City of Basketball Love

Finn Courtney (@finncourtney_)
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(Ed. Note: This story was supposed to be part of CoBL’s “Prepping for Preps” series, but wasn't published due to an editorial oversight. Apologies for the delay! The complete list of schools previewed this season can be found here.)

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After a season of opposites in Ryan Krawczeniuk’s first season coaching at Cardinal O’Hara, a season in which the Lions started the season 10-2 but collapsed to lose nine of their last 10 games, he and a young O’Hara team will look for consistency in Krawczeniuk’s second year.

“We have a lot of young guys that are gonna be playing this year, that we’re really high on, but we think we’re gonna be a very competitive team long term,” Krawczeniuk said. “Early on in the season, we got to work through some bumps [but] come January, come PCL time, we are going to be right there in the thick of things.”

The Lions also are missing a big piece this year in guard Milak Myatt, who led O’Hara in scoring with 16 points per game but transferred to Life Center for his senior campaign. This year, if the Lions want to be competitive, they will need a big year out of senior guard Jack Quinn who will jump from complementary starter (7.1 ppg, 4.4 rbg, 2.3 apg, 1.7 spg last season) to taking on a large part of the offensive workload. 

Quinn will be aided by incoming 6-6 junior DJ Jones (son of former St Joe’s star Dwayne Jones), the forward coming from the Sanford School in Delaware and should help out in the size battle - something critical in an ubercompetitive Catholic League this season. But Krawczeniuk knows this will not be a one-man show - he’ll need consistently great team performances on the offensive end.

“I think it’s going to be more of a game-by-game, committee-type scoring, we have a lot of guys this year that could put the ball in the hole and the way we want to play this year is a little bit different,” Krawczeniuk said. “It’s a lot more motion offense, we’ve been working all fall and summer and spring on building a motion offense, really teaching our kids how to make reads and play real basketball. I don’t know if we’re gonna replace Milak in terms of having a [16 point per game] scorer, but I think in terms of our overall scoring, it might be by committee instead of more geared towards one person.”

For Quinn, who’s spent his entire high school time as a Lion, the prospect of this being his final year is emotional but it’s also a final opportunity he knows he and his team can take full advantage of, a team he’s now become a leader of.

“It is a bittersweet feeling, just because I’ve been waiting to be a senior but it’s also sad because it’s going to be my last year here,” Quinn said. “We have to play for each other and we have a lot of talent on our team. [...] The lessons I’ve learned from the guys ahead of me were it’s got to be a collective effort and it’s not on one guy, like no one’s going to come and save you. You got to really grind and winning’s hard, so you just got to grind for it sometimes.”

Outside of Quinn and Jones, senior guard Kahseem Bronzell and juniors Kaleb Hargrove and Gabe Skehan will also take big steps forward from rotation pieces to likely regular starters for Krawczeniuk. Beyond those three, seniors Toby Hartman and Matt Smith, junior Trent Baker, junior Kiyen Alexander (transferred in from St. Elizabeth’s in Delaware) and freshmen Drew Baskerville and 6-6 wing Dylan Jones (DJ’s younger brother) are likely to fight it out for playing time off the bench, with the two freshmen, Krawczeniuk hopes, making a big impact right away this season.

For the 5-10 Hargrove, who started six games for the Lions last season, and Skehan who got into just seven games total last year, Krawczeniuk took note of their development in the offseason - development that will make them key cogs in the O’Hara machine this time round.

“[Both] are stepping into a much bigger roles this year,” Krawczeniuk said. “Kaleb saw some varsity minutes but come PCL time, his minutes dwindled a little bit. But these kids put a ton of work in, not just with me, but with AAU and their trainers, even in the weight room.”

In Quinn’s eyes, who’s taken on a leadership role heading into this season, he sees a ton of talent up and down the roster - talent that gives him a ton of confidence in where this team can go.

“Just knowing that anyone can go for 15 on any given night and just trusting each other is going to be really key for us,” Quinn said. “I think that Toby Hartman’s gonna surprise a lot of people, because a lot of people know that Gabe and Kaleb are really good and DJ’s really good, but Toby’s the glue guy for us and he’s just going to really surprise.”

Cardinal O’Hara will open the season in the Big Apple against Our Savior Lutheran (N.Y.) on Dec. 5 and then face off with SCH Academy, Scranton Prep, Lancaster Mennonite, Abington Heights in nonleague play. The Lions will open the Catholic League slate at home against Devon Prep away on Jan. 2 and after the disappointing 4-9 record last year in conference play, Krawczeniuk believes this team to be ready more for it this time around.

“It’s a lot, I feel like we’re a lot more prepared for the grind of the season, you don’t know what you don’t know until you go through it,” Krawczeniuk said. “And having gone through that fire last year, I think from a coaching standpoint and a player standpoint, I think we’re much better prepared to deal with that than we were last year.”

Now entering a second year heading up this team, Krawczeniuk expects this team to know what mindset and attitude to have day in and day out, expects them to understand the expectations and buy in all season long.

“It’s more about comfortability this year, I got the job I think the second-to-last week in April last year and then it was a full-on sprint to try to build a culture, implement a system, get to know these kids, get them to know us, understand each other, so there was a lot of learning last year on both ends,” Krawczeniuk said. “I think coming back into this season, our kids know what to expect, they know what I want, they know what we demand. [...] It’s not necessarily that they didn’t buy in [last year but] I think they just needed more time and coming into year two, these kids know exactly what they’re getting into and we’re really looking forward to it.”