Inside Look at Hopewell HS Boys Basketball Summer League Session

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HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP– Preparation for the Hopewell High School Boys 2025-26 officially got underway Monday afternoon as new head coach Doug Biega and his staff held their first of many open gym sessions.

These open gym sessions for the players will be held for the rest of the week and throughout the summer. Yesterday, the kids went from 4 until 6 pm with the first hour focusing on fundamental work and conditioning. The second hour was open play.

Vikings Sports Now sat in for the first hour and left with a whole lot of thoughts.

The first was although I didn’t run a single sprint, I left physically and mentally tired. The 20 players in the gym split up into groups of 5 and rotated through four different stations, which were run by different Hopewell assistant coaches (Javon Turner, Dwight Hines, EJ Askew-Coleman, Mike Sims and Kaden Vandevert).

One station was concentrating on free throws, one dealt with post offense and defense, one focused on conditioning drills combined with working on man-man defense along with trapping and the final one worked with ball-handling, ball-handling and driving to the basket along with outside shooting.

Each group spent a certain amount of time at each station before rotating through to another one.

There was zero time wasted, the pace was quick, the kids were working their asses off and the coaching was very much evident and intense. Considering this was just an open gym, I can’t wait to see what regular season practices will look like.

I sat away from workout and just watched everything that was going on. A few observations of Doug Biega’s assistants are that this staff is very talented, will have these players fundamentally sound and will be very demanding but in the end, they’ll be ready to play and will be better because of it.

One thing I can guarantee is that Hopewell players will be tough because when you’re coached by Turner, Hines and Donovan Jeter, you won’t have any other option.

Man did I enjoy watching Turner and Hines work with their units. The intensity along with attention to detail and instruction in which they were coaching and demanding from the players was fun to watch.

As far as Vandervert, Coleman and Sims, they were the communicators, a bit quieter and definitely seemed to bring a different coaching style, but the players were responding well.

Definitely a different mix of coaches hired by Biega, but you can tell they all have a high basketball IQ, athletic expertise and will make the Hopewell players better.

This entire Hopewell basketball coaching staff have impressive athletic resumes:

HOPEWELL VIKINGS HIGH SCHOOL AND JUNIOR HIGH COACHING STAFF:
  Hines: played college basketball at UPJ, former head coach at both Aliquippa and Sto-Rox.

Turner: won 2 WPIAL and 1 PIAA Championship. High level contributor and elite defensive coach.

 Jeter: won WPIAL championship. played college football at Michigan, on the NFL practice squad for Steelers, NY Giants and Washington Commanders. Brings toughness and a professionalism to the program.

Askew-Coleman: won a WPIAL and PIAA Championship. Played college basketball.

Sims: won WPIAL championship at Central Valley. Elite skill and developmental coach.

 Vandevert: holdover from the previous staff. Extremely gifted in offensive fundamentals and game and program preparation.

 BJ McBryde (Hopewell Boys Junior High Staff): played at Beaver Falls. Played football at UConn and with the 49ers and Green Bay Packers. Will bring a level of professional development to the program.

 Patrick Phillips (Hopewell Boys Junior High Staff):  played D-1 basketball at Troy University. Experience and expertise will help teach the younger players.

These open gyms are open to high school students entering ninth grade and those entering their senior seasons.

In near future, information will be released on open gym sessions for boys junior high players.