City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld) &
Varun Kumar (@VRKumar8)
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Here’s a notebook from the opening night of the Villanova team camp, featuring action from Friday night’s sets:

Neumann-Goretti’s frontcourt suddenly big with Littles
The biggest news to emerge from Villanova tonight was undoubtedly Neumann-Goretti’s new-look lineup.

While Quade Green was absent due to the CP3 Elite Guard Camp in North Carolina, the point guard’s absence was overshadowed by a new presence manning the paint: former Academy of the New Church center and top-100 rising junior Marcus Littles.

Littles enrolled at Neumann earlier this week and made his debut with the Saints at Villanova, scoring the game-winning bucket in sudden death double-overtime in his first game with his new team.

“I left my old school and we were looking for a school where I could have the basketball and a pretty good education, and Neumann had both,” Littles said afterwards. “I know all the kids personally, even before I came over, so I already knew it was going to be a fun time. I like playing with them. It’s a little bit faster than my old team but I think I was good with it.”

Head coach Carl Arrigale mentioned that he’s known Littles and his family for several years now, and with Littles having practiced at Neumann with his AAU team, Team Final, since he was in middle school, the transition should be relatively seamless.

With the 6-foot-8, 240-pound Littles in the fold, the Saints will go from the guard-heavy lineup they’ve featured over the last few years to a “twin towers” lineup of sorts; Littles will pair with Villanova commit Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree--affectionately known as “Dada” by teammates and coaches--in the frontcourt.

The duo has started together for Team Final’s EYBL team all spring, and Littles feels their games complement each other very well, as he uses his brute strength to overpower opponents and Cosby-Roundtree relies more on his elite speed and leaping ability.

“I feel like with both of us together, it’s just going to be tough to play against us, because not only will you have him blocking shots but you’ll have me pushing people around, so I feel like we’re gonna be good together,” Littles said. “I learn a whole lot from Dada, he’s like an older brother to me on the court and off the court as well, so I think I’m going to get a lot better from playing with him and going against him in practice.”

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Maryland guard's Philly recruitment heating up
Darryl Morsell will be spending the weekend at Villanova with his Mount Saint Joseph’s squad, but it’s not the first time this month the Baltimore native has been in Philly.

On June 7, the 6-foot-3 guard made the trip up I-95 to visit both Temple and La Salle, both of which have offered after a successful spring AAU season with Team Melo.

“They are two totally different places: Temple is like in the middle of the city and La Salle is more like a compact community, but they both went well,” Morsell said after leading a come-from-behind victory over Lower Merion. “I got to see their facilities, get to know their coaches better. It was a good day.

“They’re saying that they feel that I can come right in and make an impact right away. That’s their main pitch.”

A wide-bodied, physical, athletic guard, Morsell would fit well at both local programs, though the Owls and the Explorers face increasingly abundant competition for the DMV product’s services.

One of the spring’s biggest stock risers, Morsell picked up an offer from USC earlier this week, with the Trojans joining Temple, La Salle, Dayton, Central Florida, Davidson, and George Mason. Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, and Maryland have been in touch recently as well.

Aside from the Philly trip, he also recently visited George Mason and will head to both Dayton and Pittsburgh next week on unofficial visits, with a USC visit in the works for August.

He credits the uptick in his recruitment to his opting to transition to more of a combo guard role, as opposed to the undersized forward that he was at this time last year.

“This summer I’ve been playing a lot of point guard and shooting guard, it’s my first summer really doing that,” he said. “My coaches, they saw that I was a pretty good playmaker and a pretty good passer, but they just believed that I had to improve my ballhandling and extend my range as a guard. I also knew that as well, so I just went in the gym and worked.”

Morsell is still working on his shooting consistency, but has vastly improved his handle and showed great vision in the open floor.

He doesn’t have a timetable for his decision, but plans to cut his list to five schools shortly after the July live periods.

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Prep backcourt duo focused on improvement
After experiencing some struggles due to the graduation of Chris Clover, the St. Joe’s Prep backcourt of Kyle Thompson and Darius Kinnel showed they can take the Hawks top of the Catholic League.

Last year, the two sophomores slid into the Prep backcourt starting roles, finishing as the school’s leading (Thompson, 13.5 ppg) and second-leading (Kinnel, 11.4 ppg) scorers on a Hawks squad that went 13-10 overall, including a 7-6 record in PCL play. That was good enough for a sixth-place finish in the league, though a loss to Roman Catholic in the league quarterfinals ended the season prematurely.

Both had impressive performances on Friday, with Kinnel running the offense and finding Thompson, who seemingly could not miss from the field.

“Going into Nova camp and knowing there’s a lot of good competition, you just have to have that killer mentality,” Thompson said. “You can’t back down from anybody. I just came into the game crazy focused. I was just shooting my shots and they were going in.”

The 5-foot-10 Thompson has been in contact recently with several schools, including Lafayette, Bucknell, Colgate, Princeton, as well as Binghamton, who offered last April. He will take a visit to Lafayette on Monday.

Thompson wants his game to resemble that of his father, Michael Thompson, who starred at Drexel as an all-around guard from 1988-92, and is now an assistant coach for the Hawks.

Though he plays off the ball for Speedy Morris’ team, he has been working on his slashing skills to improve his point guard play, the position he will likely have to play at the next level. He’s picked up some advice from the jet-quick Kinnel, who in turn has looked to Thompson for to improve his shooting ability.

Both have been leaning on the legendary Morris, who of course has won several Catholic League titles in his years coaching at the Prep and Roman Catholic, to improve their respective games.

“He’s old-school and focus is a big part of the way he coaches,” Kinnel said. “He’s been helping us focus on making the right plays and right decisions on the court.”

Quick Hit
-- Imhotep’s Daron Russell was out once again with the nagging leg injury that has plagued him all summer. With offers from La Salle, Temple, SMU, VCU and Rhode Island, among a few others, the point guard is looking to increase his offers at Peach Jam next month while playing with Team Final at the Nike EYBL championships in North Augusta, S.C. He has yet to eliminate any schools, nor set the dates of any official visits, though he admitted his first visit will likely be to SMU after the AAU season ends.