City of Basketball Love

CoBL Staff (@hooplove215)
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PITTSBURGH -- The Hoop Group’s Pitt Jam Fest invaded the David L. Lawrence Convention Center this weekend, bringing hundreds of teams from eighth graders through high school seniors onto 36 courts for a massive tournament to open the first of two April live recruiting periods.

Here’s part one of a notebook from the second day of action; part two can be found here:

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Lehigh Valley forward’s stock rise evident

Last April, when he was heading into his senior year at Allentown Central Catholic (Pa.), Keeshawn Kellman was a solid small-college prospect, a 6-foot-5 forward with long arms and a good motor as well as some interest from Division II and III programs.

But after sprouting up three more inches over the course of his senior year and electing to take a prep season next winter, Kellman’s ceiling is substantially higher.

In helping the L&L Running Rebels to a 59-46 win over Stamford Peace in a 17U bracket game, Kellman chipped in 10 points, locked down the paint with several blocks and grabbed his fair share of rebounds -- a skill that’s become easier and easier over the last year.

“Now, instead of having to fight as much -- I still have to fight, but not go over people to get boards,” he said.

Colgate became the first Division I school to offer the now 6-8 forward, doing so when he visited the campus just this past week. Kellman cited several more Ivy/Patriot types as having shown interest so far, mentioning Princeton, Lafayette, Cornell, Brown and Dartmouth.

Not yet 18 until August and with long arms and a still somewhat-lanky frame, it’s possible Kellman adds another inch or two onto his frame, which would certainly add another layer onto his recruiting. But at the minimum, he’s certainly turned himself into a legitimate Division I big, with good touch around the rim and the ability to put the ball on the floor from 10 feet out and get to the hoop.

He’ll be spending his post-graduate year not too far from home, at the Perkiomen School, where he’ll be teammates with former Neshaminy guard Chris Arcidiacono and more.

While there, he’ll be “just expanding my game, getting in the weight room a lot more, gaining weight, so I can be more of a force down low,” he said. “My overall ball-handling/shooting, quickness, things like that.” -- Josh Verlin

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McGowan’s physicality comes from mom’s advice

In an era that has seen basketball players step out further and further from the 3-point line, Julian McGowan is almost a throwback — a spry, 6-foot-6 guard who prefers driving to the rim and and colliding with the opposition.

McGowan, who scored 16 points on Saturday, did most of his damage in the paint. He used a combination of tip-ins, layups and free throws to lead the PSA Cardinals 16U team to a 74-44 rout over the Ohio Bulldogs.

He said he can extend his range out to the 3-point line, but his range wasn't evident on Saturday. He scored all of his points within the arc.

"Today it wasn't falling, I hit like two jump shots," McGowan said. "I know I can finish around the rim, so I had to get to the rim."

When he was younger, McGowan said he used to fear contact after driving to the hoop. That changed after a conversation with his mom, Rene.

"My mom said 'Julian, if you want to take this to the next level you have to get serious with it,'" McGowan said. "You gotta hit the weights and get stronger so you can go through somebody and finish at the rim."

McGowan took him mom's advice, partly because he wanted to improve their situation. Julian's dad, in his words, walked out of his life when he was a child, leaving himself and his mother to make due on their own.

It wasn't easy, Julian said, especially considering he and his mom lived in Trenton, New Jersey. The capital of New Jersey had 37 homicides in 2013 ,setting a new record.

"I'm tired of seeing my mom struggle," Julian said of his thought process. "I know I can do something with it and I'm tired of seeing my mom struggle and I want to see her happy at the end of the day."

McGowan, who attends Notre Dame HS (N.J),  doesn't have any offers, but said he currently has interest from Oregon State, Louisiana State, Temple and Rutgers.

He isn't the only basketball player in his family. His younger cousin, Zion Cruz, is currently one of the highest-ranked point guards in the class of 2022.

McGowan plans to further expand his game as he approaches his junior season. However, his perceived lack of versatility didn't affect affect him Saturday, as he not only scored efficiently on 7-of-9 shooting, but blocked a pair of shots as well.

"(I want) to be able to take my man off the dribble with the left hand and finish," McGowan said. "I can do it sometimes but I'm trying to get it consistent."

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Downingtown Heat make Steel City debut

While the majority of the college coaches -- and almost all of the Division I coaches -- in attendance at the Pitt Jam Fest hover around the six featured courts in the middle of the main area, there were several Division III coaches checking out a game on one of the others for a 2 PM game.

And that’s exactly why the Downingtown Heat were there.

“We don’t usually play in these kinds of tournaments,” Downingtown East junior Tariq Kalim said. “We’re going to get a lot of exposure. It’s really exciting.”

A group of rising seniors from the western Philadelphia suburbs, the Downingtown Heat’s oldest group have been playing together in the same general form for the last three summers, but spent most of their time playing in small, local tournaments, often under the radar of even the small-college programs.

But now that the coaches are ready to take a look at the next crop of rising seniors, the Heat’s coaches figured this would finally be the year to head out to the Pitt Jam Fest for the first time.

So they arrived in the ‘Burgh on Friday, and had to wait through the first four sets Friday night as well as five Saturday morning sets before finally taking the court early Saturday afternoon, finishing strong in a 72-62 win over All Day Hoops in the first round of the 17U “Steel” bracket, the third tier of the 17U level in the tournament.

“We came here with something to prove, we were put in the third level, so we just wanted to come out,” said Andres Mujica, another Downingtown East junior, “and we waited for so long...we were just anxious to play.”

Kalim, a 6-3 guard who moved to Downingtown from Toronto before eighth grade and only then started playing the sport seriously, finished with a team-high 22 points in the win. Mujica had nine, Bo Furey-Bastian (Unionville), Ryan McKeon (Sanford School, Del.), Mitchell Kosara (Kennett), Brian Ibarguen (Bishop Shanahan) and Cameron McCole (Downingtown West) all contributed multiple buckets to the victory.

No matter how the rest of their weekend goes, the Heat have the rest of the summer to look forward to, playing in similar events with the hope to get their college recruitments kick-started, or if only to enjoy one final summer of AAU basketball in the best way possible: in the big-time.

“It’s our last ride together,” Mujica said. “We’re just trying to have a good time together and win some basketball games.” -- Josh Verlin

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Westtown’s Berger ready for his turn

For most of 10 years that his father has been the head coach at the Westtown School, T.J. Berger has sat on the sideline at Moose practices and games and watched numerous future college players go through their high school careers. Quite a few of them would tell the son of Seth Berger that one day, he would be next.

He didn’t always believe them.

“It would kind of fly over my head, because you think sometimes they’re just doing the coach’s son a favor by telling him that,” T.J. Berger said. “But some of the guys honestly believed it and they wanted to see me do well.”

But there’s no doubting that now, the younger Berger is the real deal. Standing 6-2, the Westtown sophomore is a bona-fide Division I prospect in his own right, and he’s got the offer to prove it: his first, from Stony Brook, came on Friday night.

“It felt great, a dream come true,” he said. “I’ve been working for a Division I scholarship my whole life, so that was great to have.

“I got a lot of texts yesterday, so I feel a lot of love from all the guys who came through the program,” he added.

Berger backed up that offer with a 15-point outing in a loss to The Family (Mich.) in 16U Sweet 16 action, hitting four 3-pointers, most of which came as pull-up or step-back shots, plus a quick catch-and-shoot knockdown from the right corner.

That scoring ability will come in handy during his upcoming junior season at Westtown, where he’ll be expected to handle a bigger scoring load with Cameron Reddish off to Duke and Jake Forrester at Indiana. Reddish and Forrester are just two of the high-major prospects that Berger has gotten to go up against in practice over the last few years, along with Brandon Randolph (Arizona), Mohamed Bamba (Texas) and others.

After facing down McDonald’s All-Americans on a regular basis, there isn’t much the AAU scene can do to faze Berger.

“It’s done so much, to see those guys, how they carried themselves every day, how hard they work, especially Cam, Cam works so hard on his own game,” Berger said. “it’s done so much for me, and to be around how good they are all the time, it definitely pushes me to play up to their level.”

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