City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33)
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When Donald Imo chose to leave Harry S. Truman High School following his sophomore year, he wanted to find a school that catered to his desire to excel in the classroom and on the court. He wanted to push himself on both fronts and find a way to challenge himself unlike he had up to that point in his life.

His basketball game was still in the development stage and he liked what was happening at a Philadelphia Catholic League program in Bucks County.

“Before I came to Conwell-Egan, I was all over the place,” Imo said. “I didn’t know how to find spots out on the perimeter. I worked on slowing my pace down on both ends and being more aggressive on defense. I wanted to be a threat when players came into the paint with my length and height.”

Head coach Adam Bowen was hired in 2018 and wanted to have the Eagles’ program ascend to the height it had been in only three years prior, which was a PIAA Class 2A champion. Bowen was candid with Imo and his family about the direction of the program and stressed how it would be a process to reformulate the team.

“We were very honest when he came that this was going to be the hardest thing he has ever done to come here,” Bowen said. “We were honest about the state of the program, where we wanted to go and what we were looking for in players to turn this thing around. He’s a great example to the local community and to the development and success a player can have at our program. “

After showing flashes of what he could become as a junior, such as a 20-point performance against Lower Moreland, Imo was starting to feel basketball could be an option at the next level. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting everything down, including AAU, he was able to play one game for Central Bucks Elite, the program run by former Del-Val University standout Jeremy Beckett. Beckett posted the footage and Chestnut Hill College happened to catch a glimpse.

“I played one game and [CHC assistant coach Tommy Magnum] saw the film,” Imo said. “He spoke to my dad and he told me that they were interested in me. That was one of the first schools that had interest in me, after my 11th grade year.”

CB Elite featured Central Bucks East’s Joe Jackman and New Hope-Solebury’s Alex Walinski, both future West Chester University commits, but Imo’s game stood out. Magnum passed along Imo’s name to new Griffin head coach J.J. Butler and the relationship began to grow from there. Imo visited the Chestnut Hill College campus in the fall and they formally offered him.

Butler professed much of what Bowen had prior to Imo’s decision to attend Conwell-Egan.

“In choosing Chestnut Hill, it was the same philosophy he used when coming to Conwell-Egan because it’s a very high academic and athletic school,” Bowen said. “They have a new coach [in Butler] that is very young, enthusiastic and energetic and he stressed a lot of the things that we did with Donald such as trying to turn the program around, work hard and bring in high character kids.”

Imo had college interest coming from a number of different places. There were D-II schools like Chestnut Hill who poked around, as well as a number of local D-IIIs who were interested, including Penn State-Harrisburg, Immaculata and Arcadia. There was even a brief sniff of interest from the Air Force, which talked Imo about potentially attending its prep school.

Butler and Chestnut Hill were the first to get in on the ground floor with Imo, and he committed to the Griffins on May 6 after a strong senior season. The 6-6, 200-pound forward averaged 12.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game for the Eagles, which went 1-12 in the PCL during his senior season.. He opened the season with 16 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks against eventual league champion Archbishop Wood, then closed out his career with a 14-point, 13-rebound and two-block performance versus Archbishop Carroll.

The biggest factor for Imo in choosing Chestnut Hill was the hominess.

“While I like big schools, I like how Chestnut Hill College is a little school where there aren’t too many people and there isn’t a lot going on around the school,” Imo said. “It’s a place where you can get your work done and continue to work out. Coach Butler had a lot of interest in me where I felt like I could be a good piece in the program. He told me he wants to change it.”

While players like Sean Stokes (Wayne State College) and K.J. Davis have gone on to play in college following prep years after their Conwell-Egan careers, Imo was “our first one right out of school” during Bowen’s tenure. 

Imo is projected to play power forward at the next level, which will require him to shoot the basketball from the perimeter; he flashed a little bit of that ability, knocking down six 3-pointers during his senior year at Egan. Still, his maturation in the post and ability to protect the rim is what made him a college recruit.

“I’ve been working on my ability to finish around the rim,” Imo said. “During my junior year, I wasn’t scoring a lot but then during the summer, I buckled down and worked on how to finish going toward the rim. I’ve become stronger and in college I will be playing the four, not the five.”

Butler was hired in 2020, becoming only the second coach in program history following Jesse Balcer, who stepped aside to focus on his duties as director of athletics, but has not yet coached a game as a result of the pandemic. Imo is one of the first local commitments of his tenure. 

Imo’s game was a project and getting Chestnut Hill College back to respectability will also be one. They finished 6-22 overall in 2019-20.

Bowen is confident that Imo’s best basketball is ahead of him and he will be a player Butler can lean on as he gets comfortable moving into the head coaching position.

“He’s definitely a late bloomer and didn’t play organized basketball until later in life,” Bowen said. “For us, it was working on the fundamentals of his footwork and decision-making to be able to catch him up to where his body and class was to play at this level. We spent a lot of time working with him on footwork and basketball IQ. He improved tremendously, especially with COVID when we were restricted on when we could see him.”