Outside of Murray, Marlon Boreland \u2014 a 6-foot-6 forward that averaged 11 points per game \u2014 is Upper Darby\u2019s only returning starter. It\u2019s left Diggs with the job of finding who can contribute come late November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aaron Davis, a combo guard transfer from Abington Friends has the potential to make a big impact, while Boreland\u2019s brother, Markel\u00a0is looking to find a role as he makes the jump from junior varsity. Diggs said Markel Boreland is a really good athlete and has gotten better over the past three months, but he \u201cneeds to get him in the mental space of being a good player.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guard Shymir Hinton impressed on the freshmen team last year and Diggs singled him out as another potential contributor, along with Tawhir Riley, who will join the team after the football season.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Whoever\u2019s on the floor, Diggs won\u2019t shy away from his up-tempo and pressing style. Every year he\u2019s coached, Diggs has sped things up to make opponents uncomfortable with his pressure. That isn\u2019t going to change in the Central League, where teams tend to play a slow, methodical style, according to Diggs. He wants to force teams into playing their brand of basketball, which he\u2019ll attempt to do by playing 11 to 12 players a night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re gonna get guys in and out, and we’re gonna pressure the ball at that kind of high level every night. That’s gonna be our identity,\u201d Diggs said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stay poised and in control, but I think we\u2019ll be able to compete and play faster than a lot of teams expect,\u201d Murray added.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Murray feels the key to Upper Darby\u2019s success this season is being unselfish. With a lot of new faces on varsity, Murray knows the Royals are still figuring out how to play with each other, but as a senior, part of that responsibility falls on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for Diggs, he wants his team to rebound the ball better, although he knows that could be a challenge since UD doesn\u2019t have a ton of height, leaving a lot of pressure on Marlon Boreland to control the glass.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rebounding aside, Diggs is still working out the kinks in his first year with the program. He made clear to his players that there aren\u2019t any defined roles yet, but the expectation of being a more consistent\u00a0 program remains. And despite never coaching at a 6A school before, Diggs\u2019 previous track record shows he can turn things around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’re in a really good spot,\u201d Diggs said. \u201cWe have a couple really good returnees. Some of the younger guys will be stepping up to some bigger rules and I think we’ll be right in the line to compete for the Central League.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m putting in [my players\u2019] heads that we have enough to win right here, like this year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside of Murray, Marlon Boreland \u2014 a 6-foot-6 forward that averaged 11 points per game \u2014 is Upper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310111,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-310110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310110\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}