Delco Christian leadership role fits Tann to a T

NEWTOWN SQUARE >> T.J. Tann has spent the last two seasons as an understudy, contributing to successful Delco Christian teams but all the while prepping for his capstone senior season.

Last season, with an explosive scorer like Wyatt Harkins at his side, Tann had the luxury of playing the pass-first point guard roll on a second straight run to the PIAA tournament.

This season, with a considerably younger and less experienced supporting cast, the imperative for Tann has changed. And in his first foray of the 2016-17 season, Tann found the requisite touch that he watched Harkins deploy with aplomb last year.

The 21 points Tann poured in leap off the page in a 61-43 win over The Christian Academy in the 52nd annual Delco Christian Tip-Off Tournament. Despite leading all scorers, Tann’s day constituted a tale of quality over quantity.

With fellow senior scoring option Jordan Parks saddled with first-half foul trouble, Tann took the reins with 13 points at the break. And any time TCA snuck into the game, Tann provided a prompt and savage response.

“It comes with time because the last two years, we were kind of taking a back-seat role,” Tann said. “But it’s my time. If Jordan was out, I knew I needed to step up. If I don’t step up, the team will have some problems.

“But I know it’s my time, my teammates are behind me with full confidence and I stepped up.”

The self-assurance shined through time and again. The Knights started the quicker of the teams, but a TCA spurt to start the second quarter winnowed what had been an 11-point lead to 17-12. So Tann canned 3-pointers on consecutive trips down the floor, extending the lead back to nine at halftime.

In the third, he fed Tyler Penley for a triple and Parks for a deuce in transition. Tann’s step-back bucket from a step inside the arc powered a 17-4 run to start the half and end any reasonable suspicion of a Crusaders comeback.

Just for good measure, when a 7-0 TCA run opened the fourth quarter, narrowing the margin to 11, Tann drove the lane and absorbed the contact for a three-point play to restore a 14-point edge.

Some offense then Tann does it alone. DC up 25-17 pic.twitter.com/VYwB5QwCaj

— Matthew De George (@sportsdoctormd) December 10, 2016

“I knew it was time to gain some momentum back,” Tann said. “I had an open shot, my teammates had full confidence in me, so I just let it go.”

“He’s just a natural leader, one of our best players,” Penley said of Tann. “And he knew how to step up into that role and be calm under pressure.”

Tann also added six rebounds, three steals and five assists, and he supplied the pressure that inspired a large proportion of TCA’s 27 turnovers. With two minutes left in the third quarter, the Crusaders had 22 points and 21 turnovers.

That trait is particularly troublesome for first-year TCA coach Malik Walker, whose young team is built around a handful of veteran ball-handlers. The consistency of decision-making wasn’t there for most of Friday’s opener.

“With my guards predominantly being the veterans of the team, I’m putting a lot on their shoulders,” Walker said. “As they go, we go. … I don’t know if it was a little nerves or whatever, but we’ve got to straighten it out.”

Davier Daniels used a strong fourth quarter to score 12 points. Nahom Kenna finished with nine points and 11 rebounds, while Jalen Sherrill added eight points for a Crusaders side that went over 10 minutes from the end of the second quarter to the final seconds of the third.

Delco Christian got the scoring it needed from the trinity of Penley, Tann and Parks. Penley and Parks added 16 points apiece, Parks providing 14 in the second half as his foul issues eased. No one else had more than one bucket.
But on a night like Friday, Tann was just about all that the Knights needed to start this year’s growing experience with a victory.

“A W is definitely a good way to start it out,” Tann said. “We had some young guys who’ve never played in this kind of environment. … We had some young guys who stepped up for us, (and) without them, we wouldn’t have gotten the W.”