City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Saint Joseph’s hosted two dozen high school varsity programs and several JV squads to its campus this weekend for its second team camp of the summer.

Here’s a notebook from the action on Saturday night and Sunday, featuring a number of programs working on new beginnings for one reason or another:

Conwell-Egan benefits from Kindler’s SJU ties
Conwell-Egan’s players got a little behind-the-scenes peek this weekend at the workings of a Division I hoops program, thanks to new head coach Eric Kindler.

Kindler, a 2014 Saint Joseph’s graduate, was able to gave his Eagles a tour of the facilities

“He showed us the locker room, showed us around,” senior point guard Darien Simmons said. “It was cool, it was a fun experience.”

It didn’t take long for the Conwell-Egan players to buy into what Kindler was selling when the 25-year-old took over the program earlier in the summer.

What took slightly longer was the adjustment in style from their last coach, Frank Sciolla.

Sciolla, through his years at Pennsbury and Conwell-Egan, developed a reputation for his intensity on the sidelines and through everything else he did, while Kindler is more relaxed and go-with-the-flow, with a somewhat quieter demeanor on the sideline.

“Coach [Sciolla] was really strict as to what he wanted -- it was his way or no way,” Simmons said. “Coach Kindler, it’s a little bit loose, he lets us play. It’s a format, but we get to play inside that format in our game.”

Sciolla’s approach was undoubtedly successful; Conwell-Egan won the 2015 PIAA Class AA state championship and advanced to the quarterfinals in 2016 after not winning a playoff game of any type for 51 years prior.

But graduated are all-state selections LaPri McCray-Pace (prep school) and big man Vinny Dalessandro (Pace University), while third-leading-scorer Kar'ron Johnson is transferring to Ewing (N.J.) for his senior year.

In their stead, it’ll have to be players like Simmons (4.7 ppg), plus shooting guard Eric Esposito, point guard Patrick Robinson and forward James Leible -- all rising juniors -- who have to step up.

Simmons was scoring the ball at a nice clip on Sunday, benefitting from driving lanes opened up by the shooting of Esposito and the ability of Robinson to get a step or two into the defense before finding an open teammate.

“Pat can dish me the ball, he can take a little pressure off me, Eric can shoot lights out and James for the dish off,” Simmons said. “I think we’re going to be really good.”

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Ridley starting life in post-Foster era
A transfer from Cardinal O’Hara, Damir Fleming spent the first portion of the 2015-16 season on Ridley’s junior varsity squad, getting adjusted to the way head coach Mike Snyder runs his program.

By the end of the season, he’d worked his way onto the varsity roster -- but with Central League Player of the Year Brett Foster the team’s dominant scorer, there wasn’t much room for another guard alongside fellow all-league candidates Julian Wing and Ryan Bollinger.

“And also he was the same type of position as Brett...so we couldn’t have two point guards out there,” Snyder said. “And he’s not very tall so it made us even smaller -- we were a small team to begin with.”

With Foster off to East Stroudsburg, plus Wing (DeSales) and Bollinger (PSU-Harrisburg) also playing college basketball, this looks like Fleming’s time to shine.

The 5-foot-9 guard was a whirling dervish for the Raiders this weekend, driving into the lane and finishing all sorts of tough layups amongst opposing forwards. Though he didn’t often show off his jump shot, he did display the ability to knock down the occasional shot or two from range, helping his team to a 4-0 start to the camp through Saturday night.

“He’s playing very, very well for us right now,” Snyder said.

It’s going to be a learning process for a team that looks to be filled mostly with seniors, though they’re generally seniors who have seen only spare varsity minutes or JV time thus far in their high school careers. Fleming, along with classmates Liam Thompson and Jim Bramwell, are the only three returners who’ve played meaningful minutes in the Central League.

So of course, there’s still a lot of work to be done -- as shown by a loss on Sunday morning when Ridley scored just nine points.

“I don’t know what to expect next year, we’ll wait and see what happens,” Snyder said. “I don’t think much will be expected of us, because we basically lost all of our scoring. I think we return about 5-6 ppg combined, so we’re starting from scratch and we’re just working our way up.”

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Savercool adjusting to life at Cedar Cliff
For the second time in three years, Tigh Savercool is starting fresh at a new school.

Back in May, Savercool was recommended by the Cedar Cliff school board to replace outgoing head coach Jim Rowe, who won 141 games there over the previous eight years, and took over shortly thereafter.

The 30-year-old DeSales alum spent the previous two years at Tulpehocken, his first head coaching gig, where he went 18-27 in his time there.

Now he’s getting to familiarize himself with another group of young student-athletes.

“I’d like to say that being somewhat young, still, helps the transition in terms of getting your kids to buy in and acclimate to you quicker,” Savercool said. “I’m not just some guy that’s going to sit there and be quiet during practice, I’m going to be engaged and involved, so I think that’s helped speed up things.”

The move from Tulpehocken to Cedar Cliff brings with it a big step up in competition. Tulpy, which will play in the new 3A classification thanks to an enrollment of around 175 boys, is in the smaller half of schools in the state; Cedar Cliff, which has 520 boys, is in the new 6A classification.

“Tulpy was a place that was it’s soccer-first, it’s a great place but it’s a small school and they’re all three-sport athletes,” Savercool said. “I love multi-sport athletes, but...at places like Cedar Cliff, you can work with (them) year-round, because you’ve got kids who just play basketball.”

Savercool has quite a bit of talent to replace off a Colts squad that went 13-9 last season, including Shippensburg-bound forward Derek Ford.

They’ll return third-leading scorer Brandt Walter as well as a pair of rising sophomores, Justin Grause and DeAndre Dorsey, who both got some starting experience a year ago.

“Brandt Walter’s doing really well, I think he’s got a chance to be one of the better players in the Central Penn area,” Savercool said.  He’s a kid that’s never been counted on to score, he’s a kid that has it, he’s got athleticism that could potentially be a scholarship kid, but he’s got to find consistency. We’ve got to get him to understand when things aren’t falling, do things a little bit differently. Find different ways to score.”

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Gordon impresses for Downingtown West
Continuing this notebook’s theme of first-year head coaches finding their way with their new programs, Downingtown West head coach Stu Ross is quickly figuring out what he’s got with his group of Whippets.

The Saint Joseph’s camp was the first time he got to work with the majority of his likely varsity squad at the same time, with the team he’s had over earlier events this summer consisting of a mix of varsity and JV players.

Ross had to like what he saw out of rising senior George Gordon. The 6-7 forward, who’s been a varsity contributor and mostly-starter his last two years, certainly looks like he’s ready to step up into a big-time featured role in his final year.

In going for more than 20 points in a win over Scranton Prep, Gordon was playing with a ton of energy, handling the ball more than he has in the past and playing super-productive around the rim.

“I didn’t know much about him beforehand, but he’s come a long way,” Ross said. “We’ve been putting a lot of skill work in with him, and as a senior he’s going to be one of the focal points of our offense and have go through him and (fellow seniors) Matt Carson and Greg Barton.”

Coming from one of the smallest schools in the area -- Collegium Charter has just over 100 boys -- to a Downingtown West school with nearly 600 boys to work with, Ross will go from coaching against a random assortment of small private schools in the Tri-County Independent School League to going up against the likes of Coatesville, Lower Merion and the rest of District 1 6A.

But this isn’t unfamiliar territory to Ross, who’s had stints at Kennett and in the college realm at Penn State-Brandywine, and he isn’t fazed at all by the switch.

“It’s still basketball, at the end of the day, but it’s a big difference, bigger pool of kids to pull from and all of that,” he said. “The biggest reason for such a smooth transition is the parents have been great, the administration’s super-supportive and my assistants have been hard at work.”