City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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John Mosco and Andre Noble had resisted the temptation for years. 

The head coaches at two of the city’s premier hoops programs, the Archbishop Wood and Imhotep Charter bosses had become good friends over the last decade-plus, dating back to Mosco’s time as a Neumann-Goretti assistant, when Noble was just building the ‘Tep program from scratch. They’ve teamed up to run Philly Live, the region’s biggest June live period event, every year (sans pandemic) since 2019.

But their ever-building friendship made them increasingly less interested in playing one another during the regular season

“We’ve both kind of said ‘nah, we’re not going to play each other,’” Noble said by phone Thursday.

“We talk about it every year at Philly Live,” Mosco said, “and we just feel our friendship takes (precedent) over it instead of scheduling it.”

Finally, with an individual matchup too good to ignore, Mosco and Noble gave in. And that’s why Imhotep and Archbishop Wood are squaring up Friday night at Bensalem, the Panthers and Vikings facing each other for the first time in their tenures. 

The game is part of the Diane Mosco Foundation Showcase, named in honor of Mosco’s late wife, which has been held annually at Wood since 2017. This is the first year the event, which raises money for a senior at either Wood or St. Hubert’s to receive tuition, has held more than one showcase; the main six-game event was this past weekend at Wood. 

Friday night’s affair is a doubleheader; Bensalem and Sankofa are meeting first, at 3:45 p.m., before the nightcap at 6 o’clock.

It’s a coaching matchup that has nearly 700 combined wins, plus a couple dozen league, city and state titles on the sidelines. Mosco and Noble are widely recognized as two of the best around — certainly in Philadelphia, and likely quite a ways beyond. 

“When I took over [at Wood] 11 years ago, I wanted to be one of the top programs, I wanted to work to get where Neumann, Roman, Imhotep (were),” said Mosco, who was an assistant at Neumann-Goretti before taking over the Vikings in 2013. “This year I can’t pass that up [...] Catholic League/Public League matchup, getting the two best players in the area, we both couldn’t say no to that.”

Imhotep comes into Friday night 5-0, opening its season with a tough home win against St. Joseph’s Prep on Dec. 5 and taking out defending 6A state champs Reading this weekend at the Diane Mosco Showcase at Wood in addition to picking up a trio of Public League wins. 

Wood’s 2-2 through its first four games, losing to national powerhouses Huntingdon Prep (W.Va.) and DeMatha Catholic (Md.), but are coming off a 30-point beatdown of one of the top teams in Delaware, Salesianum School. 

Mosco’s no stranger to emotional coaching matchups. He’s had to coach against his former boss Carl Arrigale and the Saints as well as his protege and good friend Chris Roantree at Father Judge, at least once a year, if not again in the PCL playoffs.

“It won’t be as hard as [playing] Neumann and playing Judge,” he said, “but it’ll be hard.”

The main draw — and the primary reason this game is happening — will be no doubt Imhotep’s Ahmad Nowell and Wood’s Jalil Bethea, the two senior guards and top-30 prospects in their class going head-to-head after teaming up the last two summers on the Nike EYBL circuit for Team Final. 

Nowell, a 6-foot-1 combo guard, is as physical and aggressive as they come, with a stellar pull-up jumper and ability to get to the hoop and finish around and through contact. Bethea, a wiry 6-4 guard, is arguably the best shooter in the country, a dead-eye marksman no matter how or where he’s pulling up, with a much-improved ability to get to the rim and create for his teammates. 

It’s a matchup that’s sure to have the two hunting highlights and crowd reactions all game long, the Bensalem gym sure to be stuffed full of hoops fans looking for one of the area’s best non-league matchups to deliver on its hype. 

“I think [it’s] just human nature, they’re so competitive and they know each other so well,” Mosco said. “Ahmad’s going to make a great play or Jalil’s going to make a great play, and the next guy’s going to come back and try to match it [...] and that’s what the crowd wants, they want to see that, they want to see them put on a show.”

While the two stars are undoubtedly going to get theirs, both teams are loaded with additional talent.

Wood’s supporting cast includes Drexel commit Josh Reed, juniors Milan ‘Mir Dean, Mike Green and Deuce Maxey and a host of talented underclassmen. Imhotep’s got senior Jeremiah White, junior Carnell Henderson and a host of their own fantastic freshmen and sophomores. 

Whichever group handles that atmosphere, attention and pressure will go a long way towards who’s got some extra bragging rights head into the new year and whose coach is going to have a little extra motivation factor moving forward.

“All these games, it’s always the other guys,” Mosco said. “Whoever gets the most from the other four, that’s who wins.”