City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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CHESTER — Sit uncomfortably on the sidelines for the better part of 10 long, long days watching your teammates play without you and restlessness undoubtedly sets in.

Spend those same 10 days working to get your body back to where it needs to be — and not getting up shots or whatever — and inevitably there’s going to be some rough spots when one finally does get back on the floor and tries to go full speed.

Welcome to Quade Green’s hoops-centric bubble.

Nursing a tender ankle that was bumped up during Neumann-Goretti’s journey earlier this month to the City of Palms Classic in Fort Myers, Fla., the multi-talented 6-0 combo guard finally returned to the Saints’ lineup for the final game of the 12th annual Pete and Jameer Nelson Classic Friday night at Widener University’s Schwartz Center.

And it was the other guys that eventually felt Green’s pain.

Although the Kentucky recruit admitted it took him a little while to really get going, Green eventually wound up with 23 points, yanked down five rebounds and dished out five assists as Carl Arrigale’s Saints dismantled Abington 71-43.

While none of Green’s deep looks fell, he still was able to get into the painted area whenever he wanted and use the glass for his patented runners and jump shots — even if he wasn’t operating at his typical go, go, go output.

Still …

“I feel good,” Green said. “I feel good.”

“I didn’t think we were good tonight, but it was nice to have him back and have him score some points,” Arrigale admitted. “But we were a little out of sync because he was back and I think the guys were like, ‘Uh, oh, now he’s back.’”

Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree added a double-double (14 points/10 rebounds) and a couple of blocks as the Saints (3-4) brought a halt to a bothersome four-game skid.

Brawny 6-7 sophomore Eric Dixon dropped in 21 points and grabbed six boards for Charles Grasty’s Ghosts (7-3), who were trying to close out the Nelson with their second win in as many nights. Abington held off Chester 53-50 on Thursday night.

For a while, however, Abington was getting what it wanted.

Up 19-14 with just over five minutes to go in the first half following a slick jump hook from Dixon, Arrigale’s Saints promptly initiated one of their patented spurts, closing the half with a 15-2 salvo that had them up eight (29-21) at the break.

While Cosby-Roundtree bucketed six of his nine first-half points during Neumann-Goretti’s pivotal spurt, Green punctuated the wobbling blast with a conventional three-point play set up by a timely Noah Warren dish.

Just 19.1 was showing.

“We got some stops,” Green said. “Lucky enough, we got some stops. We weren’t playing hard enough defense [early], so lucky enough we got some stops, turned the ball over, got up and down the floor and got some easy buckets.”

Neumann-Goretti’s sticky man also played a significant role — although the Saints weren’t able to force all that many turnovers and crank up the transition — just getting into Abington bodies and throwing off the Ghosts enough to affect their shots.

While Dixon’s trey in the opening minute of the third had Grasty’s club within seven (31-24), the Ghosts never were able to get closer the rest of the way as the suddenly relaxed Saints continued to add and add and add to a lead that didn’t stop growing.

Christian Ings chipped in nine points for Neumann-Goretti, capping the rout and thrilling the thinning crowd with a windmill jam at the final horn. Arrigale’s Saints also picked up a combined 18 points from Warren, Marcus Littles and Dymir Montague.

Green could not have been happier about the outcome — and his return.

“I was rusty,” Green admitted. “I was working on my body to get healthy.

“So I hope I shook the rust off.”

Particularly since the Saints, City of Basketball Love’s top-ranked 3A outfit, missed having their closer on the floor during their short stay in Florida as well as earlier this week during a bout with suburban D.C.’s Paul VI at a Delaware showcase.

“When you’re playing every day [down there], you have no practice time so we just had to wing it,” Arrigale remarked. “Because he’s been dominating and handling the ball for us predominantly the whole time. Those two games in Florida we had to wing it and we were right there for three quarters, but we just couldn’t get to the finish line.”

Plus, Arrigale said Green only returned to practice one day earlier.

“We just had no confidence really when I was gone,” Green said. “But now, I think we’re picking it back up.”

“Hopefully we get a couple good days in before our next game,” Arrigale added. “He practiced for the first time yesterday. We were out of our gym because the floor was getting done, but hopefully we’ll get back to normal and start building this team.”

With Green completely in the middle of a combustible mix.

“He’s worth a lot of points,” Arrigale said. “Offensively, he just takes a load off of everybody. It just opens the floor up, because Dhamir’s been dominating games in the first half and people have been sitting in his lap in the second half.

As for Arrigale's final thought after halting that four-game skid?

“It’s hard to play a national schedule without your national player.”

~~~

Morris reaches yet another lofty victory milestone

Had there not been an announcement upon the conclusion of St. Joseph’s Prep’s resounding victory in Game 3 of the Nelson Classic, only those on the bench — as well as the student radio team — would have been aware of the milestone.

Of course, maybe the light pat on the back might have given things away.

While Prep’s resounding 67-49 victory over St. George’s (Del.) certainly generated plenty of good feelings among Hawks players and coaches, most of the ‘atta boys’ and stuff like that was reserved for head coach William “Speedy” Morris.

One of Philly’s true hoops icons, Morris collected his 700th career victory at the high school level as his Hawks (6-2) moved four games over .500 behind 21 points from Kyle Thompson, 17 from Darius Kinnel and 12 from big man Ed Croswell.

Although Morris has celebrated more than 300 victories at Prep and captured more than 300 victories during a remarkably successful tenure at Roman Catholic — he also coached at Penn Charter — his record at the high school level is 700-198.

Factor in the 281 triumphs he banked during his coaching stints with the La Salle University men’s and women’s hoops team and he’s bearing down on 1,000 wins.

In fact, Morris needs just 19 more victories to reach that remarkable total.