City of Basketball Love

Anthony Dabbundo (@AnthonyDabbundo)
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Less than 24 hours after Neshaminy head coach Jerry Devine struck an official and was placed on administrative leave--video of which became a national story Thursday morning--interim head coach John Mason gave his team a simple, yet important message before they took the court.

“Go out, have some fun, and make it count,” Mason said.

With the incident from last night weighing on the minds of the Neshaminy players, Mason was forced to rally his troops and look to get the season back on track against a difficult Pennridge squad defending its home court.

For the first half, Neshaminy rallied together and competed with Pennridge, before the Rams eventually pulled away for a 69-51 win in a Suburban One League inter-division clash.

Despite all of the media attention across the nation on the altercation that placed a huge spotlight on both the school and the team, Neshaminy tried to treat this game like any other.

No one on the Neshaminy team would discuss the events of last night, when their head coach was ejected from the game in the final minute against Pennsbury for his physical actions toward an official.

“We just tried to clear our minds and come together as a team and not let anything else affect us,” Neshaminy forward Billy Warren said.

Devine’s future is unclear, as he is on administrative leave until the school can review the actions of last night and decide on both his coaching and teaching job.

While the investigation is ongoing, Neshaminy does not know when or if Devine will ever be back on the sidelines.

“We’ve got [Harry S.] Truman on Friday, that’s all we’re focused on, taking it one game at a time,” Mason said.

Backed certainly by emotions undiscussed, Neshaminy came out against Pennridge with a ton of energy, knocking down 3-point shots, and going toe to toe with a top team in the league.

Warren had a big first half to help keep his team in it, scoring 15 points. The 6-foot-6 junior found a lot of success running the pick and roll, and finding open shooters out on the wings out of the post.

However, in the second half, Pennridge went to a 1-3-1 zone which frustrated the Neshaminy offense and Warren, who scored just two of his 17 after halftime. Neshaminy sophomore Chris Arcidiacono, brother of Villanova point guard Ryan Arcidiacono, had just three points on the night as he was dealing with back stiffness for most of the game.

“They went into a zone and packed it in the paint and made it really difficult for me in the second half,” Warren said.

Coming out of the half, Pennridge went on a big run on the back of senior guard Danny Long, whose six points to open the third helped extend the Rams lead to as many as 23. The Monmouth baseball commit finished with 17 points to lead the Rams. Along with Long, senior forward Max Wagner scored 14 points, including seven in the big third quarter that helped the Rams pull away.

“We came out like gangbusters in the second half and we had a lot of offensive firepower and we got the lead up to 20 and were able to coast from there,” Pennridge head coach Dean Behrens said.

The Rams wanted to make sure that they did not fall into a trap and overlook Neshaminy, who despite their 1-8 record, have played multiple very good teams tough and lost a handful of close games.

“Everyone wants to talk about records, and I get worried about that because I’m watching film and they played Abington and Pennsbury really well,” Behrens said.

Despite their record, Neshaminy isn’t about to let this incident involving their head coach derail their season. Instead of losing focus, they hope to band together and work even harder to improve and gel together as a team.

“These guys have been working hard since August,” Mason added. “I don’t have to stress the love of basketball that these guys have.”