City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of CoBL's "Prepping for Preps," our series of articles previewing area high school teams for the 2015-16 season. For the complete list of schools previewed so far, click here)

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Get to the Palestra.

That is the goal of every Catholic League team, to make it to the league semifinals played at the famous Cathedral of College Basketball in West Philadelphia.

It is no different for the Archbishop Wood Vikings, who are coming off their best season under third-year coach John Mosco. After an 18-6 season in 2014-15, more and more attention is being paid to the program in Warminster.

“We still have to crawl before we walk,” Mosco said. “So that is our next goal, to get to the Palestra and play for a Catholic League championship. I know that in the league, everyone is picking Roman and Neumann, which they should, but we are trying to get to the point where people are talking about us like that.”

The school, which is predominately known for its stellar football program, has been gaining momentum on the hardwood of late. The Vikings earned a hard-fought signature win at Roman Catholic last season, the first home loss for the Cahillites since 2011.

A week later, the two teams rematched and Roman ended Wood’s season, in the PCL quarterfinals, one game short of an appearance at the Palestra. That feeling has certainly carried over as the team is reloaded and ready to take the next step.

“The first goal for us is to take that step and be in the top four and make it to the Palestra and be one of the upper-echelon teams in the league,” senior guard Tommy Funk said. “Once we get there to be able to compete with those teams, have a few big wins and then compete for a Catholic League Championship and move on in the playoffs.”

Funk, a 6-foot-tall senior, has already committed to attend West Point and play on the Army basketball team. The guard will be counted upon to step up and lead the Vikings. Especially after the departure of star Luke Connaghan, who graduated after last season; he'll play his college basketball at Division III DeSales (Pa.)

His shoes will be hard to fill, nobody doubts that, not just for his gaudy scoring output, but for his leadership abilities. It will not just be up to Funk to lead the team this season. As Mosco points out, the team is loaded with depth of young talent, it's more of a waiting game now, to see how they handle the spotlight; he named two sophomore forwards in particular who will have a chance to replace Connaghan.

“Luke is going to be hard to replace, he averaged 25 and 10, he was our best player,” Mosco said. “So we are going to try and do it by committee, we have to young bigs, Karrington Wallace and Seth Pinkney, so they will get a chance to show what they can do right off the bat, so hopefully by committee they can share it and get it done.”

Another one of those players who will take some of the pressure off of Funk is junior Collin Gillespie. Gillespie, a 6-foot-1 combo guard, will certainly have his work cut out for him this season, but he is focused.

Gillispie was a two sport athlete for the Vikings, playing on both the basketball and football teams. This fall though, he made the difficult decision to focus only on basketball and leave his football career behind.

“It was a tough decision, but if I want to play basketball in college, I need to focus more on basketball,” Gillespie said. “Keep my game at the highest level it can be.”

The junior has heard from Patriot League schools Bucknell, Lafayette and Holy Cross after a pretty successful summer on the AAU circuit. With basketball being his only focus, it will be interesting to see how that translates onto the court for the Vikings this upcoming season.

The final piece to the Wood puzzle, without a doubt, is 6-foot-3 sophomore wing Tyree Pickron. Pickron exploded onto the scene last season, earning a starting spot in his freshman season and recorded an impressive 14 points and 14 rebounds in the aforementioned upset victory over Roman Catholic.

For the season, he averaged double-figures, a rare feat in the toughest high school league in the state.

Pickron has the type of raw athleticism that can translate at the next level; now he just needs to start perfecting the fundamentals and there is no telling where his talent could take him.

“Tyree has to realize now that he goes from number five on the scouting report to one of the top two guys, so the best defenders are going to be guarding him and he has to play smart,” Mosco said. “His shooting is getting better, he is handling the ball a lot better, his decision making is a lot better, so he is working on those aspects of his game.”

Pickron will have a lot to do if he is to top last season’s performance. He added that “it’s going to be pretty hard, but you know I am up for the challenge.”

Wood will open the season on December 5 against JP McCaskey and then play Central Bucks West before traveling to Arizona for a Christmas tournament. The Vikings have the ability to hang around the top of the PCL again this year, however, it just won’t be so much of a surprise if they do.

“I think we can compete with anybody that we play against,” Gillispie added. “If we put the time in the weight room and in the gym, if we can all play together, we can beat anybody that we play.”