Chris Roantree (Josh Verlin, CIty of Basketball Love)
Coming off his program’s best season in nearly three decades, Father Judge (Pa.) head coach Chris Roantree took a measured approach after seeing his team drop two tough contests to Bishop McNamara (Md.) and DeMatha Catholic (Md.) at MADE Hoops Team Camp earlier this month.
The Crusaders built big leads in both of those games but couldn’t hold on, and the hope is that those losses provide valuable learning opportunities for a team seeking to build off of last year’s success while developing its own character.
“We’re used to playing high-level competition, so for us I don’t think it’s jitters for us or we’re scared of who we’re playing or anything like that,” Roantree said. “It’s just kind of us getting settled in and really playing as a new group. We don’t have our point guard back and we lost our big to college, but I think for us it’s really about getting an identity as we play this year as a group.”
In building that identity, this year’s Crusaders will be working from a strong template. In February, Father Judge beat Roman Catholic to win its first Philadelphia Catholic League title in 27 years, denying Roman a three-peat in the process. They lost the City title game to Imhotep Charter, but went on to win the first Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) Class 6A State Championship in school history, again downing Roman Catholic.
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The PCL and PIAA sweep marked a complete turnaround of a program which won just nine league games in the three years prior to Roantree’s hiring in 2021. A 1999 Father Judge alum, Roantree was on the 1998 Crusaders squad that had last won the PCL in 1998.
The bulk of last year’s squad returns, minus graduated standouts Kevair Kennedy and Everett Barnes, who are headed to Division I Merrimack and Loyola (Md.), respectively.
MADE Hoops caught up with Roantree between the action at Millersville University to discuss this year’s team and expectations:
AS A COACH, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE FROM YOUR TEAM THIS TIME OF YEAR?
“For us, it’s playing great competition and really kind of getting better. I think it’s a chance for us to get better heading into our June live period. One of the things we’re focused on is defense and guarding, and I think there we did a good job in the first half of just being in the right spots. We’re not running sets, we just want to offensively do the right things and play the right way, and offensively shoot the ball and make shots, and really kind of see the things that we’re working on in our workouts during the week and how it all translates to high level competition, and we did.”
HOW MANY PLAYERS ARE BACK FROM LAST YEAR?
“We have three guys back from our starting lineup that had a lot of success. And then we have [2026 forward] Max Moshinski back too, as a fourth guy. Really, what we’re trying to figure out is what does 5, 6, 7, 8 look like, and how do we play? We’re playing a little bit smaller – we don’t have a 6-10 big this year – so it’s a little bit different there, but we’re really seeing guys step up. We have a couple of freshmen that are going to come in and compete, we have a transfer [2028 wing Rezon Harris] that’s going to come in and compete, so we’re really seeing guys step up and compete.”
HOW MUCH DOES IT HELP TO HAVE THAT EXPERIENCE?
“It helps; we saw what it took [to win]. I think two years ago when we took a jump and we made the semis in our league, we saw what it took to get there and the grind that it took and things like that. We always talk about, ‘Our goal is our goal,’ and our goal is to win the PCL and how do we get to that? I think with them being part of a winning program now for two years and being ingrained in our culture, I think it helps tremendously.”
WHO ARE YOU EXPECTING TO STEP INTO BIGGER ROLES NEXT SEASON?
“I think [2026 guard] Rocco Westfield’s going to step up and play on the ball a lot this year, where he was off the ball a lot last year. [2026 guard] Derrick Morton-Rivera, a lot of people know him but he’s added some stuff to his game outside of just shooting, and getting to the lane a lot better and handling the ball. [2027 wing] Naz Tyler’s got to step up from maybe being our fourth or fifth option to now being a Top 3 option. We talked about Max – but I’m excited about our freshmen, too. Khory Copeland played today – he just got back from Elite 100 at two in the morning and he comes and plays. And then Ahmir Brown, I think the sky’s the limit for them as freshmen and stepping into a role on a pretty good team – a team that’s expected to compete – I think is going to help us continue to set our goals for the future.”
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