OPRF guard Ka’Darryl Bell has played a lot of good basketball in his young life. That’s why he’s already drawn interest from many Division I college basketball programs ranging from Iowa to Illinois to Butler, according to Rivals.com.
But OPRF head coach Matt Maloney believes Bell was most impressive in the Huskies’ summer league games.
“Ka’Darryl had a phenomenal summer. This has been the best month of basketball I’ve seen him play,” said Maloney. “I haven’t seen a guard this summer that’s played better, and we’ve played against some of the top guards in the area. I’ve been really impressed with his growth.”
Bell’s improvement has encompassed his entire game, explained Maloney. “His leadership has developed. His on-the-ball defense has been phenomenal. He’s scoring the ball at a higher clip than he was last year when he was our leading scorer.”
But Bell is a fairly known commodity around the West Suburban (Silver) Conference and Chicagoland. What may be a little less known is the depth OPRF expects to possess next season. Maloney, whose team went 22-7 over the summer, said he should have plenty of talented players that also bring height and versatility to the table next season.
“We’re looking at a real deep rotation,” said Maloney. “We’re going to go at least 10 deep, and possibly more depending on what we have come season-time.
“We have a lot more size this year than we had last year,” he added. “We’re going to be looking more for a four-out, one-in motion where last year we ran a lot of open motion. Defensively, we can actually play a lot more zone and be a little more versatile in terms of the press just with our size and versatility.”
Gabe Levin, a 6-foot-6 incoming senior, is key to that versatility. “He’s improved a ton,” said Maloney of his returning starting forward. “He’s getting a lot of interest from colleges for his inside-outside game.”
Maloney also mentioned Alex Nesnidal as another standout player this summer. Also a returning forward, Nesnidal led OPRF in made three-pointers during the off-season.
A group of seven juniors, including five returning varsity players from last season’s 10-13 squad, are expected to play major roles when things gear up this winter. One of the juniors is forward Virgil Allen, a 6-7, 240-pound post player who, in a summer league game against St. Joseph in late June, out-sized everyone on the court.
“Virgil has a major upside [in how big he is],” said Maloney of the newcomer to varsity. “He has made tremendous strides over the past four months.”
An advantage of having five juniors play on varsity as sophomores, added Maloney, is the opportunity to create team chemistry at an early stage. Most of the newcomers really aren’t newcomers, which is good given the summer’s hectic schedule.
“With the summer, with guys playing multiple sports and with AAU, I try not to put too much in in terms of what we’re going to be doing in the season. Just enough so they can be successful and work on individual skills and building the player in the summer,” said Maloney, adding that he has stressed improving outside shooting and ball-handling skills, two deficiencies that led to a six-game losing skid at the end of last season. “That way, come November, we can figure out exactly what we have and what we want to run.”