City of Basketball Love

By Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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(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 2023-24 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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Kyle Sample said Cristo Rey bought 150 tickets to Lafayette’s season opener against St. Joe’s at Hagan Arena earlier this month.

There were players. There were coaches. There were cheerleaders. There were students. There were faculty members.

The “whole school” was there to see Leopards’ freshman Josh Wyche, the first Division I product of the Blue Pride’s history.

“I think our guys are motivated seeing someone like Josh that they went to war with everyday last year, practiced with, seeing how hard he worked, how disciplined he was in his habits,” said Sample, the school's AD in his second year as the program’s head coach. “I think those guys learned a lot.”

Cristo Rey’s athletic programs are still less than a decade old. Wyche’s Division I commitment was one of many firsts for the Cristo Rey’s boys basketball team last year. He also helped the program win 25 games for the first time, capture its first Penn-Jersey League title and make its Pennsylvania Independent Schools (PAISAA) postseason debut.

As the Blue Pride look to build on that history-making season, Wyche passes the torch to a rising star and another Division I prospect in junior Devin Booker. 

“It was very inspiring knowing all our teachers came to watch him, came to watch the first Division I basketball player from our school,” Booker said. “It was very motivating. I want to be the next up to do that.”

Booker transferred to Cristo Rey from Imhotep Charter prior to the start of last season and enjoyed bringing home the first hardware for a program after contributing to a championship team at ‘Tep that has a trophy case full of them. The 6-4 guard averaged a team leading 24 ppg game last season.

A tremendous athlete and terrific shooter with length that impacts on both ends, Booker ascended into one of the area’s top players last season with Cristo Rey and continued that trajectory playing for Sample this summer at K-Low Elite. Local schools Drexel, La Salle and Temple offered him along with several other Division I programs, including Virginia Tech.

“His role this year changes a lot. With us having Josh Wyche last year took a lot of pressure off of Devin,” Sample said.

“This year, in the fall so far, he’s getting a lot of double teams and even some triple teams. Now, we’re trying to work on his mid-posts, getting him off the ball and run some pressure from him, knowing he’s one of the best shooters in the area and he’s improving. He shoots the lights out of the ball, but we’re also trying to get him in the paint, get him at the rim, get him on the free throw line, get him some easy opportunities.”

Booker will have plenty of help leading the group as Wyche is the only starter gone from the Blue Pride.  

Junior 5-10 guard Amir Nelson was a second team all-league selection last season as the team’s starting point guard and will score a bit more this season. Senior 6-2 guard Amari Dow (14 ppg) was an all-league selection as a sophomore but was banged up during his junior campaign. He enters the season 400 points shy of 1,000.

Sophomore guard Tyler Tolbert, the team’s backup point guard last season who Sample calls “one of best on-ball defenders in the city,” will see more minutes. Senior guard Josh Patterson impressed this fall in an expanded role.

Cristo Rey also adds 6-8 forward Nigel Adamson, who reclassified to the class of 2026 after two seasons at Upper Moreland.

“We’re going to play pretty similarly,” Booker said. “We’re going to speed people up more knowing that we got littler bodies, not as much bigs. We’re going to speed people up more, playing a lot of full court defense.”

The Blue Pride wants to make things as uncomfortable as possible for its opponents.

“As long as I’m the coach at Cristo Rey, that will never change,” Sample said. “We’re going to work hard. We’re going to speed people up. We’re gonna get in people’s faces. We’re going to play North Philadelphia basketball, tough, physical, make you work for everything, try not to give you anything easy and try to play fast on the offensive end.”

Last season ended with a bit of a wake-up call when Cristo Rey, which earned the No. 13 seed in the 16-team PAISAA tournament, opened with a 67-40 loss at No. 4 Hill School. 

Sample said he tried to beef up the schedule with programs like Devon Prep, West Catholic, Academy New Church and Penn Charter to try and earn a better seed in the PAISAA tournament. Looking back at the tape there were also a lot of avoidable mistakes in that Hill game, he thinks will be corrected throughout this winter.

As a young program that doesn’t play in one of the city’s premier leagues, Sample knows his squad can’t rest on its laurels after a championship season. The Blue Pride will have to keep fighting to earn respect.

“Hungry, very hungry,” Sample said of his team’s mindset entering the year. “Feeling very disrespected in the way we are perceived in the city because we don’t play in the PCL or Inter-AC or Friends League. So just trying to show and represent our league Penn-Jersey to the best of our ability and show people like hey this little private school from North Philadelphia is here to stay. We’re not a one-year wonder. We’re not a one-hit wonder. We’re not looking at our success as something that was temporary.”