City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Onyx Nnani came to the Philadelphia area three years ago from Edmonton, Alberta, unsure of what was in store. The 6-foot-9 Canadian wing forward was going to be a sophomore at Malvern’s Phelps School, after playing his freshman year at Archbishop O’Leary in his hometown. 

“Where I’m from, especially, there’s this weird stigma that Americans are soft,” he said. “They’re all about the highlights and stuff.”

It didn’t take long for him to find out that was far from true. 

“When I first got down here, it was a huge shock to me,” he said, “because Philly basketball, they play very hard, they’re very gritty. So my first two weeks here, it was very hard.”

For the last three years, playing on one of the area’s top prep-level teams, he’s going up against countless Division I prospects and high-level programs, including on his own team. Nnani leaves the Main Line this summer for Jonesboro (Ark.) and a scholarship at Arkansas State, with a whole new understanding of American hoops — and a state championship medal in his pocket. 

With Nnani and fellow senior Justin Houser leading the way, the Lions ended a 10-year drought in the Pennsylvania Independent School Athletic Association (PAISAA) tournament on Sunday, the Phelps School downing the Hill School 66-56 to take home the title.

The pair of forwards sat the media room podium at Saint Joseph’s Hagan Arena afterwards, having come to Phelps during the 2022 offseason as big-time prospects and leaving it as big-time players. They both had double-doubles: Nnani scoring 20 points and grabbing 11 rebounds; Houser, a 7-foot left-hander and Penn State commit, scored 15 points and collected 10 rebounds along with three blocks. Fellow senior Kodi Johnson, a 6-5 wing, added 10 points to round out the double-figure scorers.

“It’s been a long three years, this is just meaningful,” Nnani said. “We’re able to develop together; ending our high school careers with a win, and especially with someone who you’ve been with the past three years, the feeling’s amazing.

“Just a chapter of my life I didn’t know I was going to have,” he added, “but I’m happy that I did. And I’m sure what I learned here and what I’ve experienced here is going to help me in my future endeavors.”

The Phelps School boys celebrate the 2025 PAISAA championship. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The No. 12 seed in the PAISAA tournament, Phelps entered the postseason with a record of just 9-19, Trey Morin’s program dealing with a host of injuries throughout the year. But the talent level on the roster was high, and a much-healthier squad entered the postseason with a chip on its shoulder. 

“We just treated it as straight motivation,” Houser said of the seeding, which is assigned by a committee. “We know that we’re a lot better than the 12-seed, but we took the disrespect as motivation and fire, and we practiced and played our hardest throughout the entire playoffs.”

The Lions beat No. 5 Academy New Church and No. 4 SCH Academy in the first two rounds, then beat defending champ Perkiomen School on Friday in a rematch of last year’s title game. That set up a rematch with No. 3 seed Hill, which had overcome a 10-point deficit in the final two minutes to win at the buzzer in an early-February matchup. 

Sunday’s championship looked like it would be yet another close finish, the teams knotted at 43 through three quarters. Hill senior guard Jacob Meachem (15 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists) and junior wing Ethan Johnston (17 points, 6 rebounds) did much of the heavy lifting, aiming to bring 24th-year Hill coach Seth Eilberg his first crown since 2018.

But it was Phelps that closed strong, bringing Morin his first title in his second stint with the program. A Massachusetts native and graduate of Salem State (Mass.), Morin first came to Phelps for two seasons beginning in 2019; he returned in 2023 after two years at St. Andrew’s Episcopal (Tex.), inheriting a group that included Houser and Nnani as rising juniors. 

Those two opened the fourth quarter with and-ones to give Phelps a lead it didn’t hand back. The lead was still six when junior guard David Bottomley hit the bottom of the net from well beyond the college arc, making it 59-50 with 2:40 to play. Hill responded with five straight, but free throws from Houser and juniors Nyce Bakare and Tyler Wallace helped Phelps put the finishing touches on the win. 

“It means so much,” Houser said. “It’s the dream way to go out, we just won a state championship on our last game of the season. For me, it’s the best ending possible.”

Eilberg, sitting next to Meachem at the post-game podium, held back tears as he talked about his Bucknell-bound point guard. A Pottstown native, Meachem has been on the Hill varsity roster for four years, something of a rarity in the high-level prep-school world, with plenty of players transferring in to reclassify or doing post-graduate years. 

“I’m proud of our school, our program, and most importantly — yeah we’ve had basketball success, but we have awesome, awesome guys, great kids, and especially this one,” Eilberg said. “Four-year senior, no one deserved to win a state championship more than him, and we didn’t get it done today but it’s not because of anything that he didn’t put into his career and I’m so proud of him. 

“Everybody around this program just helps me to be the best version of myself and do everything that I could possibly do for these four years that I’ve been here,” Meachem said, the 1000-point scorer adding he was most proud of “everything I’ve accomplished as an individual, from the help of Coach [Eilberg] right here and all the other coaches on the coaching staff. And most importantly everything that I’ve accomplished from having great teammates here.”

Both teams will hurt from graduation, to be sure, but both have plenty returning to feel good about. Johnston, a 6-5 wing with high-major offers, has a year of eligibility left, as does starting wing Caleb Jameson, who had three 3-pointers for nine points; those two will have to help school another crop of post-graduates next year. 

Phelps had two juniors in the lineup in Bottomley and Nyce Bakare. The rest of the Lions lineup featured some promising underclassmen in sophomore Sulley Janiwade and freshman Moon Yue, and there are always going to be a few new faces in the mix as well. 

“My first thought after we won is ‘how are going to do this again?’ which probably isn’t the most healthy thing in the world,” Morin said. “But I can’t help it.”

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By Quarter
Phelps: 14  |  15  |  14  |  23  ||  66
Hill:       11  |  17  |  15  |  13  ||  56

Shooting
Phelps: 22-49 FG (5-18 3PT), 17-25 FT
Hill: 20-60 FG (5-17 3PT), 11-14 FT

Scoring
Phelps: Onyx Nnani 20, Justin Houser 15, David Bottomley 12, Kodi Johnson 10, Nyce Bakare 7, Tyler Wallace 2

Hill: Ethan Johnston 17, Jacob Meachem 15, Filippo Galli 9, Caleb Jameson 9, Charlie Hewitt 4, Quadri Bashiru 2