City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Heading into this season, Upper Darby coach Bob Miller was confident his Royals would be able to turn it around after winning only six games a year ago. If only for one simple reason: he had his team coming back.

“We had two straight years where I had a lot of turnover; kids in, kids out, kids getting in trouble, stuff like that,” he said. “It was nice this year to come back to the court and basically know who my team was.”

After 17 years on the UD sidelines -- and an earlier five-year run at Interboro -- Miller was onto something.

Despite taking a 55-44 loss at the hands of Central League co-leader Lower Merion on Friday night, Upper Darby has already more than doubled its win total from a year ago, standing at 13-4 on the season, 8-4 in Central League play.

Upper Darby rode a seven-game winning streak into the match against Lower Merion, which increased its own run of victories to six with the road win. And though the Royals spotted the Aces a 22-9 lead early in the second quarter, they rallied to get within 36-34 at the end of the third quarter.

But the Royals committed too many turnovers (18) and had trouble getting the ball through the hoop, whether that was from the floor (17-of-56, 30.3 percent) or foul stripe (6-of-13, 46.1 percent). And so Lower Merion took the second of two meetings this season, after winning the first by 19 back on Dec. 12, in the third game of the season for both teams.

For a team whose contributors are all experiencing their first taste of success at the varsity level, a wake-up call that they’re still far from a finished product might not be such a bad thing with two weeks left in the regular season.

“It’s almost like a heat check,” senior Magd Abdelwahab said. “It just makes us work harder to bounce back.”

Abdelwahab, a 6-foot-3 guard with several Division III programs hard on his tail, had 16 points to lead the way against Lower Merion; junior guard Mamadou Toure added 13. Those two are usually joined in the double-figure realm by senior guard Jalen Trent, who managed only six points on a tough shooting night, and junior Diby Keita, who was scoreless against LM.

When those four all get it going to some extend, they become a much tougher group to stop.

“In our 13 wins, I think there’s only been two games where we didn’t have four guys in double figures,” Miller said. “We scored 48 against Penncrest [in a 48-44 win] and had four guys in double figures.”

It’s a group that needed some time to mature.

Abdelwahab is only in his second year at Upper Darby, having come over from just down the street at Bonner-Prendergast after his sophomore year. Trent, a muscular 6-4 wing guard, was ineligible to play as a junior but rejoined the team over the summer. Toure and Keita, both 5-11 guards, were both sophomores in their first varsity seasons a year ago; now they’re seasoned veterans as upperclassmen.

It’s experience that pays off in close games. Last year, the Royals were 4-3 in games decided by eight points or fewer, winning their final four after losing their first three. That’s carried over to this season, where they’re 8-0 in the same situation.

“The biggest difference [from last year] is probably our focus,” Abdelwahab said. “I think we’re able to execute a lot better than we were last year. We have all the key components to be a great team, so I think we’ve just got to put it all together.”

For the stretch drive, Miller is most concerned with his team’s slow starts. Upper Darby’s used to going down by double digits early on in games, having to fight its way back from down 18-4 to Harriton and 21-6 to Radnor to pull out victories during its recently-ended streak. That won’t fly in the playoffs.

“That’s got to be on me, I’ve got to find a way to stop spotting teams these big leads,” Miller said. “You take away those first two minutes -- but the trouble is you can’t take those away, they’re still there.”
Even after Friday night’s loss, Upper Darby is still in great shape to get back to the district playoffs after missing out last year; in the current unofficial District 1 6A rankings, the Royals are No. 6 in the 24-team field. If they can hold a spot in the top eight, that would would be good enough for a bye in the first round of districts and thus put Upper Darby only one win away from the program’s first state tournament appearance since 2013.

Less guaranteed is a spot in the four-team Central League playoffs.

Penncrest and Lower Merion both are in good shape at 10-2 with four games left in league play; Garnet Valley sits alone in third (9-3), but still has to play Lower Merion, @ Upper Darby and @ fifth-place Conestoga (7-4) as well as Haverford High (4-8). In addition to hosting GV, UD also has to travel to Conestoga while hosting Haverford and Ridley (3-9). Any less than 3-1 in that final four games, and Upper Darby might be left out of the league playoffs. If they can go 3-1 or 4-0 in those games -- plus a win over Glen Mills in the last non-league game -- then the Royals should be sitting pretty in both league and district pictures.

“We expected to be right where we are,” Miller said. “Hopefully these last (five games) we take care of business.”