Delcohoops.com

By Delcohoops.com Staff

Hard to believe but the 2018/19 regular season high school boy’s basketball season is ending in just two weeks and that means that PIAA District One playoffs are just around the corner.  Playoffs begin February 15th and to help you keep track of who’s in, who’s probably out and who’s got a chance, we created a quick reference link to all six classification rankings.  Simple go to the right side of our home page and look for the PIAA District One logo and click on it.

We’ll try to keep these pages current as we finish up the last two weeks of the regular season.  Keep coming back as we decide which playoff games we’ll be broadcasting!

By Matthew DeGeorge

The shift change queuing on the Ridley bench didn’t seem to make sense at first glance.

Midway through a stop-start second quarter, with Ridley leading Upper Darby by one, Ridley coach Kevin Kelly opted for a hockey-style line change — four up from the bench, four starters to the pine. With offensive execution in desperately short supply, a change of pace might do the trick.

In came undersized big Jalen Hudson, along with reserve guards Samir Neal and Aaron Tillery. And the momentum of the game changed with them.

Ridley scored 12 of the final 13 points of the half and stretched the lead as wide as 13 in the fourth before holding on to topple Upper Darby, 57-54, and earn their seventh straight win.

(click on this link for more game stories and scores)

By Kev Hunter

Unbeaten all season, Haverford School was uncatchable Friday night, staying firmly in front all evening long and withstanding a 35-point effort by Germantown Academy’s Jordan Longino to win 74-56 and climb to 19-0.

“I thought we were really, really good in spots,” Fords coach Bernie Rogers said, after his team improved to a perfect 7-0 in the Inter-Ac. “Longino’s pretty good. I thought we lost him a couple times, and he’s gonna burn ya.’ Other times, I thought we did a good job on him and he made some pretty tough shots.

“We had a spurt in the second and third quarters where we got three or four stops in a row and were able to break the game open a little bit.”

Haverford took an eight-point lead into the half and widened the gap to 17 in the third quarter. Christian Ray led the way for the Fords with a game-high 36 points and Jameel Brown and Jameer Nelson each had 14.

“I thought we made some good extra passes,” said Rogers, whose team created space to hit eight 3-pointers.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Matthew DeGeorge

Aziz Khammassi’s junior-year basketball journey wasn’t the one he had originally expected.Two games into the season in December 2017, the forward let Marple Newtown coach Sean Spratt know that he would be away for most of the next month. He returned to Tunisia, the country of his father’s birth, to visit his sick grandmother. And while there, he got his fill of hoops by trying out for the Tunisian Under-17 team.

“When I went down there, I didn’t think it was going to be anything like here,” Khammassi said this week. “But they had like a 6-10 guy, a lot of good guards, lots of guys getting offers from schools here.”

The disruption to the high school season was a setback last year, but the exposure to a higher level of talent has paid long-term dividends. Khammassi spent two weeks trying out with the Tunisian Basketball Federation (FTBB), and while he didn’t make the final squad for a game, per the FTBB, the experience was important to Khammassi.

(click on this link for the full story)

By Mike Cabrey

A comeback does not start with the first points. It begins with the belief it can happen.And despite down 14 points at halftime to Bonner & Prendergast Thursday night, Allen Powell said the La Salle boys basketball’s confidence they could erase the deficit never wavered.

 “We were talking as a team before the coaches came in, telling us that we can fight back,” the Explorers senior guard said. “We had a slow half. Come out the second half and just play better.”

With better defensive play and an offensive ignited by Powell, the Explorers sliced the Friars’ lead down to three by the end of the third quarter. A 9-0 run to begin the fourth put La Salle up six and the Explorers held off Bonner’s late rally try to stay perfect on the season with a 64-59 Philadelphia Catholic League victory.

“No matter what you’re doing you got to believe you can comeback,” La Salle coach Mike McKee said. “Our guys showed a lot of character and demonstrated that. Got to give them a lot of credit, you kind of say words but for them to back it up means a lot more.”

(click on this link for the full story)

By PAPrepLive

Keivon Stevens made his first start a memorable one, posting a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds to guide Penn Wood past Glen Mills, 76-52, in Del Val League boys basketball action Thursday.

Davanta Smith led the Patriots with 16 points, and Antonio Campbell chipped in 15 points. Ahmir Jackson added 10 for the Patriots (10-6, 4-2 Del Val).

Jabriel Guinyard led Glen Mills with 14 points.

Also in the Del Val League:

(click on this link for more game stories and scores)