City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
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The path to becoming one of college basketball’s most electrifying dunkers began several years ago with a single dunk in an empty gym on a hot summer day.

For Christian Ings, a Neumann-Goretti product who is now a graduate student at Norfolk State, which is preparing for a first-round NCAA tournament game on Friday against Florida, that first dunk still resonates.

Ings said he was either about to turn or had just turned 14 when he and some of his future high school teammates finished playing a game during a team camp. Afterwards, he decided to hang around the deserted gym to see if he could finally dunk. He was only about 5-foot-9 at the time, but, with his already extraordinary bounce, he thought he could throw one down.

After several self alley-oop passes, he was close. He just couldn’t quite get the timing down. Then, finally, perfection.

“Right at the end, I got one,” Ings recalled. “That was all she wrote about me dunking. Dunking is very fun — I don’t think dunking will ever get old.”

Ings is much more than a dunker these days, as he leads 16-seed Norfolk State (24-10), champion of the MEAC, into a matchup against top-seed Florida (30-4), champion of the SEC, in a West region matchup. Tipoff is scheduled for 6:50 PM in Raleigh, N.C. The game will be broadcast on TNT.

Ings is no stranger to the spotlight. Earlier this season, on February 24 during Senior Night against Morgan State, his two second-half dunks were named the first and third top plays on the subsequent SportsCenter Top 10. 

On the first dunk, the 6-foot-2 Ings drove down the lane and dunked on a 6-foot-9 Morgan State defender. The home crowd and his teammates lost it.

“I enjoy dunking on people more,” Ings said. “When you catch a body, it can be demoralizing.”

His next dunk — less than 90 seconds later on a fastbreak — was a powerful windmill variety.

For his efforts, SportsCenter named Ings the winner of its “Best Visual Effects” award — it was an Academy Awards-themed episode that night — and then interviewed him on air for nearly three minutes.

“I was more excited than nervous,” he said of the interview. “I just wanted to be myself.”

His coach, Robert Jones, had a message for Ings.

“I just told him to stay level-headed,” said Jones, now in his 12th season as Norfolk State’s head coach. “Honestly, we know what he can do. He’s been dunking on people for four years.”

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Ings’ coach at Neumann-Goretti was Carl Arrigale, who has won 12 Philadelphia Catholic League and nine PIAA state titles; Neumann-Goretti’s home court is named after the legendary coach.

“He loves to dunk,” Arrigale said. “From the day he walked in, he always had incredible hops.”

Arrigale said that Ings also walked in without the greatest reputation.

“They said he wasn’t coachable,” Arrigale said. “He was the complete opposite. He was always on board. He was a kid who wanted to come to Neumann-Goretti. He took the challenge. He took all the proper steps. He embraced every opportunity.”

Ings was on the JV team as a freshman and, as Arrigale said, would play during “garbage time” of varsity games.  As a sophomore, Ings was exclusively on the varsity and was the team’s sixth man, playing what Arrigale called “starter minutes.”

Ings blossomed as a junior when he earned third-team All-PCL honors. He was named first-team All-PCL as a senior. Along the way, he won three PIAA state championships.

“Oh, man — so many memories,” Ings said. “I wouldn’t be who I am without Neumann-Goretti and the coaches. … We had a lot of coaches there who really cared about you.”

Even though Ings has had an entire college career at Norfolk State — where he has scored 1,000 points in his four years, won two MEAC championships, experienced the pain of a season-ending injury, grown both on and off the court because of that injury — that is not where his college journey began.

Ings started out at Rider in Lawrenceville, N.J. — about 40 miles and an hour drive from Neumann-Goretti. 

As a freshman at Rider, he played in all 30 games and made 18 starts, averaging 4.9 points in 18.4 minutes per game in a season shortened by COVID. It was during that season in a home game against Niagara that his alley-oop dunk on a baseline out-of-bounds play first landed him on the SportsCenter Top 10. 

When he was a sophomore during the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, he was a full-time starter and averaged 7.7 points in 25.2 minutes per game. 

Ings decided it was time for a change following his second season at Rider. He said his AAU coach Kyle Sample helped connect him with Norfolk State. He met the coaches there and had a phone call with former Norfolk State star Kyle O’Quinn — a 2012 grad and eight-year NBA veteran whose number is retired by the school — to help seal the deal.

“Coming here and restarting my college career felt like a second chance,” Ings said. “I had a chance to show people what I can do. Credit to the coaches. They made it feel like home. They let me be me. It’s been an amazing experience. I’m just glad I was able to come down here.”

Norfolk State, an HBCU with an undergraduate enrollment of approximately 5,300, is located approximately 275 miles and five hours from Philadelphia, but to Ings it has become home.

“This seemed like it would be great for me, and it has been,” Ings said. “I like being able to depend on the people I am around.”

Ings found a home right away on the court.

“He’s been a starter since day one,” Jones said. “He’s played a lot of games in a Norfolk State uniform, and he’s done a lot of winning. His impact on the community has been great and, of course, now the dunks people are finally seeing, but he’s been doing that shit for four years. He’s had an impact nationally, which has helped the Norfolk State brand grow, so he’s definitely been impactful to the program.”

Ings, who has played in 101 games and scored 1,008 points while at Norfolk State, was a starter his first year with the Spartans when they finished 24-7, won the MEAC championship and lost to defending champ and No. 1-seed Baylor in the first round of the 2022 NCAA tournament.

He picked up right where he left off during the 2022-23 season, his second at Norfolk State, scoring 10.1 points per game, before he suffered a torn ACL during an early January game  against Maryland-Eastern Shore. His season was over.

“This was really the first time being hurt; I was never down for months before,” he said. “It was the first time basketball was taken from me. I couldn’t play basketball no matter how much I wanted.”

He said handling the physical pain was one thing, but he didn’t anticipate the mental aspect of the injury. 

“My family and the community kept me going,” he said. “It helped me realize there is more to basketball than playing. It helped me take a step back and learn the game a little more. It definitely helped me do a lot of self growth.”

Arrigale was confident that his former player would come back from the setback.

“I felt terrible for him,” Arrigale said. “He’s a worker. I knew that wouldn’t hold him back.”

Last season, his third at Norfolk State, Ings returned to the court. In one of his first games back, a late November contest against William & Mary, he dunked in a game — it was like dunking for the first time all over again.

“It made me feel right,” Ings said. “I wasn’t sure how much bounce I’d have. Just to be able to do that made me feel right.”

Ings (above) is wrapping up a six-year collegiate career in the NCAA Tournament. (Photo courtesy NSU Athletics).

As the season progressed, Ings got stronger. Norfolk State finished the season by winning the CIT postseason championship, and Ings earned MVP honors of the tournament.

“That carried over to this year,” Jones said.

Ings is averaging a career-best 11.9 points and 3.2 assists in 27.3 points per game this season, shooting 49.1% from the floor and 47.9% (34-of-71) from long range. He earned third-team All-MEAC honors earlier this month.

“The athleticism is back 100 percent,” Jones said. “You can tell. 100 percent.”

As Ings said: “I think I’ve reached a new level this year.”

Ings scored a team-best 16 points, including the game-winning free throw with eight seconds left, in Norfolk State’s 66-65 win over South Carolina State in the MEAC championship game. As a result, Ings will be playing in his second NCAA tournament.

“It’s a surreal feeling,” he said. “There are a lot of great players who never played in the NCAA tournament. This will be my second time. It’s just a blessing.”

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A 16-seed has defeated a one-seed twice in NCAA tournament history — in 2023 when Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue, and in 2018 when UMBC topped Virginia.

Norfolk State is a 28.5-point underdog against Florida. Making history won’t be easy.

“We work and play a schedule like we do for these games,” Ings said. “We’re trying to get past the MEAC and win games in the tournament. It’s a basketball game. It’s 40 minutes.”

Once the season ends, Ings and teammate Tyrel Bladen, 6-foot-10 forward out of Coatesville and a key reserve for the Spartans — who Ings called a “gem” and “a monster on the court” — will be playing together in the HBCU All-Star game on April 6 in San Antonio.

In May, Ings will graduate — again. He already has one degree in interdisciplinary studies and this spring he will get a second degree — this one in sociology.

After that, he wants to spend extended time with his family and see where his basketball career can take him.

“We’ve only seen each other in bits and pieces,” Ings said.

And when he’s back home to visit his family, like he always does when he’s back in Philadelphia, he will stop by Neumann Goretti to see his high school coach and visit the gym where he made so many memories.

“Whenever he’s home, he pops around,” Arrigale said. “He loves to be in the gym. He gets his shots up. He’s run up and down. He’s really good with our guys.”

Arrigale catches as many of Ings’ games as he can, but he won’t be able to watch Friday night. His Neumann-Goretti team will be playing at the same time in a PIAA Class 5A semifinal against Upper Moreland.

But, no doubt, Arrigale will be thinking about his former player who cares so much about.

“It’s been kind of neat,” Arrigale said. “I’m just proud of him. Each year he comes back, he’s a little more mature. He seems to be in a good place, which makes me feel good. As you can tell, I love him.”