City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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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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The Pope John Paul II boys basketball program will get a chance to tussle with the big boys this year.

In his second year at the helm of the Golden Panthers, coach Earl Wise will lead his team’s elevation to the league’s larger school Liberty Division in the first year of the Pioneer Athletic Conference’s realignment.

“I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year,” senior Jake Robinson said. “I think people are expecting us to come out and struggle in the new division, and I guess we’ll see, but I don’t think we will.”

PJP won or shared the Frontier Division title for four straight seasons from 2017-18 to 2021-22, reaching two league title games and winning a conference crown during that stretch. Before Phoenixville won the PAC last year, the Golden Panthers were the league’s only small division program to win a title since the league went to the two-division format (2017-18).

That’s a big reason why the league’s ‘competitive balance formula’ is sending PJP to the Liberty Division and Owen J. Roberts to the Frontier Division, which were previously based on solely on school enrollment.

However, it’s now been two years without a league postseason appearance for the Golden Panthers. PJP went 10-11 (7-3 Frontier) in 2022-23, losing out on a tiebreaker with Upper Merion and Pottstown. Last season under Wise, the Golden Panthers went 12-12 (6-4 Frontier), finishing third in the division, but claimed the school’s first District 1-4A title since going back-to-back in 2020 and 2021.

“It was definitely frustrating to not make PAC playoffs, especially with the end of the year push we had, but obviously in districts we performed good,” Robinson said. “Having that experience this year and we had a few guys that played, a bunch of guys who have that playoff experience now, so they won’t be as nervous as we maybe were last year.”

PJP graduated four seniors and lost another key contributor in Braden Reed (Villanova football commit), who is preparing for his career on the gridiron. There is still plenty of experience back from last year’s run.

Robinson is a 6-3 stretch forward who is one of the team’s leaders. Wise’s son Ayden, a 6-1 junior point guard, Denny Owens, a 6-3 senior forward, and Jason Green, a 6-2 junior guard, are three other key pieces returning to the lineup.

Juniors Chris Hestick and Jack Kessler are two more players coach Wise is looking for to step up this season. The Golden Panthers have two other additions with varsity experience in 6-3 forward Zahaid Edwards-Boone (Upper Merion) and senior 5-11 guard Damian Savior (Renaissance Academy).

“I think we’re going to be really deep and really fun to watch with our play and pace,” Earl Wise said. “And that’s what the offseason has allowed me to do is kind of install the things that we want to do.”

The Golden Panthers started 3-8 under Wise last year before winning nine of their next 12 games, which included dominant wins over Springfield Twp. and Bishop Shanahan in the District 1-4A tournament. They followed with an opening round loss to Overbrook in the PIAA Class 4A playoffs.

Wise and Robinson noted the chemistry took time last season between the players and between the players and their new coach. PJP hopes to set the tone early this season by getting out to a strong start.

The Golden Panthers will get some good tests in Central Bucks South and West, Sankofa Freedom and Berks Catholic (CoBL Winter Classic) before jumping into Liberty Division play against crosstown rival Spring-Ford on Dec. 10 in the Battle of Royersford.

“I feel like last year with a new coach and everything, I think you could look at our record and see we started winning games later in the year,” Robinson said. “I think this year, now that we have that connection already, we’ll just start off strong and it will be a lot easier knowing him and he knows us.”

The keys for PJP this season will be to play with pace and share the ball, which Wise said will be the program’s strategy in taking down some of the bigger and deeper teams of the Liberty Division.

Wise, a pastor at a church he opened in Fleetwood, compares the Golden Panthers’ philosophy to taking down those division ‘giants’ to the biblical tale of David and Goliath. The little David threw stone after stone at the giant Goliath before finishing him off with the sword.

“We’re going to every quarter just try to run and get out, play fast, shoot threes and force you to guard us and really force the pace,” Earl Wise said. “And throw the stone, throw the stone, throw stone and hopefully we take your legs away and late in the game and then we cut your head off with the sword — finish the game.”