City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)

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PHILADELPHIA, PA — The heat was not on at Neumann-Goretti on Saturday, so Saints’ legendary coach Carl Arrigale took his team to practice at the rec center in 4th and Shunk streets to get in some light work and review the tape of their loss against Archbishop Wood on Friday night.

Call it a “Coming to Carl” moment, much like the team meeting Arrigale held late last season when the Saints rediscovered themselves and won the PIAA Class 5A state championship. The team spoke about trusting one another, and believing in each other. They spoke about not getting down on themselves so easily, forgetting the bad play or missed shot and moving on.

They spoke about how they should be playing better than they were, losers of three of their last four games entering Sunday’s critical matchup against defending Catholic League champion Father Judge, which ousted the Saints from the Catholic League playoffs last season.

They spoke about what it will take to win the Catholic League title, PIAA District 12 Class 5A championship and repeat as PIAA Class 5A state champions.

It looks like the talk took—at least for the moment.

The Saints used a massive second half to come back and beat Judge, 71-66, in front of a jammed-packed gym to move to 7-3 in the Catholic League (14-4 overall), behind a game-high 23 points from Deshawn Yates, 14 apiece from Kody Colson and Marquis Newson, and 10 from London Collins, including consecutive three-pointers late in the third quarter that changed the course of the game.

The Saints received word that they will be without stellar guard Stephan “Munchie” Ashley-Wright for the season due to injury, which shifted more burden on Colson, Yates, and sophomore EJ Stanton, who was exceptional, adding 9 points.

“We had to trust the guy who was open today, and we’ve really had a problem with that this year,” Arrigale admitted. “It hurt our defense and it hurt our offense. If we don’t believe in each other and trust each other, what are we doing this for? I know these kids get a lot of (outside) advise some good, some bad, from a lot of people and it is unfortunate for the kids that they have to go through that.

“We sat in a room at the rec center and aired some things out, watching the Wood tape from Friday night. It was not anything crazy. We just spoke to them about trusting each other and being better. This team should be playing better than it is. We get down on ourselves as soon as something goes wrong. With Munchie out, we’re going to have to get something from everyone. Our confidence was wavering a little. We playing sideways too much and not attacking. We had to trust each other.”

Like trusting Collins in the corner with 1:43 left in the third that gave Neumann-Goretti its second lead of the game, 41-40, and trusting Collins again with a three on the next trip, giving the Saints a 44-40 lead, which they would not relinquish.

Like trusting Yates play downhill, using his junkyard dog mentality to attack Judge’s bigs and finish with 16 points in the second half, nine in the game-turning third quarter.

“They made some shots that pulled us out of our zone in the third quarter,” Judge coach Chris Roantree said. “They made that quick 9-0 run, and we missed some threes with really good looks, and we had to come out and guard their guards in the fourth quarter, and they are really quick, tough guards to guard. We’re still in the playoff picture. We’re not going to look ahead.

“What I liked is how we battled. What we need to figure out is we have to pull out the close games and see where out breakdowns came defensively.”

Defense had been an issue with Neumann-Goretti, though a tactic the Saints used on Sunday may find further use ahead. Neumann-Goretti has the kind of guards who can be in two places at once, able to defend the player that they are guarding, and the speed and quickness to sneak up backside and knock the ball away from a unsuspecting ballhandler without being detected.

On four-straight trips, it’s what the Saints did defensively to turn the tide of the game around, forcing Judge turnovers on backdoor double-team steals.

“It isn’t anything we do intentionally, we do it off instinct and it comes from the high basketball IQ we have on this team,” Yates said. “We knew the mismatches, and who could handle the ball and who couldn’t. This builds our confidence. We were coming off two-straight losses, and three of our last four games. This could have been the end of our season. We spoke about balling up our fists and playing.

“I’m still sweating, ready to play.”

Collins had not been shooting well lately. He also said he may have been hesitant a week ago taking the corner three in the third quarter. Collins transferred in from California and had not seen snow in four years. He felt warm and cozy on Sunday.

“My teammates trusted me and kept passing me the ball,” Collins said. “I let the other shots fly, because I hit some early shots. I’ll do whatever it takes for us to win. If I have to shoot, or do the dirty work, I’m ready for it.”

Arrigale felt Collins may have not been fed in the corner for the open three in the Wood loss if he missed his first shot.

“My thing is, if he missed the first shot, you still pass him the ball for the second one,” Arrigale said. “We need to do that moving forward. To combat hard, you have to work hard. We’re down a soldier, Munchie is not coming back, and we have to figure it out.”

It looks like Neumann-Goretti is getting there—again.

By Quarter

Father Judge (9-10, 6-4 Catholic League):  16  | 12  |  12  |  26 ||  66

Neumann-Goretti (14-4, 7-3 Catholic League):  11  | 12  |  23  | 25 || 71

Scoring

Father Judge: Max Moshinski 17, Rocco Westfield 17, Derrick Morton-Rivera 14, Jeremiah Adedeji 9, Nazir Tyler 5, Khory Copeland 4.

Neumann-Goretti: Deshawn Yates 23, Kody Colson 14, Marquis Newson 14, London Collins 10, EJ Stanton 9, Allassane N'Diaye 1.

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here.