City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Jamil Pines knows Germantown Friends’ Scattergood Gymnasium like the back of his hand.

The Germantown native spent his high school years playing for the Tigers, then returned to his alma mater to serve as an assistant under his former coach, Shawn Werdt. He’s spent countless hours in the cozy one-court gymnasium on the west side of GFS’ campus, wedged between Coulter and School House Lane, right off Germantown Ave in the city’s northwest neighborhood. 

What was new, though, was standing on the sidelines for an entire game. 

“It’s definitely different,” Pines said with a laugh after his first game as the Tigers’ new head coach. “I look back on my experience as the assistant where I’m just sitting down and I might give Shawn some input... It’s a lot different, but I can say I’m having a lot of fun.”

Pines got the job this offseason after Werdt stepped down following 10 seasons on the GFS sidelines. He takes over a program that he helped lead to one of its high points, a starter on the Tigers squad that made the Friends Schools League championship game in 2015. 

The first outing didn’t go GFS’ way, as Springside-Chestnut Hill Academy ruined Pines’ debut in a 92-46 win. Pines knows there will be some rough moments up front with nine sophomores on the roster, two of them as well as an eighth grader and freshman (and one senior) in the starting lineup.

“Obviously today’s result wasn’t what i hoped for or expected, but I still had fun coaching those guys,” he said. “It means a lot to me first and foremost to just be able to be able to coach this team, having played under Shawn and then played there in general. It definitely means a lot to be on that sideline eight years after I was there as a player.”

Joining Pines on the sidelines is his identical twin brother Jalil Pines, his teammate at both GFS and Elizabethtown College, from where they both graduated in 2019. Jamil said it was a “no brainer” to bring his brother along.

“I’m surprised [at] the amount of people who actually asked me if he was going to be on my staff,” he said. “When I knew I was going to be the coach, he was the first one [I called], I said ‘there’s no way that you’re not.’ I need somebody who I can trust, somebody who knows me best and there’s nobody who knows me like my twin.”

It’s been generally a tough go in the FSL for Germantown Friends, which has to compete with the likes of Westtown, George School, Academy New Church and other established powerhouses just to stay afloat in the competitive private school league. Pines will have to turn to his youth to give them something to build around, and there’s certainly some bright spots in his underclassmen classes. 

Sophomore Jordan Dill (16 points) will have to shoulder a large offensive load, as he did against SCH, though he’s got help in the form of freshman guard Billy Henigan (13 points) and his brother, eighth grader Isaiah Dill (11 points), both of whom made some nice plays against SCH. It’s going to take time for them to all gel together, and Pines knows that an FSL championship is something that’s not going to happen from the get-go.

“I have high expectations for some of the guys on our team but I just want to be able to establish an identity, really, for these guys to develop over the course of the season and just for them to be able to feel like they had a really good experience,” he said. I’m trying to build a winning culture, winning attitude, so that’s what I want out of those guys.”

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Blue Devils’ guard-heavy attack carries the day

Springside-Chestnut Hill came out on fire to start its season, and never cooled off. The Blue Devils went 13-of-25 (52%) on 3-pointers to power the rout, led by senior guard Camden Burns (24 points), who went 6-of-10 from deep while adding six rebounds. 

It was a good day all-around for SCH’s five-guard attack, which placed four in double figures. Junior guard Keni Williams added 19 points plus five rebounds and three assists; sophomore Owen Kelly (13 points, seven rebounds) and junior guard Kam Waters (12 points, four rebounds, four assists) had strong all-around games as well.

“We lean towards (finding) the hot hand, whoever’s hot, whoever has the matchup that we can exploit, that’s who we try to get the ball to,” SCH coach Julian McFadden said. “They didn’t play a lot of man, though. So today was about, alright, Cam’s hit six of them, let’s get him a seventh. And then Owen started to get hot, Keni was getting to the rim.”

Burns’ three first-quarter 3-pointers helped SCH out to a 12-point lead after one, though GFS clawed back to get within 10 at halftime. But the visitors owned the second half, a 27-9 third quarter leading McFadden to empty his bench for the fourth, 10 total Blue Devils in the scoring column. 

SCH finished with 18 assists on 32 buckets, the starters and sixth man Ryan Kull (5 pts, 3 ast) combining for 13 of those, the bench continuing the strong passing even as the outcome was clear. 

“It’s fun to coach, man,” McFadden said. “I have a really good time with them. It’s a bunch of guards, everybody’s going to have to play some point guard or some shooting guard at the next level [...] We’re really coaching more around that than anything else, but they’re buying into it. And they’re playing defense, too.”

By Quarter
SCH:  28  |  14  |  27  |  23  ||  92
GFS:  16  |  16  |   9   |   5   ||  46

Shooting
SCH: 32-58 FG (13-25 3PT), 15-23 FT
GFS: 13-43 FG (6-18 3PT), 14-15 FT

Scoring
SCH: Camden Burns 24, Keni Williams 19, Owen Kelly 13, Kam Waters 12, Ryan Kull 5, AJ Trunfio 5, Grayson Scott 4, Adrian Rascoe 4, Jules Sanders 4, Ron Brown III 3

GFS: Jordan Dill 16, Bill Henighan 13, Isaiah Dill 11, Jeremy Turner 3, Connor Cusack 2, Luke Lendler 1