Imhotep Charter girls using the motto ‘shine together’ as they prepare for Public League competition

Imhotep Charter girls’ basketball coach David Hargrove wants to guide his team back to the top.

Last season, Imhotep fell in the Philadelphia Public League championship to Audenried Charter, which won its first Pub title in program history while dethroning the back-to-back league champion.

“We’ve been playing Audenried for years. To see the growth of their program, I’m actually very happy about that,” said Hargrove, who enters his eighth year at the helm. “It’s going to make us be better. We’ve got to elevate our game this year. We have to respond to losing to them in the championship last year. It’s a group that comes back with an added edge, a little chip on our shoulder.”

The Panthers have dominated the Public League for the last decade, winning a total of seven titles, including four under Hargrove’s watch. Before last season, Mastery North (2017, 2020) was the only program to interrupt that run.

However, Imhotep was young last season with first-team all-league selection Samya Stevens the lone senior in the main rotation. Hargrove’s squad still finished 16-12 (7-1 league), won the program’s first District 12 Class 3A title since 2016, and advanced to the second round of states, where the Panthers fell to eventual champion Dunmoore.

“We’ve been through the experience of some ups and downs of losing, of being close, so we got to have a team this year that’s really hungry and they do see it,” Hargrove said. “They actually can have a real vision like, ‘We’ve been close. Now we’ve got to get [it] done.’”

Junior 6-foot-1 forward Anise Geiger (7.3 points, 6.1 rebounds), a second-team All-Public selection last season, and 5-3 senior guard Asia Taylor are two of the returners Hargrove is looking to lean on.

Their chemistry, along with junior guard Sabria Mann, could elevate the Panthers this season. The three began playing together in AAU with the Hunting Park Warriors while Mann and Geiger were in eighth grade.

“We’ve been playing together for so long, we just have that type of bond together so we can feed off each other,” Geiger said.

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Hargrove likes to have his team go about 10 deep and hopes that can be the case again this season. Senior 6-foot forward Aubrey Wroten and senior guard Troi Ebo also return to the experienced core while having a solid group of freshmen and sophomores in the mix for minutes.

“Our strength is us working together and sharing the ball,” Taylor said. “I don’t think we have a big scorer, but when we work together and we share the ball, you see everybody shine. That’s all it is. We shine together. That’s our motto.”

With some decent height throughout the lineup, the Panthers also have the size that few teams can match up against.

“The size has to turn into production,” Hargrove said. “Meaning are we being a presence defensively? Are we finishing possession rebounding-wise? Then obviously on the offensive end, can we get some points in the paint? We’re trying to be creative in how we do that. Obviously sharing the ball is a big part of that.

“If the size can be productive, I think that can separate us from a lot of teams.”

Imhotep followed up its Public League title with a run to the state semifinals in 2022, and Hargrove believes he has a team that could make a similar type of run this season.

While the Panthers couldn’t capture a third straight league crown last season, the District 12 title win over West Catholic gave them some championship experience they’d like to replicate — more than once — this season.

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“That was pretty exciting for everybody, people who hadn’t experienced it,” Taylor said. “Even me, I didn’t experience a championship, that was my first championship last year. I think it was pretty exciting to see everybody win and everybody smiling.”

Geiger added: “I feel like everybody got a taste of what we can do, so it made us want to work harder and be better for everybody else.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.