryant said. “He’s ready to hit 2,000, so I’ll help him get to it.”

Shooting
C’Ville: 27-49 FG, 4-12 3PT, 6-14 FT

WCEast: 13-38 FG, 3-18 3PT, 11-20 FT

Scoring
C’Ville: Bryant 22, Jh. Brickus 18, Proctor 10, D. Brickus 5, Stewart 5, Gregg 2, Bunch 2

WCEast: Carr 18, Kushner 5, Richardson 5, Hefferan 3, Duell 3, Dedda 2, McCray 2, Cummings 2

Score by Quarter
C’Ville:      9 | 16 | 15  | 24 | 64

WCEast:   5 | 8 |  13 | 14 | 40

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