City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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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 2024-25 season preview coverage. The complete list of schools previewed thus far can be found here.)

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Win eight-straight league championships and four state titles over six years and winning is something that you come to expect every year, like the Westtown program has under legendary coach Seth Berger. From 2014 to 2022, the Moose owned the Friends Schools League, winning eight-straight league crowns (excluding the cancelled 2021 COVID season). From 2016 to 2022, the Moose won four of six Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA) state titles (excluding the cancelled 2021 COVID season).

Berger has built a national-level program on the rustic West Chester campus. He has built a winner. He expects to win.

Berger, who will be entering his 18th season as head coach of the Moose and 20th year overall in coaching, has not changed. There is a high standard he has created. It’s been a winning, successful standard. Why? Because Berger demands it.

The Moose went 13-5 overall last season, and 6-2 in the Friends Schools League, losing to Friends Central, 62-59, in the league semifinals. Westtown reached the PAISAA semifinals where it lost to eventual PAISAA champion Perkiomen School, 71-64.

This will be the third year the Westtown class of 2025 has been together. They enter their senior years missing something.

“This will be the third year for the class of 2025, and they have yet to perform in league or states, so our expectations are very high this year,” Berger said. “We have a great group back, and we also have some young kids who have joined the program who really add a ton of value. We have a lot of returning players who are both starters and contributors, so we have a nice mix of youth and experience. ANC won the Friends League title (for the first time since 2009) last year and Perkiomen School repeated as state champions.

“The last time we won the Friends League title was in 2022, and it was the last year we last won the PAISAA, with Dereck (Lively) and Quin (Berger). The last two years we have been blanked in the league and states.”

Berger bluntly put it that the Moose did not play well enough, not by his standards, nor hard enough to win. There are always one or two crucial plays in the end of games that determine league and state titles, and when those times arose last season, the Moose sometimes let them slip through their hands.

Westtown was competitive. The Moose lost to Friends Central by a mere three points. Still, Berger felt his team was “out-toughed,” as he put it, and that hustle for loose balls, offensive rebounds, and the demand for the ball in high leverage situations were lacking.

Berger openly admitted there were times when he could have coached better. In the highly competitive Friends Schools League, a strategic mistake or two can cost a game. It’s why Berger has hit the reset button on his team’s hustle level. It’s why he is putting his foot down on shotty defensive play.

“Hopefully, we come into this year, I am better,” he said, “we are better, and we are all hungry to win.”

The 2025 Moose will revolve around 6-foot-5 senior guard Cam Wallace (Temple), 6-foot senior guard Jahmare Memphis (La Salle), 6-7 senior forward Jayden Kelsey (Binghamton), 6-4 senior guard Jayden Forsythe (Xavier), and reclassified 6-11 junior center Adam Walker from Chicago. Berger will have considerable depth in returning 5-10 sophomore guard Wilson Udo, 6-3 sophomore guard Ajani Stewart, 6-foot sophomore guard Marshall Bailey, 6-9 sophomore center Chibuikem Oli, 6-6 junior forward Eb Ehigie, 6-4 sophomore guard Declan Ehigie, and 6-foot senior guard Hiroki Ito.

The talent is there, Berger feels. Offensively, nothing will change, he said. His players have the freedom to go off script, as long as it is within the constructs of his system. The area he has focused on throughout the summer and into the preseason will come on the defensive end.

It was not so much that the Moose lacks the physicality to defend. What grinded Berger was the mindset.

“We will play hard on the defensive end this year, or we will have different kids playing,” Berger promised. “The players know it. My seniors said to me that they want to spend more time working on defense. Credit to them. We have great kids and great leaders, and now we have to have some great winners.”

Walker will play a big role in that renewed defensive mentality. He came from Chicago and Berger feels his ceiling is boundless. His athleticism and size allow him to have great timing, great rhythm, and Berger says “he’s a great kid who we think he is going to be a high major kid.”

Much of the Moose’s patience and composure will run through Memphis. He is not too pleased either with how Westtown has finished the last few years. He knows what it is like to win at Westtown, being on those Friends Schools League and PAISAA championship teams as a freshman in 2022.

“Everything has to start with our mentality, because we may have relied too much on our talent to win in the past,” admitted Memphis, who came to Westtown as an eighth grader from Toronto, Canada, and was introduced to basketball by his father. “I remember by freshman year going into games with Dereck and all those guys. They went into every game thinking that they were the worst team. They played with a chip on their shoulders and got the most out of their abilities. They knew they were talented. That team wanted to shut the crowd up. We don’t have that mentality right now. Over the last two years when we lost, I heard it. This is my year, this is our year as seniors.”

It is why Memphis is personally putting it on himself to lead the Moose “the right way,” as he said. His primary goals will be to get everyone involved, not sugarcoat anything, and make everyone accountable. He admits there were times when Westtown had hustle lapses. He also begrudgingly admits that the Moose “underachieved” the last few years.

Under his watch, he vows, that will change this year. It has to, he says, or the Moose will be blanked in another postseason.

“We did not put the hustle behind the talent,” the La Salle commit said. “The message we send to each other every day is to hate losing—and don’t love to win. We will still run. We have a lot of shooters and a 6-11 big. Walker helps us out a lot. He is one of the hardest workers on the team. Our secret weapon are the younger guys on this team.”

Guys like Wilson Udo, an undersized, sharp-shooting guard who saw some time last year.

“Last year was difficult, but as a team, we could have and should have worked harder,” Udo said. “This year should definitely be different. The culture is way better than last year. We are more of a team. Guys are more accountable. We have teams on our list that we want to get after who beat us. I won’t say who those teams are (laughs), but we know who they are.”

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on Twitter here.