City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
—

(Ed. Note: This story is part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, which will take a look at many of the top high school programs in the region as part of our 2022-23 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

~~~

Alvin Williams’ first season at the Shipley School had some growing pains, for coaches and players alike. As much time as the Germantown Academy product has spent around the game, being in charge takes some getting used to.

And so, there were a few moments of growth.

“Yeah, I forgot one time about timeouts,” Williams laughed during a late September interview. “We were playing Springside-Chestnut Hill, and they’re running and they’re getting dunks and I’m like ‘dang!’, forgetting to call a timeout. Drew up a heckuva play at the end of the game against Abington Friends and I got brain freeze and forgot the play and they had to walk me through it.”

Though he’s played at the highest levels of both collegiate and professional basketball, Williams isn’t under any auspices that he was going to instantly know everything, or anywhere close to it.

“I didn’t know anything last year,” he admitted. “I learned everything. It’s not just coaching, it’s first of all figuring out who your players are: what their strengths are, mentally and physically, combinations, what’s the best combination, who do you put in certain situations and certain times? And you don’t have all that time to teach during the school day or after school, you have a slot of time.

“I’m having fun with it, I’m not taking it so seriously where I’m panicking or doing any of those things, but I’m vulnerable enough to know that I don’t know everything.”

The former Portland Trail Blazer and Toronto Raptor brought a ton of hoops knowledge and know-how to the co-ed school of about 375 high schoolers on Montgomery Avenue, though that wasn’t immediately translated into victories on the court. The Gators went 7-14 (6-6) in Williams’ first season on the Main Line.

Instead, with a roster full of fresh faces and underclassmen, in a league that’s getting rapidly deeper to catch up with its one national powerhouse, Shipley took some lumps early and had to work for every victory, trying not to think too much about some of the 20, 30, and even 40-point losses they took along the way.

“The wins, they start coming in small pieces because every game we did something a little better from the last game,” Williams said. “So you started out here” — he gestured down by his knees — “went up a little bit, plateaued a bit, and then we went up again, so it was one of those types of graphs when it came to our team.

“I’m not even quite sure of our record, but we did get better.”

Year One lessons learned, Williams and the Gators are adjusting their sights upwards for their follow-up year in the Friends’ Schools League, which is no easy feat. The whole league has been trying to catch up with Westtown, and is at its deepest in years, if not ever; George and Academy New Church have impressive groups, and Friends’ Central is retooling as well, while Friends’ Select is much-improved and Germantown Friends has one of the best freshmen around.

The Gators know there’s a tough road ahead, unlike last season, when — call it shortsightedness? — they figured their new coach and new look would be enough. Instead, they got a major wake-up call.

“Last year, we came into the season thinking we were going to be so good, everything was going to be handed to us,” senior guard Darrien Grady said. “We got off to a rough start, just thinking we’re better than what we are, and this year we’re taking it slow, building from the ground up, having a certain play style and sticking to it. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s championship or bust, but it’s definitely to maximize our potential, whatever that is. Just get to what’s the best we can be.”

Grady, a 5-foot-10 point guard, is one of four seniors on the 2022-23 Gators, along with returning starters Justin Powell (6-3) and Iman Jackson (6-0), plus 6-6 wing Will Lange, the oldest son of St. Joe’s head coach Billy Lange. Gone from last year’s starting lineup are 6-8 Raijon Dispensa (National Christian, Md.), who reclassified into the 2024 class, and 6-3 junior Rocco Morabito, now at Archbishop Ryan.

The four returning seniors are joined by a strong trio of juniors who Williams expects to step up and make significant contributions this season: 6-3 point guard Matt Lange, Will’s younger brother, along with 6-2 guards William Littles Jr. and Gyasi Miller. 

All three made their mark during a couple games at West Chester’s Big 64 in September. With Grady sidelined as he recovers from knee tendonitis, Lange started at point guard and flashed much-improved athleticism and playmaking from a year ago; Littles and Miller took turns supplementing Powell and Jackson in the scoring column, Littles by slashing to the hoop and Miller doing most of his damage from outside.

“Gyasi, he’s probably made the biggest jump so far that I’ve noticed,” Grady said. “He’s a very consistent shooter, very consistent free-throw shooter, and that’s something we need off the bench, definitely.”

One more newcomer who’s sure to make an impact on the varsity level in his first year of high school is freshman guard Kodi Colson. The son of Martin Luther King coach and longtime pro Sean Colson, Kodi is a 5-10 point guard with an advanced basketball IQ and scoring ability for someone his age, which he proved multiple times this summer in his first few public appearances with the Gators.

Williams, who’s known the elder Colson since the two were pre-teens playing at youth leagues around the city, said he doesn’t take it lightly that one of his oldest friends entrusted him with coaching his son.

“It’s pressure, it’s pressure,” he said. “But I tell (Sean) all the time, ‘you’ve got to trust me…you’ve shown you trust me, but you’ve got to make sure that you believe in what I’m saying.’ 

“(Sean) trains his son and the father/son dynamic is something different. But he knows that I’ve got the best interests for his son as well and I’m just trying to tell him, your success is going to come from the team’s success as well.”

With his top eight pretty much in place, stocked with future college basketball players, Williams feels more confident about the upcoming season than perhaps last year’s record would indicate, no longer going in dark but instead with a more defined plan of how to make some noise in the FSL.

And with Williams talking about how easy it can be to get into a losing mindset and how difficult it can be to work out of it, he knows the wins have to be more than just the moral kind sooner rather than later. So his expectations can only move in one direction.

“I’ve got them high, I’ve got ‘em high,” Williams said. “I’m not the big ‘rah-rah’ or ‘win this one for Gipper’ or ‘this is what we need to do,’ it’s just pretty much seeing how the season pans out, and what direction. 

“Everything was so new last year — this year, the expectations are higher.”