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 [cityofbasketballlove.com].)

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Keith Taylor has been an institution in Chester.

The city’s patient, guiding mentor will be entering his eighth season as the Clippers’ head coach. He has been associated with the Chester basketball program since 1993—this season marking 32 years. So, Taylor has seen a Chester team or two in over three decades walk on the historic court on West Ninth Street. To his recollection, he cannot remember a Chester team as small as the 2024-25 Clippers. Not one player is over 6-foot-3. After they lock up the school at night, Chester’s eight PIAA state championship banners hanging from the main hall ceiling may be asking themselves if they ever recalled a Chester team that could be this short.

Chester is coming off a highly successful rebound season in which the Clippers went 21-5 overall, and 8-0 to win another Del-Val League championship. The Clippers lost to eventual District 1 Class 6A champion Lower Merion in the district semifinals (54-48) and were ousted in the first round of the state playoffs to eventual state semifinalist Reading (65-63).

The Clippers will have a large void to fill in the graduation of 6-foot-6 senior Dominic Toy, who's in his freshman season on the UConn football roster.

Dallas Thompson, a 5-10 senior guard, is the only starter back from last season. He will be joined by 6-3 senior forward Kristian Chambers, 6-1 senior guard Jermaine Glover, 6-2 junior guard Nyrell Pray, 6-3 senior forward Rahmaad Dorsey, 6-foot senior guard Cameron Wilson, and 6-foot junior guard Paul Lindsey, a transfer. Zhir Clayton, a 6-foot freshman guard, could have a major impact this season, as could possibly 6-3 junior twins Daron and Jalen Harris, two high-level football recruits who may opt to play basketball this winter.

“We have no height, I’m looking everywhere for height,” Taylor joked. “It’s possible this could be our shortest team. We feel if our guards can handle some things, we will be okay. This year is like a rebuilding year, with one starter back, and a bunch of young guys coming in, without a whole lot of experience. We will take some lumps here and there.”

Chester could go 10 deep, if the Harris twins play. There are also many unproven commodities like Clayton, who carries big promise, and the offseason improvement of Thompson and Chambers. Thompson will be the Clippers’ No. 1 offensive threat, and Taylor feels he can be a dynamic player in that role, if he can share the ball more often.

While the offense revolves around Thompson, who else could the Clippers go to?

They may have to resort to scoring by committee. The Harris twins, if they play, are major Division I football prospects that are so athletic that they could be D-I basketball recruits if their concentration was on hoops. They could be scoring options. They, along with Toy, brought the vital intangible Clippers’ winning football culture to the basketball court last winter. Chambers could be another option, as could Pray.

But it will need to be the fabled Chester press working overtime for the Clippers to make some headway in the Del-Val and beyond.

“We are mostly going to be a team that scores by committee,” Taylor said. “We are going to do what we usually do, scoring off our defense. At this point, I’m not sure if we can press more than we have in the past, because these guys are young and inexperienced. Our presses are new to them. We run intricate presses that take time to learn. We use multiple defenses, around five or six and that takes time to process.

“These are great character kids. Last year’s team was filled with them. We just ran out of gas in the end. These kids went from one sport to the next, without a break. These kids get a lot of pressure from the community. Everyone will have to be patient with this group. These kids are expected to get pressure from the coaches, but they also get it from the city. I’m not worried about that. Everyone in Chester is a coach. These kids will need to concentrate on what we do inside the gym.”   

Taylor says he loves that challenge each year of teaching new players each year Chester’s vaunted press web. There will be some growing pains early on. Thompson and Chambers will be the leaders of this team are ready to take on part of the responsibility of teaching the new guys what is ahead.

Their primary concern is not to allow opposing teams to speed them up.

“We will need to control the tempo to win,” Chambers said. “I have to be leader vocally and on the court to the younger ones. We will need a lot of off-ball movement, since we don’t have that much size and get shots for ourselves. We will need to stay disciplined.”

Thompson feels his team needs to find an identity.

“We can be really good, but we have to make our name, like Chester always does, using our defense to create offense,” he said. “It will take time. We will need to be patient. We will need to patient of the court, too. Everything takes time. Rome was not built in a day. We will need to control what we can control. I strongly believe we can get to the district championship.”  

Pray and Clayton are looking forward this coming season. They learned over the summer leagues and AAU circuit. They also do not mind being leaned, either.

They embrace it.

Pray missed his sophomore season with an injury. Clayton grew up and is aware of the Chester basketball tradition. Will they endure the physical demands in which Chester plays?

“Chester High always been known for its defense, we pick that up, everything else will come easy,” Pray said. “It is a demanding style we play. I look at last year as fuel. We will definitely run, and we can, because we have a lot of guards. The wins will come. The rebounding will to be a team thing. The more we build chemistry, the more we will be unstoppable.”

Clayton comes from Chester hoops royalty. He knows what it is to uphold the Chester hoops tradition and has a connection to the championship banners. His uncle is Chester legend Darrin Govens, who went on to play at St. Joe’s and still currently plays professionally in Europe.

“I’m ready, and I’m confident in myself,” said Clayton, whose mom is Darrin’s sister. “We will be small. But we will win games by sharing the ball. We will win with defense. I will be patient. We ran a few presses over the summer. You have to know your role and where you have to be. We can be very good if we play together.”

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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 [mobile.twitter.com].