City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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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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Ryan Smith and Shane Phillips admitted to not knowing much about their new coach when the hire was announced.

A quick search on the internet gave Smith, a senior, and Phillips, a junior, reason to be excited about what the future of Hatboro-Horsham basketball could look like. Last season was, in a word, challenging for the Hatters but it didn’t take Bill Coleman long to realize there were some real pieces there.

It’s a new start for Hatboro-Horsham and the Hatters aren’t just excited, they’re optimistic.

“For the past, at least five or six years, there’s never been a good, playoff-contending, really basketball program here,” Phillips said. “We want to flip a switch, create a whole new culture with Coach Coleman coming in and prove the SOL wrong.”

Last year, Hatboro-Horsham finished 4-18 overall and 2-16 in the SOL Liberty. Senior Sean McCue said the Hatters went into most games expecting to lose but it was made clear early on that wouldn’t be acceptable going forward.

Coleman, who was the head coach at Pennsbury for 12 years before stepping down in the summer of 2022, spent the 2022-23 season as an assistant at Gwynedd Mercy Academy then last season as an assistant with West Chester’s men’s program. It’s only been a few months back in a head coaching role, but Coleman said he’s felt re-energized with this new group.

He wasn’t so much interested in what Hatboro-Horsham had done, but what the Hatters could do.

“They have from top-to-bottom, just open to learning to play our way of basketball,” Coleman said. “We start by breaking everyone down, work on their skills and build them up from there. The improvement we’ve seen from May to now has been really good.”

Instead of rushing right into things, Coleman used the majority of the summer and fall to keep his new team in the gym and working. He’s also bringing in some of his former assistant coaches from the Pennsbury days, so they wanted to get an idea of who did what well, areas they needed to focus on and what some of the group’s strengths figured to be.

It was an approach that was taken well by the players. 

“We started out just doing a lot more skill work than we did last year and that’s going to make us a lot better,” Smith said. “I really think we’re going to be much more prepared for the season.”

Hatboro-Horsham will be a guard-heavy team this season, with the 6-foot-5 McCue their main interior presence, so playing with effort and intensity will be paramount. In their first game of the offseason, Smith started things off diving on the floor at midcourt to save a ball and found Phillips going in for a layup.

If the coaches are feeling re-energized, it’s safe to say the players feel the same way.

“For any coach to go into a team that went 4-18 and think we have a lot of potential, it’s motivating for us,” McCue said. “Before Coach Coleman got here, we didn’t think we’d be any good this year and it would be like last year. Now, they changed our whole mindset.”

Seniors McCue, Smith and Brad Davis, along with juniors Phillips and Kenny Lutz have taken the lead in terms of setting the tone in workouts and they’ll form the nucleus of the team this season. Lutz, a 6-foot-1 combo guard, figures to be a focal point offensively while Phillips’ ability to shoot the ball will play a much more prominent role than last year.

Smith, who has a solid frame at 6-foot-2, possesses a keen passing eye and will see plenty of time on the ball. The players also pointed out junior Jayden Thompson as one of the standouts in their workouts, the athletic 5-foot-10 guard showing potential as a defensive stopper.

“We have all these guys capable of playing different roles, we’re just going to have to put it together,” Smith said. “I think we’re in for a great season.”

It’s a two-way road. The coaches can see potential in the players and work to bring it out of them, but the players have to be invested in doing the work and making the effort to bring out that potential.

“The commitment to workouts has been fantastic,” Coleman said. “One night, we had 34 kids. That means there’s potential there and they want to get better.”

The Suburban One League cut out divisional crossovers in all sports this athletic season, so only the 10 games against SOL Liberty opponents will count for the league standings.The Hatters will have an opponent from the other three divisions based on the last two years’ standings, plus their other non-league games which include Upper Merion, Lansdale Catholic, Chichester and Upper Perkiomen.

Hatboro-Horsham’s main goal is upping its win total from last year, but the Hatters haven’t been afraid to think bigger too. They want to prove to teams like Upper Dublin, Plymouth Whitemarsh and Abington that they aren’t a free win anymore and didn’t back away from eyeing up a spot in the postseason.

“Playoffs are the goal,” Phillips said. “Playoffs for sure, we want to prove everyone wrong, get a home playoff game and win it.”