City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
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The 2025 edition of the Donofrio Classic, the 63rd annual spring boys’ basketball all-star tournament in Conshohocken, continued on Friday night with two more first-round playoff games at the Fellowship House. 

Here’s a report from the evening:

Game One: Love Basketball 112, Yellow Jackets 87

Love Basketball had a decided advantage in depth and continuity, seven of its eight players present on Friday also playing together at Academy of the New Church. Yellow Jackets on the other hand only had six available players and it was an uphill fight most of the evening. Archbishop Carroll junior Nasir Ralls was the high scorer with 37 points for Yellow Jackets in an inspired effort but Love Basketball had too much balance and depth. Dior Carter had a big game with 29 points, Isaiah Marshall – the lone non-ANC player – had 20 and Ryan Warren added 18 for Love Basketball. Bryce Rollerson also chipped in 15 points and added six assists.

Game Two: Blue Chips 94, Great American Pub 82

This game was tied 66-66 near the midpoint of the second half, then Blue Chips went on a 22-11 run to take control against a Great American Pub roster composed primarily of Plymouth Whitemarsh players. Colton Hiller had a superb game for Blue Chips, the Coatesville freshman pouring 26 points that included three dunks while Lampeter-Strasburg senior Chase Smucker (Bloomsburg) shot the cover off the ball for 17 points. Thaddeus Lee Jr had 12 points, as did Coatesville senior Nasir Williams who also passed the ball very well. Great American Pub got balanced scoring led by 19 from PW junior big man Michael Pereria and 18 each from Buddy Denard and Ryan Mulroy.

Of note: It was announced as the first-ever playing of Donofrio Classic games on a Friday. The extended PIAA playoff season necessitated condensing the tournament but this week marked the first and only Friday games.

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Long-awaited offers finally arrive for Mulroy

Ryan Mulroy admitted he was close to losing his mind late in the fall.

College programs would poke around a bit, a few had him come on visits, they said a lot of nice things about him as a player, but nobody would go all the way and offer the Upper Dublin senior. Mulroy put it away and was an integral part of a historic season for the Cardinals, one that finally brought what he’d been waiting for.

Mulroy picked up a pair of PSAC offers within days of UD’s season ending, the versatile wing now closing in on a college decision.

“It feels so good,” Mulory said. “It was right after the Bonner game (that ended UD’s season), I was so down and wasn’t really expecting anything, I was thinking about how we’d wanted to go on a state run. The day after that game, Cal PA offered me, it was something I wasn’t expecting to happen.”

Mulory posted his offer from California PA on March 12. Five days later, he was adding Bloomsburg to his official offer sheet.

The senior also said West Chester is also in the mix. He doesn’t have an offer from the Golden Rams yet but has visited campus once and the coaching staff is very interested in having him back again.

“It takes a lot of stress off,” Mulroy said. “The recruitment process has been crazy, it really has been. At the end of the day, I just want to go somewhere that I can play and feel comfortable. The PSAC is a great conference, a lot of those teams can compete with some Division I teams and I definitely feel like I can fit in and play in that conference.”

Mulroy said Cal PA has been in the picture since his junior year. The Vulcans staff, unsurprisingly, latched onto the effort the senior plays with and his willingness to do things beyond scoring then liked the growth he’s shown over the last two seasons.

He’s heard similar things from Bloomsburg and West Chester, the coaches at the next level seeing his development as a blueprint for how he can keep growing as a player while maintaining his effort to defend and rebound.

Still, that didn’t always mean it was easy waiting for something more concrete to come along so UD coach Derek Brooks pulled Mulroy aside late in the fall.

“It’s been insane, there was a moment in the fall where it felt like I was losing my mind,” Mulroy said. “Coach Brooks and I had a meeting right before the season and he just talked to me, basically said ‘if you win, everything will come.’”

Friday night’s run with Great American Pub marked Mulroy’s first real action back on a court since Upper Dublin’s campaign ended against Bonner-Prendergast in the second round of the PIAA Class 5A tournament. He had a typical Mulroy game, scoring 18 points while looking to pass first and also got plenty of run guarding Coatesville’s standout freshman Colton Hiller.

During the season, UD and Plymouth Whitemarsh are serious rivals but Mulroy was grateful the mostly-PW roster of Great American Pub found a spot for him on Friday.

At this point, the senior said he’s not planning to play AAU this summer. He’s eager to find a home at the next level sooner rather than later and is planning to make a decision in the next couple weeks.

“During the season, I tried not to think about it, I said I’m just going to play and focus on the season,” Mulroy said. “And it really did come the way I wanted it to.”

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Godhania weighing options after strong senior season

North Penn senior Ahmaar Godhania has always felt anything worth having is worth working for.

In his four years playing for the Knights, Godhania certainly worked his way up from JV as a freshman to starter and all-league selection. This past season, he earned Second Team All-SOL Colonial honors – his second all-SOL nod – while averaging 16 ppg and shooting better than 37 percent from three.

He’s not settling on just that however.

“Since I started playing for real, that was the goal, to play at the next level,” Godhania said. “I wanted to have a good high school career then take it to the next level.

“You always have to put the work in. You don’t just get confidence; you have to earn it by putting the work in.”

Godhania, a 6-foot-1 guard, does have an offer on the table from Penn State-Brandywine. The PSU Brandywine coaches extended a roster spot on in late March and were at the Fel on Friday as Godhania came off the bench for Great American Pub to splash a couple threes in his minutes.

“I appreciate them coming out,” Godhania said. “They came to one of my games this season, really liked me as a player then had me out a few weeks ago, I got an offer and have been talking with them ever since.” 

In an era where instant gratification reigns, Godhania appreciates the path he took throughout his high school career.

“You gotta start at the bottom to get to the top,” Godhania said. “That’s how it was with my North Penn career and I always told myself the work will show eventually and it did these last two years.”

A really strong outside shooter, Godhania worked a good bit over the last two years to be more of a playmaker, a better defender, a stronger rebounder and most importantly, someone who could stay in the game even if he wasn’t making shots.  

This season also brought some change to the program, Kordell Lord moving from assistant to head coach after John Conrad stepped down. That put Godhania into a more prominent leadership position as a senior, something he grew into this year.

“I was one of the captains this year,” Godhania said. “I’ve always been close with him, I think he’s a great coach and I hope he only continues to take the program farther and farther.”

Godhania said he’s not sure if he’s going to play this summer, the guard adding that playing in the Donofrio Classic ignited a little bit of a spark in him.

At the same time, he also knows he’s got a pretty good opportunity at PSU-Brandywine so it’ll be a matter of deciding what his best fit is.

“It’s small, but I really liked the campus,” Godhania said. “It felt like home.”

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Rollerson taking expanded game into important summer

Bryce Rollerson knew he’d be giving up some offense as the cost of becoming a better player.

An electrifying scorer in three seasons at Germantown Academy, Rollerson knew if he wanted to get to the next level, he’d have to show he could do more than just put the ball through the rim. Last offseason, he made the move to transfer to Academy of the New Church and reclassified to the Class of 2026.

He didn’t score as much, but he was part of a championship team at ANC.

“The adjustment was great and we ended up winning a championship,” Rollerson said. “We went through some adversity early on, we lost a couple games early but after that we started to get our rhythm together.”

Rollerson thanked ANC coaches Kevin and Shannon Givens for bringing him in and working to round out his game. The 6-foot guard was just one of many talented players on the Lions roster, so he went from looking for his shot first to instead looking for a teammate first.

Playing with a majority of his ANC teammates on Love Basketball in the Donofrio Classic, Rollerson struck a good balance on Friday. He scored 15 points, which was far from the team lead, and mixed in six assists.

“I definitely had more of a point guard role,” Rollerson said. “I had to make sure I got everybody involved, we’ve got a lot of great players on this team who can showcase their ability so I have to make sure they’re getting theirs and I’m making the right plays and making the right reads so everybody stays involved in the game.”

The guard said he was pretty confident in his game, it was just a matter of making sure it showed in the games. Playing with Dior Carter and Ryan Warren prior to arriving at ANC helped and Rollerson and Carter will keep that rolling this summer playing with Philly Pride.

Rollerson earned First Team All-Friends School League honors this season, so he’s going into the summer months with plenty more confidence.

“I have to keep going and use the momentum of the season into AAU and get after it hard in AAU,” Rollerson said. “I just want to keep showing my all-around game, especially my defense. I think ANC really helped me with my defense and then keep being the best player I can on offense.”

Love Basketball will return to the Fellowship House on April 10 to face Positive Image White in the second round.

Rollerson said he doesn’t have any college offers yet but he knows he can change that just by going out, playing hard and showing the additions he’s made to his game over the last year. 

“Playing on big stages like at La Salle in a championship game and playing with the great guys I have around me, it was a chance to showcase my abilities,” Rollerson said.