As state tournament looms, transfers common part of local basketball landscape

Magd Abdelwahab takes a second to wistfully run down the roster of his eighth grade team at Beverly Hills Middle School.

He was part of that undefeated team, along with fellow Upper Darby senior Nasir Greer. Also included was Bonner & Prendergast sixth-man-turned-starting-guard Yohance Garner, who was a teammate of Abdelwahab in the two years he spent at Bonner.

Rounding out the starting five is Anthony McFall, who played at Upper Darby as a sophomore, and Kwazhere Ransom, who scored 44 points in five highly productive games at the tail end of his freshman year for the Friars.

The lone enduring similarity between the five, other than a shared zip code in junior high, is that all five will be taking part in the PIAA tournament starting this weekend: Abdelwahab and Greer at Upper Darby; Garner at Bonner; Ransom and McFall at Math, Civics & Sciences.

The journey of multiple schools that four of them share is a common refrain that extends well beyond the boundaries of the Upper Darby School District.

“It’s really different,” Abdelwahab said of the difference between Upper Darby and Bonner & Prendie. “Two different environments, two different academic environments. But you get used to it, especially when you’re playing with a lot of guys in the area and you pretty much know everybody coming to this school. It’s not really anything new. It’s a pretty small population when it comes to Upper Darby and Bonner.”

Lest you suspect this is an isolated phenomenon, consider the following. Seven teams from Delco will tip off in states games Friday and Saturday: Upper Darby in Class 6A; Penncrest, Sun Valley, Chester, Bonner and Archbishop Carroll in 5A; Delco Christian in 2A. That’s four public schools and three private schools.

Of the four publics, all but Penncrest count starters who began their careers at a private school but transferred back.
Abdelwahab fits that bill for the Royals. At Chester, Rahmee Gilbert spent his freshman year at Neumann-Goretti before venturing back, as did injured forward Zahmir Carroll. Sun Valley’s starting five includes Isaac Kennon, who spent his freshman and sophomore years at Carroll, and the circuitous path of Shahir Brown-Morris — freshman year at Sun Valley, sophomore season and the start of his junior campaign at O’Hara before returning last January for the Vanguards and holding down the point guard spot ever since.

Every player’s story is different. Brown-Morris’ departure from O’Hara coincided with a coaching change, Jason Harrigan replacing Steve Cloran. Brown-Morris cited his relationship with Sun Valley skipper Steve Maloney, calling him “a father figure.”

Kennon leaned on relationships he’d built at Northley Middle School with classmates Marvin Freeman and Vinny DeAngelo as integral in acclimating to the Vanguards.

Going from schools with wide catchment areas to those not necessarily recognized for basketball — Upper Darby endured a six-win season last year; Sun Valley hadn’t made states since 1990 — has shaped the mentality of the new squads. Each has logistical limitations, by geography or resources. But players who’ve come back to those schools stated by their actions that they want to tread the unconventional path, fostering an us-against-the-world mentality that has led to the promised land of states.

“It’s a lot different,” Kennon said. “There’s a bunch of other big kids (at Carroll) that are coming from all over. You don’t know where they could be from. There’s a different atmosphere. There’s a lot more kids that go to Carroll.”

“The coaches would tell us all the time, you see how competitive it is. They’re letting us know that guys want to come to this school, so you’re fighting for a spot,” Abdelwahab said of life at Bonner & Prendie. “Here, you’re doing the exact same thing but it’s not as much competition coming from everywhere. We’ve got guys from Delaware, New Jersey coming into Bonner to play and they’re playing for a spot. Here, we’ve just got guys from the neighborhood.”

Whatever the input, it’s worked at both locations. Sun Valley has developed a scrappy mentality around Maloney, relying on a six-man rotation that counts just one senior in Brown-Morris. Upper Darby endured a raft of injuries and off-the-court issues to field a diminished roster last year. The product was a 6-15 campaign, with five of the wins clustered in a bizarre late-January winning streak on the heels of a 10-game skid.

The style of play, Abdelwahab said, is obviously different. But the level of accomplishment he’s attained with his new teammates fits what he aspired to at Bonner, which makes it just as special.

“Anybody will tell you the basketball is different,” he said. “It has to do with the competition as well, the Catholic League being the Catholic League and then the Central League having great competition as well. I think that I would say that Bonner and the Catholic League, it’s a much more up-tempo type of play. That’s the biggest difference.”