PIAA needs to change its playoff model, at least in basketball and football

By Rick O’Brien

The Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League recently sent an online survey to its member schools to find out their opinion regarding the current PIAA playoff format.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette listed the six questions in the survey. The No. 1 – and most pressing – question: Do you believe schools without geographical boundaries have a competitive advantage over schools with established geographical boundaries?

According to the Post-Gazette, 86 percent of the 108 schools (there are 138 WPIAL schools) that responded to the survey “said they would favor separate tournaments for boundary and non-boundary schools.”

The results of the survey might be discussed at the PIAA board of directors meeting later this month, but executive director Robert Lombardi has countless times said the PIAA cannot separate playoff competition between public and private schools on its own.

First-teamer Wong leads seven from Delco voted All-State

By Matthew DeGeorge

The core of Delco’s hoops prowess this season resided in Class 5A, and media voters across the state reflected that in the release of the All-State basketball teams Tuesday.

Bonner & Prendergast’s Isaiah Wong was voted to the first team in Class 5A, one of seven Delco honorees, all in Class 5A.

Four of the seven second-team nods were doled out to Delco players: Bonner’s Ajiri Johnson, AJ Hoggard of Archbishop Carroll, Christian Ray of Haverford School and Penncrest’s Tyler Norwood. Antwuan Butler of Cardinal O’Hara and Tariq Ingraham of Bonner were third-teamers.

Players were chosen by media across the state according to PIAA classification/enrollment size, with three teams of honorees in each of the PIAA’s six classes. A player of the year and coach of the year were also recognized in each class.

Wong, the 2017-18 Daily Times Boys Basketball Player of the Year, averaged 22.2 points per game in his first season with the Friars after transferring from Notre Dame (N.J.). The 6-3 junior guard led Bonner & Prendie to its first PIAA tournament, advancing to the Class 5A semifinals before being knocked off by champion Abington Heights in overtime. (The Comets were represented by first-teamers Jackson Danzig and George Tinsley as well as coach of the year Ken Bianchi.)

(click on this link for the full article)

All-Delco Boys Basketball: Wong finds, conquers his challenge at Bonner & Prendergast

Bonner & Prendergast’s Isaiah Wong skies over a Plymouth Whitemarsh defender in December. Wong led the Friars in scoring on the way to 25 wins, a Catholic League regular-season title and the semifinals of the PIAA Class 5A tournament. (Bob Raines/Digital First Media)

By Matthew DeGeorge

It’s not easy to get Isaiah Wong to crack a smile on the basketball court. Even dressed in his school uniform, tasked with the very un-competitive pursuit of taking portrait photos, a certain steeliness dawns once he steps on the court at Bonner & Prendergast. He’s not going to cross anyone over in his dress shoes, but the basketball in his hands still inspires the impassiveness of his visage.

There’s a couple of tricks to get Wong to offer a glimpse at his pearly whites, though. Bring up the number of close games his Friars played this year — 16 decided by 10 points or fewer, five that went to overtime and an 8-1 mark in the Philadelphia Catholic League in games decided by seven points or fewer — and you’ll see a hint of a grin curl up the corners of his mouth. Mention the prospect of rising to the individual challenge of playing in the Catholic League, and the smile grows wider still.

If you want to get Wong beaming, though, just bring up the chants — those heckles about him being from New Jersey and the student-section antagonism of “Ov-er-ra-ted” that he heard in cramped gyms across the Philly this year. That’s a sure-fire method to piquing Wong’s amusement.

(click on this link for the full story as well as links to the All-Delco team)

Brooklyn’s Hollis-Jefferson says giving back to Chester helps motivate him

Image result for rondae hollis-jefferson photos

Photo by the New York Post

By Christopher A. Vito

In flashes, you can see Rondae Hollis-Jefferson on an NBA court and envision him wearing an orange-and-black uniform. The tools he developed at Chester High are the ones he showcases nightly on basketball’s grandest stage.

The smoothness that enables him to push the ball up the court in effortless strides. The creativity required to make acrobatic shots look routine. The aggressiveness to clean the glass against rebounders four inches taller.

Those attributes are constant, win or lose. And for Hollis-Jefferson, now 23, his team’s losses have far outnumbered its victories.

“I’m human. It wears on you. It definitely has its days,” he said.

Hollis-Jefferson’s most-pressing task, the one linked intrinsically with his pro career, is the ongoing rebuild of the downtrodden Brooklyn Nets. The third-year pro is compiling his best season as the club’s longest-tenured player, one whose leadership extends beyond his place atop many of its stat categories.

Beyond basketball, he focuses on change — changing lives, changing outlooks, changing what the future holds for children in Chester. The irony, he freely admits, is that a guy so dedicated to change remains the same.

(click on this link for the full story)

That’s a wrap! – 2017/18 Season is over

By Delcohoops.com Staff

It has been a terrific 5 years since we started this web site and each year we see more visitors to both our web site and our broadcasts. To have surpassed 750,000 hits in just five years is truly remarkable for us when you consider the basketball season starts in December but doesn’t get serious until January and then is over in mid-March.  It’s even more remarkable when you consider that we lose a sizeable amount of our athletes and players to graduation every year.  It tells us that we are becoming a valuable and appreciated source for high school basketball in Delaware County.  That’s exactly what we hoped for when we started this endeavor.

A big thank-you to the sponsors on the right side of these pages.  We wanted to provide a web site and broadcast availability that would be free to anyone who had Internet access and our generous sponsors have been the reason we are able to provide that service.  Please make an effort to visit these sponsors and mention us.  They support us because they believe in what we do but it always helps if they can pick up a little business as well.

Dave Burman

A big thank you to Dave Burman, “Mr. High School Sports”, who makes every game exciting and whose voice has become synonymous with high school basketball in Delco.  He is a pleasure to work with and nobody knows high school sports like Dave!

Pete Fulginiti

And kudos to Pete ‘Stat Man’ Fulginiti who made every game and kept track of important game numbers as well as his valuable insight into the game of basketball.  He is a valued member of our broadcast team and adds a great dimension to our broadcast.

Mark Jordan

Thanks again to Coach Mark Jordan, who we bring in towards the end of each year to help with playoff games. As an actual high school basketball coach, Mark adds a dimension and “vision” of the game that is unparalleled.

Thanks to all the school Athletic Directors who are our “go-to” people for setting up broadcasts and getting us floor positions for the games.  These men and women are responsible for all the athletic contests, transportation, uniforms, scheduling, etc. that make high school games appear flawless.  We know we’re just another thing that they have do and we appreciate their efforts on our behalf.

And lastly to our athletic participants, families and fans who we like to hear from and know that they appreciate our product.  We love producing our web pages and broadcasts and watching these young men and women develop as athletes and adults is truly a pleasure.  See you all in December 2018!

 

As state championships begin, new transfer rules are approved by PIAA

 

By Keith Groller

The numbers are scrutinized like winning lottery numbers.

As soon as the finalists for the PIAA’s basketball championship games are determined, many fans crunch the numbers to determine how many of the teams headed to the Giant Center are public schools, charter schools or private schools.

The breakdown of the 24 teams going for the gold this week is: 11 public, 11 private, two charter.

But PIAA Executive Director Robert Lombardi doesn’t need new data to know the numbers are disproportionate. He hears about it every day, and the volume is turned up a notch or two every December and March, when the state football and basketball champs are decided.

The dominance of private/charter schools, particularly from Philadelphia, and the controversy over transfers continue to be the PIAA’s hot-button issues.

(click on this link for the full story)