City of Basketball Love

One of City of Basketball Love’s co-founders, Josh has been running CoBL since its inception on June 2, 2012. He currently serves as the organization’s President of its Board of Directors, as well as Editor-in-Chief of the website. In that role, he oversees day-to-day operations, mentors the site’s staff and guides its journalistic direction, leads fundraising efforts, helps with CoBL’s events and camps, and much more.  

Less than a year after helping start CoBL, Josh made the site his full-time job in early 2013 after leaving Temple’s Beasley School of Law, developing it into the area’s go-to source for high school and college basketball news and information. Since then, he’s covered thousands of games and events while mentoring well over 100 high school and college students who have contributed to CoBL over the years. He has also guided the site to receive six honors in the 2021 Keystone Awards, in its first year as a member of the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. 

In 2021, Josh led CoBL in the transition from a for-profit company to a non-profit model, giving up ownership of the company and founding its inaugural Board of Directors, truly dedicating the site to its mission of bettering the Philadelphia-area basketball community by helping both the student-athletes who play as well as those who cover the sport.

A 2012 graduate of Temple University with a degree in broadcast journalism, Josh received his Master of Science in Communications degree (with an advertising focus) from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Communications in 2022. He currently lives in Havertown with his wife, Aurora, and their two cats, Luke and Dinah.

Follow Josh: @jmverlin

Chad Graham is originally from San Diego, Ca, but has roots in the city. He relocated to Philadelphia shortly after graduating from Howard University in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the hoops culture in the city. Chad is passionate about scouting, player development, and recruiting. When he began writing in 2020, he primarily covered Philly, but he’s since expanded to Delaware, Central Pa., the Lehigh Valley, and New Jersey. 

Senior Contributors

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Rich is a graduate of Temple University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. He joined CoBL in 2015 and has written a variety of stories ranging from the Philadelphia Catholic League title game to Top-25 college basketball matchups. Over the course of his career, Rich has had his work published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Delaware County Daily Times and ZAGSBLOG.

A 2018 graduate of Temple University and product of Methacton High School, Owen joined CoBL as its full-time assistant editor in the summer of 2022, then transitioned into a role as a contributor in 2024. He previously spent the 2017-18 season as CoBL’s part-time assistant editor. For the four years prior to rejoining CoBL in 2022, he served as a sports reporter and assistant editor for the Pottstown Mercury and PAPrepLive, covering the Pioneer Athletic Conference and other area high school sports, including the area’s boys and girls basketball teams.

Andrew Robinson has spent more than a decade covering sports - primarily soccer and basketball but a little bit of everything else too - at various levels, starting in college with Penn State's award-winning student newspaper The Daily Collegian while graduating with a degree in journalism. He then spent two years with The Gettysburg Times, spending much of his free time putting his history minor to good use. Most recently, he worked for Montgomery Media, the Lansdale Reporter and the Norristown Times Herald as a sports writer under the PA Prep Live banner from 2014-2021.

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has been covering high school football and basketball since 1992. He's covered Kobe Bryant, Jameer Nelson, Tyreke Evans and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson. He's broken national stories on local pro athletes like Carson Wentz and began writing for CoBL in July 2021. He is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America and can be followed on BlueSky @JSantoliquito.

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Contributors

Matt Allibone is an award-winning sports writer who has been covering high school basketball for nearly a decade. A 2015 graduate of Penn State, he covered numerous Nittany Lions sports during his college career including the men’s basketball program from 2013-2015. He then spent nine years with the York Daily Record, where he focused on local sports, feature writing and videography. He’s profiled athletes at the high school, collegiate and professional levels. 

Dan Arkans comes to City of Basketball Love after a 30-year career at a variety of newspapers as both a sports editor and reporter. The last 17 years he spent as a sports editor of The Reporter, Times Herald and Montgomery Media. He has been with CoBL since October of 2022.

Corky is a freelance writer who was a sports reporter and editor for more than 40 years at The Express-Times (Easton, Pa.). He's covered everything from the Olympics and World Series to arm wrestling and Little League softball but primarily focused on local high school and college sports. Though he was raised in the Easton area, he grew up a diehard Big 5 basketball fan in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Who knew years later he would be covering Fran O'Hanlon's Lafayette College teams for more than a decade. Corky is a member of the Lehigh Valley/Pocono chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame.

David Comer graduated with a journalism degree from Penn State in 1997 and then was an award-winning sportswriter for the Centre Daily Times in State College. He left the newspaper business in 2000 and graduated from Villanova Law School in 2003. He has worked as an attorney for 20-plus years and in the fall of 2024 started contributing to CoBL in his spare time to combine his love of basketball and writing.

Finn Courtney, born in New York City and a current native of Connecticut, is in the midst of his junior year at Villanova University, studying communications and political science. With a lifelong passion for sports, Finn’s been a writer for as long as he can remember, was a four-year editor on his high school paper, currently serves as News Editor for Villanova’s student paper, The Villanovan and has reported stories for a variety of outlets, including The Philadelphia Inquirer. Finn's written for CoBL since Fall 2023, has covered athletes at the high school and collegiate level and can be followed on Twitter and BlueSky.

Missy Light Dougherty is a lifelong Philly sports fan and ovarian cancer survivor who currently works in athletic administration at Delaware County Community College. Upon graduating from Elizabethtown, Missy spent several years teaching and coaching high school basketball. After earning a master’s degree in sport management from Neumann University, she worked in athletic communications at Haverford College. A Havertown resident, who can often be found in Sea Isle, Missy is thankful for the excellent English teachers she had at Merion Mercy Academy, who instilled a love of writing, as well as for the opportunity to be a contributor to CoBL! 

In his life, Jeff wears many hats, including that of non-profit social media manager, mental health counseling master's student, and freelance sportswriter. Jeff's bachelor's degree (2019) is in Sports Journalism from Arizona State's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His journalism work originated with CoBL in 2014 as a junior at Downingtown West High School, and expanded into coverage of Arizona State's football, basketball, and baseball programs during his time on campus, as well as other freelance content opportunities. Jeff lives in the Indianapolis suburbs — with his wife, Delaney, and their two cats — but spent his entire childhood in the greater Philadelphia region, and still stands by it as the nation's best basketball city to anyone he meets around the country. 

Mike retired in March 2025 after a 40-year career in newspapers, including the Lebanon Daily News, Harrisburg Patriot-News and most recently Lancaster Newspapers. His current main writing platform is a Substack, Gross Rational Product, for which he covers Penn State football, sports, politics and "whatever strikes me." Mike is a member of the Football Writer’s Association of American and a voter for the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell and Belitnikoff Awards. Prior to 2025, he was director of the voting for the Pennsylvania Sports Writers Boys’ Basketball All-State Teams. Social media: Twitter @MikegrossGRP. Bluesky:@grpmedia.bsky.social.

Evan Hartenstein is a Yardley native and currently is a sophomore at Pennsbury High School. He began writing for CoBL in 2024 at just 14 years old and is a broadcaster in Pennsbury’s athletic department, where he does commentary for all team sports and conducts interviews with athletes. Evan also plays basketball for the school, as well as AAU in the offseason, and founded the school’s Media and Journalism club. He additionally is a contributor at Philly Sports Reports, where he writes recaps and feature stories on the 76ers and Eagles. He can be found on X @EvanHartenstein. 

Sean McBryan has contributed to City of Basketball Love since 2021. He earned his Master of Science in Communications with a specialization in Journalism Innovation from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2020. Sean began his sports journalism career with the Reading Eagle in 2017, shortly after graduating from Penn State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He founded BerksGirlsBasketball.com in 2024, a site dedicated to coverage of Berks County high school girls basketball, a beat he has covered since 2022. A Berks County native, Sean lives in Lancaster, Pa., with his wife, Madeline, and their two dachshunds, Mando and Obi, and works full-time in communications and media relations in Hershey, Pa.

Tom Robinson has spent more than 40 years covering high school basketball in Pennsylvania, including more than 100 PIAA state championship games. He served as chairman of the Associated Press all-state basketball committee during his time as sports editor and coordinator of high school coverage at the Scranton Times-Tribune. An author of 38 books, primarily on sports subjects for young readers, Robinson currently serves as Sport and UCS Director of the Northeast Region of Special Olympics Pennsylvania. The resident of Clarks Summit in Lackawanna County serves as host of a weekly radio show on high school sports while remaining active as a writer and color commentator as a freelance contributor to multiple outlets.

Olivia Valania, a Wilmington native, is a recent graduate of Ursuline Academy, one of the most storied girls’ basketball programs in the state of Delaware. The daughter of a longtime high school basketball coach, she has always been surrounded by the game and developed a love for Philadelphia basketball as she frequented Villanova and PCL games growing up. She currently attends Penn State where she is a business student and an intern for Penn State Athletics. In January of 2025, she brought her knowledge of Philly-area hoops and passion for writing to begin covering games for CoBL.

Zak currently lives in Blue Bell and is a senior at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He has worked for CoBL since 2021, when he was a junior at Wissahickon High School. Zak is a senior staff writer for The Daily Orange, the student-run newspaper at SU. As a student journalist, he has covered SU’s men’s basketball, men’s lacrosse, and football teams, along with a variety of other sports.