City of Basketball Love

Teddy Bailey (@TheTeddyBailey)
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After the Wildcats defeated Seton Hall 72-63 on Wednesday night at The Pavilion, Villanova senior guard and Neshaminy product Ryan Arcidiacono spoke about the incident involving Neshaminy head coach Jerry Devine and a referee.

“Yeah, I saw it," Arcidiacono said. "My little brother put the video in the family group chat and my dad called me. I’ve never seen anything like that from Devine, he’s not that type of person. I’ll back him to the end, I love him, he was a great coach to me. It’s an unfortunate situation but that’s something that I’ve never seen from him in the past.”

Arcidiacono averaged 20.4 points per game as a junior at Neshaminy before an injury-riddled senior season. His younger brother, Chris, scores over eight points per game as a sophomore at the Bucks County school. 

It was actually an offensive foul called on Chris, on a close block/charge call, that sparked the incident.

“He was great," Arcidiacono said of Devine. "He’s a family guy, he’s taken in multiple players and just helped out people. He’s an overall good-dude. He’s always been really supportive of me, pushed me with workouts before school at 6am when I was getting recruited by Coach Wright and other schools. He’s a great dude, that’s what I can say about that. He’s someone that I can turn to and he’s always going to be there for me to be supportive, and I’m going to be supportive of him in this situation.”

The senior guard released a statement prior to Wednesday's tip-off with Seton Hall, stating that "Coach Devine is a great guy - I was surprised to hear what happened. I texted him that I was thinking of him and how good a person he is."