City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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UPPER DARBY — Upper Darby’s offense comes in waves, building in intensity, then unloading, only a brief pause before the next run loads up and is unleashed. And like a wave, there’s no singular point to the Royals’ attack, the wave coming from all angles — try to hold back one part of it, and the rest floods in.

There’s a reason why only Radnor has held Upper Darby below 50 points all season, most teams unable to keep them below 60, why the Royals’ boys have crossed the 80-point barrier more than a few times. 

It’s why, when Harriton caught fire at the beginning of a Central League first-round playoff game on Thursday, Upper Darby didn’t panic. The Royals’ waves kept coming, and the Rams couldn’t keep swimming against the tide.

Led by stellar outings from seniors Niymire Brown and Yassir Joyner, Upper Darby put up big numbers once again, advancing to the Central League semifinals for the first time since 2018 on the backs of an 83-61 win. 

Harriton (13-10) came out guns blazing, knocking down 10 of 13 shots in the first quarter and going 5-of-6 from downtown to take a 26-20 lead after eight minutes, a sign that this meeting might be different after Upper Darby won the regular-season matchup by 24 in early January. 

But Royals coach Bob Miller, a physics and math teacher at the Delaware County school, knew the law of averages meant it would be highly unlikely that Harriton could shoot 83% from deep for a game, and that the looks his team was getting right at the rim were likely to continue.

“You watch so many basketball games where a team doesn’t miss the first half, you know they’re going to come back down to earth,” he said. “You know sooner or later, percentages are going to level off, usually in a game. As long as you stay close. [...] We were able to get so many buckets inside where [...] they have to rely on all the 3s.”

The tides turned for the Royals in the second quarter. Joyner, went for a personal 7-0 run to make it a 36-28 game with 2:30 left in the first half, including a 3-pointer from the right wing and a Eurostep finish on the break, finishing with 12 points in that frame as Upper Darby took a 44-35 lead into the break.

A 6-2 left-handed wing, Joyner finished with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting (3-5 3PT, 1-2 FT), getting buckets in all sorts of ways: spin moves in the lane, put-backs, from outside, in transition.

“Yassir has that advantage of being able to play bully ball down at the low post against most kids, and he also can hit the ‘3,’” Miller said, “he’s a really tough matchup. And then plus he comes from the left side and he can go by you right, too.”

Harriton had one more run in it, getting to within 53-48 with 3:34 left in the third on a 3-pointer by Collin Goerlich (13 points), but Upper Darby took advantage of a Harriton timeout thereafter to regroup. 

The Royals (17-6) closed the quarter on a 16-2 run to lead by 19 going into the fourth, and never looked back en route to a final score that wasn’t far off from that first meeting (86-62).

“It’s a game of runs, so we just keep fighting,” senior point guard Nadir Myers said. “[We knew] they were going to go on a run, we’ve just got to go on the last run and close the game out.”

Brown led the way with a 28-point, six-rebound, three-assist effort, the 6-foot-4 wing forward making his first five shots — all in the first quarter — and finishing 13-of-19 from the floor (2-5 3PT). 

He put the punctuation on the win with a baseline slam, giving Upper Darby an 80-51 edge with 4:05 left, Miller pulling him (and the rest of the starters) almost immediately thereafter.

The Royals were terrific on the glass as a group. Senior wing Khysir Slaughter led the way in that category with 13 rebounds (five offensive), completing the double-double with 10 points; Joyner added eight rebounds and three assists. Nobody on Harriton had more than four rebounds, and the Rams didn’t register a single offensive board.

“I knew with our (forwards) standing three feet from the basket, it was going to be really hard for (Harriton) to rebound out of that,” Miller said. “If we make shots from the outside, great, if we don’t, he’s going to be there to get it.”

Myers, Upper Darby’s point guard as well as its on-court and locker room leader, finished with 10 points, six assists and three rebounds.

That rebounding advantage helped Upper Darby take 18 more shots than Harriton and the Rams shot 54.6% (35-of-64) on top of that, including 10-of-25 (40%) from 3-point range. They also registered 18 assists, an especially strong number considering a good percentage of their buckets were put-backs.

“We felt good, we’ve just got to work on a couple more things and not get a lot more turnovers,” Myers said. “We’re just looking forward to the next round.”

Harriton, which will play in the District 1 6A first round next Friday, was led by a 17-point effort from junior guard Marquis Kubish, who got to the rim off the bounce throughout the game; Goerlich and sophomore wing Calvin Smith (11 points, 4 rebounds) joined him in double figures as the Rams shot 24-of-46 (52.2%) from the floor.

Upper Darby will face the league’s second seed, Lower Merion (19-3, 13-3) in the semifinals, looking for their first win of the season against the league’s defending champs. The Aces beat the Royals 72-60 at Upper Darby in December and 71-56 at Lower Merion on Jan 28, UD’s only loss in its last eight games. League favorite Radnor plays Springfield (Delco.), in the other semifinal.

The Royals will have to concern themselves with stopping LM’s Penn-bound senior guard Sam Brown, while making sure fellow seniors Sam Wright, Jordan Meekins and Justin Poles plus junior John Mobley don’t take advantage.

“We’re going to have to play better than what we have over there, we’ve never really shot the bell where, and we haven’t defended,” Miller said. “If you don’t defend a team like Lower Merion, they’re so well coached, they’ve got athletes and players too, they’re going to be tough.”

By Quarter
Upper Darby: 20  |  24  |  25  |  14  ||  83
Harriton:        26  |   9   |  15  |  11  ||  61

Shooting
Upper Darby: 35-64 FG (10-25 3PT), 3-5 FT
Harriton: 24-46 FG (7-13 3PT), 6-7 FT

Scoring
Upper Darby: Niymire Brown 28, Yassir Joyner 24, Nadir Myers 10, Khysir Slaughter 10, Shaun Cain 8, Alex Brown 3

Harriton: Marquis Kubish 17, Collin Goerlich 13, Calvin Smith 11, Aiden Abrams 8, Jack Chodkowski 4, Jadyn Gaskins 4, Cole Chodkowski 2, Jack Swalley 2