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Santoliquito: Camden-Imhotep a worthy entry in city's hoops lore

01/28/2023, 6:45pm EST
By Joseph Santoliquito

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

Every word came with ultra volume. Every utterance was accompanied by a lean in to listen despite being inches away, because the white noise bouncing off the walls of St. Joe’s Hagan Arena was so deafening that you could barely hear anything Saturday afternoon.

On the court, Ahmad Nowell, Imhotep Charter’s gifted 6-foot, 180-pound junior guard, had a wad of tissue stuffed up his left nostril from a bloody nose. Camden’s brilliant D.J. Wagner skidded across the floor after being jolted by a deflected pass in his face.

It was the pulse of the city throbbing through each slam, each made arcing three-pointer, each pass and each blocked shot.

The titanic clash between high school powerhouses Camden and Imhotep Charter—and Kentucky-bound stars Wagner and Justin Edwards—was supposed to be a blockbuster.

And it was.

(Read Owen McCue's game story here)


A sign at the door of Hagan Arena made it clear there were no walk-ups allowed in. (Photo: Joseph Santoliquito/CoBL)

It drew a standing-room only, sellout crowd to the 4,200-seat Hagan.

It was reminiscent of 1970 Big 5 doubleheaders at the Palestra. It brought back many to the high school wars at the Palestra back in the late-1980s and early-1990s between Glen Mills, Chester and Penn Wood, and the Catholic League battles that were waged between Roman Catholic and Neumann-Goretti.

Camden won, 60-57, but the ambiance surrounding the game was as engrossing as the game itself.

“It was an intense atmosphere that I wasn’t really paying it no mind during the game, because I tried to play it like a regular game,” said Imhotep’s Edwards, who missed what would have been the game-winning shot from three-point distance in the closing seconds. “Towards the end, I started looking around and hearing everything. This will prepare me for Kentucky, though. This was an amazing environment, everyone coming out to support area Philly basketball, between two public school teams was really big.

“This was good going up against D.J. and (Camden’s Aaron Bradshaw, another Kentucky commit). I probably won’t hear the end of it though from those two. It was good to play against them.”   

Nowell had problems hearing like everyone else.

“It was amazing, because it was so loud, and we both had to deal with it,” Nowell said. “The intensity was high. We knew how this game was going to get. It was going to get real chippy, which led to my nose bleed in the first half.”

Rap Curry, the former Penn Wood and St. Joe’s star and now Penn Wood athletic director, could recognize the electric buzz the game projected. There to support his friend, Imhotep coaching legend Andre Noble, Curry was more than familiar with the back-and-forth excitement and the game-within-a-game fight in the stands.    

“We needed to have a real Philly high school basketball atmosphere here at St. Joe’s and this took both schools to make this happen, but I’m happy that they did,” said Curry, a 1994 St. Joe’s and 1990 Penn Wood grad. “This atmosphere was like Villanova when it would play UConn or Georgetown back in the day, and back when I played in the wars we would have with Chester and Glen Mills at the Palestra.


One sliver of the sold-out crowd at Hagan Arena on Saturday. (Photo: Gavin Bethell/CoBL)

“The whole Camden community came out, and they let everyone know that they were here. I was sitting in their section. They were harassing everybody (laughs), but you heard everyone from Philly get excited when Imhotep cut it to within two there in the end.

“Hey, the Philadelphia basketball community packed the house. You heard the vibes during the game. We saw a great game and everyone left safe and it’s exactly what this is all about and should be about.”

Jaron “Boots” Ennis, whose cousin goes to Imhotep Charter, was seated courtside. A world-class welterweight boxing champion contender, Ennis has been to many explosive big-time boxing events in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and New York.

This ranked right up there among them.

“I really wasn’t expecting this,” Ennis said. “This was like a big fight, Camden versus Philly. It was fun, a great atmosphere. I didn’t think it would be this loud. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a big high school game like this, and it was really exciting.

“Like a big fight!”

Isaiah Thomas, a 2002 Frankford High and Penn State-Abington grad, is a Philadelphia City Councilmember and also the head coach of Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter. Thomas, whose team plays Imhotep on Wednesday, Feb. 1, was courtside doing as much scouting as he was enjoying the moment.

“It’s exactly what I was telling a young person seated next to me, telling him he probably wouldn’t see a game like this in a long, long time, between the No. 1 player in the country (Edwards) against the No. 2 player (Wagner), and they’re both from our area,” Thomas said. “They’re 20 minutes away from each other, going to the same college and this is a great opportunity for basketball in the area.

“You can’t hear anything when you try to talk during the game. This is exactly what this city needs. I have to put on my councilman’s hat for this, because to get this many people together, it shows the love and positives of Philadelphia—and it shows the love this city has for basketball.”  


Camden mayor Vic Carstarphen (above) was one of many notable faces in attendance on Saturday. (Photo: Joseph Santoliquito/CoBL)

Vic Carstarphen, the former Camden and Temple point guard, is now the mayor of Camden and Thomas’ cousin. This was important for Camden and Philadelphia.

“No one loses in such an atmosphere like this,” said Carstarphen, a 1988 Camden and 1993 Temple graduate. “This takes me back to the late-1980s, and our community travels in such a large way. This is a big-time atmosphere. Our rivalry games against Woodrow Wilson got crowds like this. I remember playing Cherry Hill East in 1986, with Nick and Tom Katsikis, and they had five Division-I players.

“We played in their gym and they had 4,000 in there. We were the No. 1 team in the country in 1986. That atmosphere was every game. We had people trying to scalp tickets, get extra tickets, and this is what today represents for me. That yesteryear when you see so many of our good residents come out to support these kids—on both teams.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.


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