5 Things To Know about Berks I boys basketball for the 2022-23 season
Each day this week MikeDragoSports.com will be taking an in-depth look at Berks basketball, with team-by-team capsules and preview stories ahead of Friday’s season-openers.
1. Red Knights still on top
Most seasons, Berks basketball begins and ends with Reading High. This season is no different.
The Red Knights won their league games by an average of 27.2 points last season and their Berks playoff games by 24.3. And they figure to be better this season.
They return three starters, including two-time All-State pick Ruben Rodriguez, who already figures prominently in any conversation about Reading’s best guards. He could end up with more points than Lonnie Walker IV, Reading’s all-time scoring leader.
Rodriguez was named Berks Player of the Year after averaging a league-leading 19.8 points per game but he’s not the Red Knights’ only scoring threat.
Teams may tend to overlook senior guard Myles Grey but all you have to know is that he knocked down 10 3-pointers in a game last season, setting the program record.
“When you play with a guy like Ruben, not too many people notice the second guy,” said Muhlenberg coach Matt Flowers. “I don’t believe Myles is getting the respect that he truly deserves.”
Grey averaged 10.4 points per game, made a team-leading 57 3-pointers and is a lock-down defender.
You want defense? Then talk about Amier Burdine, a college-level defensive back who can cover anyone on the floor, big or small.
Defense will again be the Red Knights’ calling card, even after graduating post stalwart Xavier Davis and bullish guard Joey Chapman.
The Red Knights will be bigger in the post, with 6-6 junior Malik Osumanu — the “little” brother of PIAA championship-game MVP Moro — emerging as a defensive/rebounding presence.
Senior Aris Rodriguez has sprouted to 6-5 and provides yet another scoring threat; he’ll hit from outside the arc, too. Some think he’s poised for a breakout season. One rival coach has him pegged as a potential All-Berks pick.
“Reading High has always had athletic, tough teams,” said Wilson coach Matt Coldren, “but the difference the last six years is they’ve had guys who can put the ball in the basket.”
2. Muhls ready to make more waves
Berks II champ Muhlenberg made big waves in Berks basketball last season when it knocked off Reading High, 63-61. Now, after moving back up to Berks ,I the Muhls will get two cracks at the Red Knights.
Don’t think former Red Knights assistant Matt Flowers — the Berks Coach of the Year in his rookie season — isn’t loving that. Or thinking his guys can’t beat the Red Knights again this year.
There’s reason for such optimism. The Muhls are deeper than ever and maybe just as skilled.
Yes, they lose two-time All-Berks pick Edwin Suarez, the league’s top post man the past two seasons, and don’t have much size to replace him. Flowers doesn’t care. His guard-oriented team will be playing so fast it won’t matter.
Pint-sized point guard J’Daniel Mosquera will be pushing his team up and down the court, running things as well as any point in the county. And he’ll be just one of an array of 3-point shooters, including Xzavion Robertson, Josh Alcantara, Eric Branch and Julian Zabala, a Reading High transfer who emerged with a big summer season.
“We’re a deep team,” Flowers said. “We have 10, 11 guys that can go. Any given day any one of those guys can light it up.”
Mekhi Adonis, a sturdy 6-3, 250-pound senior, will patrol the post and be a key. If he can collect enough rebounds Flowers can keep four guards on the floor and dictate the tempo.
The Muhls got knocked out of districts in the opening round last season — in part because they didn’t come out fast enough against a tough Cedar Cliff team, in part because they got burned by a bad whistle in the final seconds of that 55-54 road loss.
They figure to fair much better this season. First, they’re back to Class 5A, where they reached consecutive District 3 finals in 2019 and 2020 and won their only district championship. Plus, most of the guys will remember the sting of that loss and be a little more battle-tested — and hungry — come late February.
3. Bulldogs ready to bite back
Wilson was a bit of an overachiever last season. The Bulldogs recorded early wins against eventual district champs Berks Catholic and Pottsville, beat Muhlenberg and stunned an 18-1 Methacton team with a miraculous buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
They won 14 of their first 19 games with a very young team, then hit the wall. Their youth caught up with them and they dropped six of their final seven games — one playoff win short of a trip to the state playoffs.
Five of their top six scorers return, including leading scorer Cam Jones, a Holy Cross football recruit and one of the league’s toughest on-ball defenders. He was a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year in the West Reading Summer League.
Aidan Melongrana, West Reading’s Most Improved player in the summer, has transformed his game. He’s grown to 6-4 and added to his 3-point range. He hit a team-best 30 3’s off the bench last season; he could double that as a starting wing.
The Bulldogs are not at a loss for scorers or play-makers. Senior Cleveland Harding returns to the backcourt. Madyx Gruber, a dynamic scorer and spark off the bench last year, moves to point guard. Ofure Odiale improved throughout his junior season and could be one of the league’s top post men. And then there’s Correll Aikings, who could be the best freshman to enter the program since Stevie Mitchell. He figures to quickly work his way into the rotation.
“I don’t know that I ever had 10-11 guys (like this before),” said Bulldogs coach Matt Coldren. “We’re pretty deep.”
4. Rick Perez closing in on record
Had things gone a little better for Reading High last season — had senior Daniel Alcantara not taken that nasty fall in a district playoff game against Wilson; had the Red Knights not dug such a tremendous hole in a state playoff game against Archbishop Wood — Rick Perez might’ve beome the winningest basketball coach in program history in March.
Those unfortunate breaks only delayed the inevitable. Perez enters the season with 249 wins, two shy of Jim Gano’s program-record 251.
There’s a good chance Perez gets the record — maybe in the first week of the season. The Red Knights open against Central York at the Geigle Dec. 6, play at McCaskey Dec. 8, then return home against Hazleton Dec. 12.
Reading finished 26-4 last season but was knocked out in the second round of the PIAA Tournament. Alcantara, an All-Berks pick and 1,000-point scorer, was lost for the season in a district quarterfinal when he injured his back and wrist falling after a dunk.
The Red Knights sliced a 25-point deficit to two in the final minutes against Wood but couldn’t finish the job. Had they won that game they likely would’ve returned to the state final, as Wood eventually did.
Some day soon Red Knights fans will be again be celebrating Perez’s accomplishment, as they did in 2017 when he brought home Reading’s first PIAA championship . . . as they did four years later when the Red Knights pulled off a miraculous state-title win . . . as they did last year, when Reading won a second straight District 3 title and the fourth over Perez’s 11 seasons. It well could get another this year.
Things weren’t alway so rosy for Perez. His first Reading team, in 2012, got bounced in the open round of the District 3 Tournament. The next year the Red Knights finished 15-15. A year later they lost three straight district playoff games and missed the state tournament for the second time in three years.
Perez vowed to quit if he didn’t win a county title in his fourth season.
Lonnie Walker IV, then a sophomore, made sure he stayed. He led the Red Knights to the first of three straight county crowns, to a district title and then to that unforgettable, culture-changing PIAA championship.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Perez is about to begin his 12th season. He’s already coached more games than anyone in Reading High basketball history. Only two others have coached as long as 12 seasons in what can be an overwhelming job.
Gano left after 10 glorious seasons, a 251-50 record and an .831 winning percentage that no one is about to challenge.
Many will always consider him the greatest coach in program history, and for good reason: He was a superb tactician and motivator who won six district titles — when there were only three classifications — and seven Central Penn League titles when that was the premier league in the state this side of the Philly Catholic League.
5. Tough task for new Mifflin coach
First-year Gov. Mifflin coach Brian Wrobel may have the toughest coaching job around.
Not only is he swimming in the shark tank known as Division I of the Berks Conference, facing Reading High Wilson and Muhlenberg twice each, as well as Berks II stalwarts Berks Catholic and Exeter in crossover games, but he’s doing it under difficult circumstances.
Wrobel, a 32-year-old Antietam grad, was named Mustangs head coach this fall after the death of former head coach Kyle Conrad, who succumbed to cancer. Wrobel realizes he’s in a difficult spot.
“I want to put forward my best effort,” he said, “not only for (Kyle), for the kids, for the team, for the community. It’s my responsibility now so I want to make sure I do it the best I can.”
Conrad continued to coach and shape the Mustangs throughout a prolonged battle against esophageal cancer that eventually took his life at age 39 in September.
Throughout three rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatments over the last three years Conrad continued to coach and teach life lessons. He refused to give in to the pain or the fatigue, or to miss practices or games. His players saw that and were inspired.
“It’s gonna be real tough,” senior guard Delsin McNeil said of not seeing Conrad on the bench. “We’ll have him watching over us, and we’re gonna go all-out all the time (for him). He loved every single one of us, JVs and varsity, everyone.”