City of Basketball Love

Aron Minkoff (@AronMinkoff)
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Only one team stands out as a true contender from the West and it is none other than the state’s current top-ranked AAAA program, Taylor Allderdice.

Located in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pa. ‘Dice will attempt to become the first Pittsburgh City League team to win a state crown since the 2007 Schenley Spartans - a team led by elite-level talents such as DeJuan Blair (Pitt) and D.J. Kennedy (St. Johns) - both have played in the NBA as well.

At the AAAA level, in 31 championships, a team from the Western portion of the state has won just four times. Teams from Western Pa. are viewed as being less competitive by observers and teams from the deep Eastern portion of the state.

“We have taken our game outside of Western Pennsylvania which is always a knock against Western Pennsylvania teams that they can’t travel outside and compete,” Allderdice coach Buddy Valinsky said. “But you know, we travel well and we really represent the city of Pittsburgh which is important for the kids because we feel that we are not just representing Allderdice but the city as well.”

Valinsky has scheduled his team for a high-dosage of elite challenges this season, the team picked up two wins in Philadelphia this season, when they defeated Imhotep, 70-65, in the Scholastic Play-by-Play Tip Off Classic. They followed that up with a victory the following day over Academy Park, 81-70.

Later on in the season Allderdice was featured on ESPN3 in a showdown with Wheeling Park where they won in convincing fashion, 62-48. Then this past weekend, in Atlanta Georgia, Allderdice proved to be too much for St. Pius X (Ga.) in a 69-52 shellacking.

At first, Valinsky was a little worried that all of the attention and accolades would affect his players, but the opposite has come to fruition.

“They have really taken off with it, it is kinda surprising, which I thought would be the opposite,” Valinsky said. “Their attitude is that we have to prove to people why we are number one, that it is not a fluke.”

Despite his team’s success though, sitting at 14-1, ranked first in AAAA, and 85th in the country according to USA Today, Valinsky is still concerned about the road ahead.

“I know that the Eastern side of the state is just great basketball every single night,” Valinsky said. “Rankings are great, but I am not naive enough to think that neither of those nine teams or someone on the other team could beat us any night, they all scare me.”

Valinsky is referring to the nine teams behind him in the AAAA rankings, teams that have all won state championships in recent times - from Roman Catholic to Plymouth Whitemarsh - the path to the top is not an easy one by any stretch of the imagination.

Allderdice is led by a talented trio of senior guards in twins James and Tim Jackson along with Ramon Creighton. James, a Toledo football commit, has recently declared his interest in pursuing a basketball career at the next level. He averages 23.8 ppg and is garnering interest from schools such as Kent State and Drexel.

His twin, Tim, chimes in 15.1 ppg of his own, is planning on playing football at the next level, with offers from Temple and Arizona State, along with interest from multiple other Division I programs. Creighton has garnered some interest at the Division II level for both football and basketball, but is leaning towards staying on the court, with interest from Seton Hill and California University of Pennsylvania.

Allderdice has difficult non-section games with Mars and New Castle remaining, but the rest of the schedule is all teams from the City League, a league that does not garner a lot of respect. The City League rarely sees its teams advance past the first, maybe second round of the state playoffs.

“Any coach will tell you it is always tough to win in another team’s gym,” Valinsky said. “You just never know what could happen in another team’s gym, refereeing, you could shoot poorly, you don’t take it for granted when you are a basketball coach going into another gym.”

Allderdice has never won a state title in basketball. Prior to the season it looked like they had a small chance to change that, now they have primed themselves as the team to beat. In the past two seasons, the Dragons have tallied a record of 40-4, one loss this season to A first-ranked Kennedy Catholic, and another coming in the semifinals of last year’s state playoffs to Martin Luther King.

“We still have a lot of basketball left,” Valinsky cautioned. “These kids are excited to keep on challenging themselves and keep the season rolling.”