Ke'Shawn Williams on the dribble for SCH. (Photo by Jonathan Vander Lugt)

By Jonathan Vander Lugt

Winning habits. It’s a concept that’s easy enough to talk about, but immeasurably difficult to instill. When alum Julian McFadden took over the Springside Chestnut Hill basketball program, he inherited a Blue Devil team with a cupboard left bare as far as “winning habits” were concerned.

“It’s about being able to fight when we get down and not rolling over during moments like this, because that can snowball,” McFadden said. “Having graduated from the school, I know what it’s like—I know what those players are going through when they struggle.”

It’s been since the 2011-12 season that SCH has even sniffed a .500 record in the Inter-Ac, and it hasn’t been in true contention since the turn of the decade, when they won the conference in 2009-10.

The Blue Devils’ 2016-17 Inter-Ac season, by objective standards, did not get off to a good start Friday night. The Blue Devils lost, 77-52, to Malvern Prep in a game that wasn’t particularly close at any point.

Honestly, though, that’s not what matters. McFadden knows that his team isn’t going to blow any doors down. It’s what happens outside of the box score—in the locker room, and in the players’ own heads—that’s going to count the most.

That being said, he realized that it was time to take off the kid gloves.

“This was one of those moments where you had to be brutally honest as a coach,” McFadden said. “Sometimes you want to point toward the good things, and point toward the positivity, but today was one of those days where we told them that they put up a stinker.”

“We’ve got to be better,” he went on. “We’ve got to get in the gym more, work on our game when the coaches aren’t around.”

No player reached double figures. Zuri Peyton and Ke’Shawn Williams each scored nine, while C.J. Sweitzer put up eight. The Blue Devils were without Matt Rahill and Chris Alleyne, to illness and a baseball showcase, respectively, and their presence would have undoubtedly helped.

“Not having those two guys was tough—between them, they average about 20 rebounds and 17 points, so in a game that we lost by 25, it could have easily been around 10, had we had them,” McFadden said.

“But it was good for the younger guys to be able to adjust on the fly and be able to get a little more time than they usually would,” he went on. “You have to roll with the punches as a coach, and this was one of those nights.”

What has undoubtedly been the most challenging aspect of McFadden’s job has been handling the psyche of a team he’s trying to build from the ground up. If he pushes too hard, he risks alienating the roster.

But if he’s too soft, he’s at risk of just that—being perceived as soft. It’s a delicate balance.

“They’re doing everything they can and sometimes you just can’t go after them the way that you want to because you’re frustrated,” McFadden said. “The important thing for me is to always take a step back and think about how they feel.”

“When you come out and play like that, and have your coach lay into you, it’s tough,” he went on. “There have been times where we’ve been purely positive—today was one of those days where I felt like I needed to give some tough love.”

The Blue Devils hosted Germantown Academy Tuesday, which was surely hungry following a season-opening loss of its own—the Pats’ first since 2009-10.

“Sometimes a team will get you down and punch you dead in the mouth,” McFadden said. The question now is, “What are you going to do about it? Are you going to put your tail between your legs? Last year, this one could have been a 50-point loss.”

“I’ve got to go into it thinking about building winning habits, because we’re not a win-now team,” he went on. “We’re building what we want in our culture and our basketball program.”

“It’s the Blue Devil pride—it’s something that they constantly preached when I was here. It’s just something we’ve got to get back to,” McFadden said. “This is where the coaching change is going to make a difference—we’ve got to become a team that loves playing basketball.

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Jonathan Vander Lugt can be reached at vanderlugt.chlocal@gmail.com