City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Primed for a big year, St. Joseph’s Prep had to make a major adjustment to its plans and style in the fall, a significant shift in makeup and tempo. Early in the season, it’s looking like the Prep hasn’t missed a beat. 

Through two games of the season, Jason Harrigan’s Hawks have looked every bit the squad capable of competing for a Catholic League title, going toe-to-toe with Imhotep on the road before knocking off one of the best teams in Ohio, Richmond Heights, on Sunday at the Kobe Bryant Classic.

“We might have lost arguably, in my opinion, the best big around [...] but we’re still a great team,” junior guard Olin Chamberlain Jr. said. “We’re still ready for war, we’re ready for any team you throw in front of us. These games coming up, the games we just played, we just want to prove that we can still hang and have people stop overlooking us, that we’re still a great team.”

Harrigan’s fourth team at the Prep was set to be the one to take a leap into the upper echelon of the PCL after a fifth-place finish a year ago. With center Tristan Guillouette as the centerpiece surrounded by a group of sharpshooting, athletic ballhandlers who will all play college hoops, the group having spent the last two years growing and developing together, the stage was set.

Then Guillouette was denied a fifth year of eligibility by the PIAA, forcing him to play the 2023-24 season elsewhere. 

“All summer I thought we’re about to be this big team, about to be this great team, and when that kind of happened, I was in shock,” Chamberlain said. “I heard little whispers and stuff of it, but I honestly didn’t really know [he might be ruled ineligible.]”

That forced the Hawks to make a major shift heading into the preseason. For two years, Harrigan’s attack had been built around his guards and the 6-foot-9 post, whose two-way presence kept getting more and more impactful since arriving from Life Center (N.J.) in 2021. 

Now, Harrigan had a rotation full of guards — really, really, really good guards. So he took it and ran with it, literally. 

“The speed of the game changed,” he said. 

“We had to redevelop our whole play style, you could say, and we felt that some people kind of wrote us off,” senior guard Matt Gorman said. “We worked extremely hard to get back to what we thought we were last year. I think we’re doing a pretty good job.”

The Hawks came out of the gates with a clear indication they weren’t going anywhere, leading Imhotep for most of the way before UConn commit Ahmad Nowell put the Panthers on his back to keep their 80-game home winning streak alive. It wasn’t a win, but it was a warning.

Watching Prep outlast Richmond Heights on Sunday, it was tough to believe that they’d ever played with a big man. The Hawks’ guard were everywhere, a confident display of ball movement and shot-taking, knocking down jumpers from all over the court, most created by a few drive-and-kicks, the Richmond Heights defense constantly in scramble mode.

Chamberlain had 16 points, including two 3-pointers, tying with classmate Jordan Ellerbee for the team lead in that particular game. Fellow junior Jaron McKie, with multiple high-major Division I offers in his pocket, scored 13 points including three 3s of his own. Senior Matt Gorman, a Catholic commit, added 14 points including two 3s; senior Jalen Harper, another scholarship-level guard, had 11 points and a triple.

“I think we’re all starting to buy in and really understand each other and really start to figure out who we are,” Chamberlain said. “[With] five guards, we’ve got to play a lot faster, we’ve got to trust each other more, we’ve got to play way harder on defense.”

“Jaron, Olin, Jordan, Jalen, and Matt, they’ve all found different opportunities in which they lead us,” Harrigan said. “And they know it’s going to fall on their shoulders. Collectively as a group they’re just all picking up the slack.”

The Richmond Heights game was also a chance to see how they fared against a quality big man. Spartans sophomore T.J. Crumble is one of the top 20 prospects in his class, a versatile and mobile 6-8 forward with offers from Ohio State, LSU, and a couple dozen other high-majors. Crumble got 16 points against Prep but he was far from dominant, the Hawks constantly fronting the post and keeping bodies moving to limit his touches, then taking advantage of mismatches on the other end. 

If they want to beat the likes of Thomas Sorber and Archbishop Ryan amongst the other powerhouse teams in the league, they’re going to need similar efforts all year long. They’ve got state quarterfinalist Coatesville coming up on Saturday at the Diane Mosco Classic at Archbishop Wood, a visit from Bishop Ireton (Md.) the day after that, a trip to Tampa at the end of the month.

“It’s two pretty good teams that we played in back-to-back weeks,” Gorman said. “This one right here shows everyone that we’re still here, we still have an opportunity to take this thing deep.”