An Unconventional Year for Philly Hoops

What a difference a couple of weeks make. On February 12, 2008, Ted Silary posted his City to ten basketball ranking. On the same day, the Daily News posted its own Area Top 15 teams. If you just look at the Philly Pub and the Philly Catholic Leagues, you’ll notice that within two weeks, the top 4 on Ted’s list as well as the top 4 city teams in the Daily News list would all be eliminated from their respective league playoffs. The Daily News only listed the Catholic League champion team from North Catholic on their list, but they barely squeezed in at number 14. Pub champ, Comm Tech, was nowhere to be seen on that list. But, to give credit to Ted Silary, he did have both North Catholic (5) and Comm Tech (9) on his top 10 list.

How did these consensus top teams get knocked out of their playoffs? That will be a mystery to be pondered for some time. We’ll look at each league’s playoffs and see where it all went wrong for some teams and all right for others.

The Philly Public League

First, in the Philly Pub, it looked like another season of small school dominance, with Strawberry Mansion, IMHOTEP and Prep Charter, all AA schools, somehow figuring into the pub finals. The single-A division of the pub has a couple of decent teams in Math, Civics and Science, along with Freire, but not many people gave either team a chance to get further than the single-A title game in 2008. The AAA division has a few good teams in FLC, Ben Franklin and Comm Tech, but the former two are fading former champions and the latter is a three year program, sprouting up as an off shoot of Bartram. Not many people gave any of these teams a shot at winning the coveted Public League championship. The consensus seemed to be that the finals would match up a AA team (Prep Charter, Mansion or IMHOTEP) with the AAAA champ (Frankford or Gratz). Well, although Frankford did make it to the big dance, it was AAA team, Comm Tech that left with the championship hardware. It wasn’t a huge upset for Comm Tech to win; it just went against conventional wisdom in this wacky year of Philly high school basketball.

Here’s what happened to the rest of the “favorites”.
(Team - DN ranking/Ted Silary ranking/final result)

Mansion – 8/2/ Lost in Pub semi-final
IMHOTEP – 10/3/ Lost in Pub quarter-final
Prep Charter – 13/4/Lost in Pub round of 16
Frankford – NR/7/ Pub runner-up
Gratz – NR/8/Lost in Pub quarter-finals
Comm Tech – NR/9/Pub champ
Bartram – NR/10/Lost in Pub round of 16
Southern – NR/Under Consideration/Lost in Pub semi-finals

The Philly Catholic League

Unlike the Philly Pub, the 2008 version of the Catholic League playoffs is much easier to follow. The league has the old-time North and South divisions. The Southern Division teams, including Roman, Neumann-Goretti, St Joseph Prep and Bonner, have dominated the Catholic League for just about ever. It’s been so dominant, that having a Northern division team in the finals is a big deal. This year, the south was shut out and the finals were an all-Northern division affair. But, how did we get there? That is yet another mystery of Philly high school basketball in 2008.

The first round of the catholic league playoffs, the playoffs are kept within the division, with the #1 team playing the #4 team and the #2 team taking on the #3 team. This season, the only #1 or #2 team to make it out of the first round of playoffs was North Catholic, the eventual PCL champ. In the North, #3 Archbishop Ryan disposed of #2 Cardinal Dougherty. This wasn’t a huge upset, but since Ryan hasn’t beaten Dougherty in many of moons, it certainly raised a few eyebrows. In the Southern Division, #3 Bonner had beaten #2 Neumann-Goretti at the same time that Ryan was finishing up. So, half way through the first round and both #2 teams were eliminated. As #1 North was playing a very close game with #4 LaSalle, word trickled in from the south that #4 Prep was beating #1 Roman at half time. Could the catholic league playoffs move to the second round with only 3 and 4 seeded teams? As North was wrapping up their win over LaSalle, word started to spread that Prep had knocked off basketball giant, Roman, and would be North’s opponent in the semi-finals.

The PCL finals were guaranteed a #3 seed in the finals, as Ryan and Bonner fought for the right to play the North/Prep winner in the finals. And, keeping with the wackiness of 2008, Ryan again pulled the upset and beat Bonner at the Palestra. Although many people believed that North was the favorite in the nightcap game, there was a legion of “Speedy” followers who just couldn’t accept the Speedy Morris’ former assistant, Mike McCarron, could beat the Hawks from St Joe Prep. But, sometimes an over abundance of talented players will win on that fact alone, with North closing out the semi-final game strong to set up an all-northern division championship. North went on to end the Cinderella playoffs that Ryan was experiencing, capturing their 2nd PCL title in the past 21 seasons.

How the PCL “favorites” finished in 2008:
(Team – DN ranking/Ted Silary ranking/final result)

Roman – 3/1/Lost in first round of PCL playoffs
North Catholic – 14/5/PCL champs
Neumann-Goretti – NR/6/Lost in first round of PCL playoffs
Bonner – NR/Under Consideration/Lost in PCL semi-finals
Prep – NR/NR/Lost in PCL semi-finals
Ryan – NR/NR/PCL runner up.


In conclusion, it looks like even the most knowledgeable of Philly high school basketball misses the mark from time to time. Of the 4 PCL semi-finalists, only North Catholic was included in the Daily News area top 15 and on Ted Silary’s city top 10. The other three semi-finalist were absent from both lists. Of the 4 Pub semi-finalists, only Strawberry Mansion made the Daily News list and, but only Southern didn’t make it on to Ted Silary’s top 10. In the end, the two league champions consisted of a team that hasn’t won a championship in 21 years (North Catholic) and a team that has only been a team for 3 seasons (Comm Tech). To Philly basketball traditionalists, it’s a travesty, to people like me; it’s refreshing to see new champs in the city leagues.