By: Rich Flanagan
PHILADELPHIA – Jack Concannon did not expect to find the player that would catapult Bonner-Prendergast to a height that it hadn’t reached since Brian Daly led the Friars to the 1988 Philadelphia Catholic League championship under the direction of a coaching staff headed by Fran O'Hanlon – the longtime Lafayette head coach – and assisted by Steve Donahue, now the head coach at the University of Pennsylvania.
A few weeks removed from a loss in the league quarterfinals with the starting backcourt having moved, Concannon walked into the gymnasium and saw the Under Armour Association (UAA) program, WeR1 practicing. The vaunted AAU program called the gym home with regularity for years and it helped as one of his players, 6-foot-8 forward Ajiri Ogemuno-Johnson, was a member of the program. It was a team that would go on to win the 2017 UAA title a few months later with a roster that included Eric Ayala (Maryland), Malik Curry (West Virginia), Tyrese Martin (UConn), Izaiah Brockington (Iowa State) and a player by the name of Isaiah Wong.
Wong was a star at Notre Dame High School (N.J.), where he scored 840 points in two seasons. He was already on the 17U team as a sophomore and running with the likes of Ayala and Martin against Eric Dixon (Villanova) and Los Angeles Clippers guard Nah'Shon “Bones” Hyland, the stars of the 16U squad. The 6-4 combo guard methodically attacked the younger players with patented finishes at the rim then found his sweet spots inside the arc to drill a mid-range jumper that has become synonymous with his skillset.
Two from the stripe for Isaiah Wong, giving him 146 on the year and yet another spot in the Hurricane history books.@zaywong21 pic.twitter.com/EHOCR3R6iw
— Canes Men’s Basketball (@CanesHoops) March 26, 2023
As Concannon watched the then-16-year-old, what amazed him wasn’t the flurry of baskets Wong put through the hoop time and again but rather the way his facial expression never changed and how his body language never wavered. He wasn’t hyping himself up or jawing at the younger team; he walked the ball up and penetrated with uniform presence.
“What you see is what you get with his demeanor,” Concannon said. “The first thing people ask me is, ‘is he really like that?’ You see his demeanor on the court, and they can’t believe it, but I tell them that he really is like that. It’s just the way he is: calm, cool and collected.”
What followed is nothing short of miraculous as a player who once was hidden in plain sight will be the center of attention on Saturday night as Wong leads Miami (Fla.) in its first Final Four appearance against UConn inside NRG Stadium in Houston. That stoic demeanor and unwavering confidence were with him when he and Ayala combined for 36 points in the UAA final over Devon Dotson (Kansas), Aaron Wiggins (Maryland) and Team Charlotte. It was there when he made the decision to join Ogemuno-Johnson at Bonner-Prendergast and helped the program ascend to a level it had not been previously. It was there then, and it will absolutely be there in Houston in the biggest game of his career.
It's no surprise that Wong has averaged 16.5 points per game during the 2023 NCAA Tournament but it’s how he goes about his business in accruing those points that captivates those watching.
University of Miami junior guard Isaiah Wong, was a 2x Philadelphia Catholic League MVP and 1,000 point scorer at Bonner-Prendergast - PSD Photo by Chip Frenette
Star players are notoriously known for their displays of emotion or the amplitude of their voice but that’s not Wong. He has an unflappable aura about him at any point of the game from the opening tip to the most nerve-racking moments. Take his performance in the Elite Eight as he scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half to help the Hurricanes erase a 13-point deficit and give head coach Jim Larrañaga his second trip to the Final Four 17 years to the day since he led George Mason to this same position in the most improbable fashion.
Ogemuno-Johnson, who just completed his collegiate career at Rider, witnessed this from Wong during their early years together with WeR1 and saw it transcend during their time at Bonner-Prendergast.
“We used to call him the ‘Silent Killer’ in high school because he would come into the gym and not say a word to anybody,” Ogemuno-Johnson said. “He would speak when he was around a few of the guys, but he would regularly just come in and do what he needed to do. He’s a little more vocal than he used to be, so I’m proud of him for that.”
As Ogemuno-Johnson stressed,“he wasn’t vocal, but his game spoke so much that everybody else just followed.” Ogemuno-Johnson led the Friars in scoring the season before Wong’s arrival but once the successive season began, it was clear whose team it was. He scored 19 points in his first game in a Bonner-Prendergast uniform against Overbrook then had 27 points in the next one versus Malvern Prep. He scored 20 or more points in 35 out of Bonner-Prendergast’s 58 games in his two seasons with the program and racked up 1,281 points, which puts him third all-time in program history.
Kevin Funston was an assistant during Wong’s junior season and became his head coach as a senior when Concannon stepped down. He picked up on Wong’s reserved personality but saw how it allowed him to embed himself in the game in such a way that memorable performances became a regularity.
“He’s very confident but he’s also super comfortable in his own skin,” Funston said. “He is who he is, and he has never tried to be somebody else. When you have that kind of comfortability to be who you are, it makes him great, and it keeps him calm in the moment. He was one of those quiet leaders but when he did speak, it went a long way.”
Wong took the Philadelphia Catholic League by storm and captured the first of two league MVP awards, joining players such as St. Joe’s Prep’s Steve Vasturia, Roman Catholic’s Maalik Wayns, and the late Eddie Griffin and Tom Gola – who won back-to-back awards at La Salle in the 1950s - to win the award twice. He made Bonner-Prendergast basketball a must-see attraction for the first time in decades and with that also came increased success as the Friars advanced to the Philadelphia Catholic League title game and the PIAA Class 5A semifinals.
ISAIAH WONG WAS WILLING TO DO WHATEVER IT TOOK TO HELP THE FRIARS SEIZE A STATE TITLE. INTERVIEW BY JOHN KNEBELS AFTER THE FRIARS’ 82-57 VICTORY OVER ARCHBISHOP CARROLL IN THE 2019 PIAA 4A QUARTERFINAL.
Concannon was at the helm of that first and historic season, and he put what Wong did into perspective as someone who played at Bonner-Prendergast from 1980-83 which included the league title as a senior then coached there in two different stints for a total of eight seasons.
“Isaiah took our program to a whole ‘nother level,” Concannon said. “He’s a once-in-a-generation player at a school like Bonner. People just wanted to come watch him play. I remember you couldn’t get into our gym, and you definitely couldn’t get into the Palestra the night of the Catholic League championship. When you have a player with his talent and ability, it’s going to take any program to another level.”
Playing in the Final Four is the apex of Wong’s career to this point but he had his share of moments at Bonner-Prendergast where he first introduced himself as a player that would go on to win Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year, be named to the Midwest Region All-Tournament Team, and currently sit fifth on Miami’s all-time scoring list with 1,851 career points. He hit an acrobatic shot against Archbishop Carroll in the Philadelphia Catholic League semifinals at the Palestra as he fell to the ground and launched it up off the backboard to send the Cathedral of College Basketball into a raucous frenzy. He converted the game winner with six seconds left to beat Roman Catholic his senior year.
He may have had his most legendary performance earlier that season as the Friars went into South Philadelphia to play Neumann-Goretti. Bonner-Prendergast could not find an answer against the Saints full-court pressure defense and chose to change things up in the second half, not with sets or elaborate plays but with Wong. Funston knew there was only one way to get back into a game where his team trailed by 17 points.
“They were giving us fits and we were struggling to execute, so the game plan in the second half was to get Isaiah the ball and get him in different scenarios whether it’s downhill or in closeouts,” Funston said. “In that second half, it really changed the tone of the game and all his teammates started believing. That was the game where I started believing, and while I knew we had something special that season, that was to another level as he took over a game single-handedly.”
Wong finished with a school-record 44 points, including 36 after halftime and 24 in the fourth quarter alone. He did this as 6-9 big man Tariq Ingraham, who is currently playing at Rider after beginning his career at Wake Forest, Shawn Simmons, who is headed to play at St. Joe’s next season, and Tyreese Watson, who avg. 19.6 ppg at Cochise College (Ariz.) this season and will play at Louisiana-Monroe next year, looked on in awe.
Bonner-Prendie alum Isaiah Wong leads the University of Miami to the NCAA Final Four - PSD Photo by Mike Nance
Watson was a member of the rotation that advanced to the 2019 PIAA Class 4A title game in Hershey, the first in program history. For Watson – who had missed almost all of the 2017-18 season with a left knee injury – playing alongside Wong exposed him to a form of basketball that he had not experienced to that point in his career.
“Those two years opened my eyes to basketball,” Watson said. “It made me see how much energy is brought toward this game because those two years were very serious for us, and we made it to the state championship my junior year. It was the first two years where I began to win games and actually have fun winning.”
Wong scored 29 points against Donta Scott (Maryland), Dahmir Bishop (Florida Gulf Coast), Elijah Taylor (Quinnipiac) and Imhotep Charter in the state final. The Panthers left the GIANT Center with their third straight state championship and the player that elevated Bonner-Prendergast to the cusp of greatness closed the high school chapter of what has already been an accomplished sports novel.
This is what makes Miami’s Final Four even more fascinating as Wong looks to win a coveted championship. He has been discounted since the beginning, even after two Philadelphia Catholic League MVPs or being left out of the Iverson Roundball Classic at Souderton High School after his senior season. His collected character kept him more engaged than other local standouts in the inaugural Scholastic Play-by-Play Invitational to begin the week as he went for an incredible 50 points in a scoring duel with Roselle Catholic (N.J.)’s Josh Pierre-Louis, who went for 39 that night.
His scoring prowess was on full display in the Iverson Classic with 38 points as he shot, finished, and dunked his way on a court featuring Cassius Stanley (Duke), Jahmius Ramsey (Texas Tech) and Tre Mann, now playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was the best prospect on a floor full of them as former NBA standouts Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson coached the teams and Cole Anthony - a top-5 2019 prospect who would go on to be drafted 15th overall by the Orleans Magic a year later - watched from the sideline.
Even after an event like that with so many people watching and some of the best players the class of 2019 had to offer, Funston stated that it still didn’t feel like enough, and this gives greater significance to a potential run to the National Championship Game on Monday.
“He has always had to prove people wrong,” Funston said. “It’s fitting for Isaiah’s story, and it would be an incredible experience for him to win that first championship and cut down the nets.”
He’s not the flashiest player with the ball in his hands but what makes him stand out in a flurry of talent is his efficiency and, most of all, assertiveness. As Concannon emphasizes, even when he makes a mistake, his facial expression stays the same and he finds a way to make up for it whether it be by getting into the passing lane here or finding a teammate in the corner for an open three on a baseline drive there.
“The one thing you do notice about him is that when he turns the ball over or makes a mistake, you can almost guarantee he’s going to do something to make up for it on the very next play,” Concannon said. “Not many kids have that kind of make-up.”
Even if Wong makes an uncharacteristic play at NRG Stadium, that unceasing attitude that has not failed him will never be more prevalent. He has worked his whole life for this moment, but the remarkable thing will be when the opposition and spectators alike look at him and his demeanor will be one that’s locked in for a career-defining moment.