City of Basketball Love

Rich Flanagan (@richflanagan33)
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Joe Dempsey has always had a knack for grooming players through his program so that when a previous starter graduates, a new one can immediately be inserted and the hope is his team will not miss a beat.

The La Salle College High School head coach has been especially successful when it comes to transitioning new pieces into his starting backcourt. Names such as Troy Hockaday and Eddie Mitchell to Amar Stukes to Najee Walls and Ryan McTamney, and most recently, Jarrod Stukes and Matt Paulus are a just a few of the guards who have picked up where their predecessors left off.

His ability to groom guards who are able to score and control the offensive tempo of the game has been a staple of his success with the Explorers and he looks to have found another perimeter scorer to lead his team in 6-0 junior guard Allen Powell.

Powell scored 15 points including the game-winning floater with 1.3 seconds to play to lift La Salle to a 60-58 victory over Conwell-Egan in a Philadelphia Catholic League clash.

The Explorers retained possession with 44.7 seconds remaining and ran out much of the clock to have the last shot. Dempsey wanted to have the court spread and Powell isolated at the top of the key. The end result was one he’s come to expect from his point guard.

“We wanted to get the last shot on our home floor and there was no doubt in my mind on what we were doing,” said Dempsey, who notiched his 200th career win earlier this season. “We were going to get the ball to him. He’s starting to trust us more. It’s been a maturation process as he’s starting to figure out what is a good shot and a bad shot [as well as] when he should keep the ball or not. He’s starting to get more comfortable with us and that’s good because he has the ball a whole lot.”

Powell only scored five points in the first half but tallied 10 after the break including five straight which pushed his team’s lead to 39-30 late in the third quarter. He said the play was one his team runs during every practice and he’s been able to convert in that opportunity when called upon.

“Whenever the clock runs under ten seconds, we always run that play,” Powell said. “We practice it every day. When I was first came in, coach [Dempsey] was preparing me for when I came in at point guard. I just had to step into the role and be ready to play.”

Powell, along with senior Third Team All-Catholic selection Sean Simon (13 ponts, two steals), have taken command of the La Salle (9-2, 2-0 Philadelphia Catholic League) offense and it showed down the stretch. Powell finished in transition to put the Explorers up 49-45. After Conwell-Egan’s (2-4, 0-2) Terrance Jones hit his lone three-pointer of the game and Patrick Robinson (30 points) scored five straight points to give the Eagles a 53-51 advantage, Simon answered with an and-one. Two possessions later after Robinson had converted another and-one, Simon drilled a step back triple to tie the game at 58-58 with 1:11 left.

Even with an experienced guard in Simon, who surpassed 1,000 points for his career in the Explorers win over Lansdale Catholic on Tuesday, and a versatile forward in junior Zach Crisler, who had 14 points and nine rebounds, Dempsey went to his inexperienced point guard because he knew he would make the right play, just as Jarrod and Paulus had done so many times last year.

“I told him last year, ‘You’re going to get the ball next year.’ Learn from them, see what they’re doing and how hard they’re playing,” Dempsey said. “For him, it’s been about doing the other things.”

Powell gives a lot of credit to his development from what those seniors provided with him during his first two years with La Salle.

“I learned leadership from them because they were always on us in practice,” Powell said. “Last year, they were good leaders and helped me.”

Robinson led the way with the Eagles scoring 16 of his 30 in the second quarter and Joe Baldachino added nine points including two three-pointers. Conwell-Egan tied the game on four separate occasions and took the lead at 58-55 before Simon’s game-tying trey.