Archbishop Wood’s Jalil Bethea is a national recruit who’s ‘more than a basketball player’

Jibril Bethea was just trying to do the opposition a favor.

A chirpy fan had been needling his younger brother, Jalil — a five-star, McDonald’s All-American and senior at Archbishop Wood — who’s a rising star who has drawn plenty of attention the last few years.

Near the end of the Catholic League regular season last month, Jibril Bethea, 25, had suggested that the fan not poke the bear.

“One dude was like, ‘I don’t care, I’m going to keep talking,’ ” Jibril said in a telephone interview. “After that, [Bethea] came down and hit three straight [three-pointers]. I said, ‘I told you!’ ”

The Vikings then might welcome hecklers Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. when Bethea leads the charge against Parkland in the PIAA Class 6A semifinals at Norristown High School.

For about the last year or so, Bethea, whom ESPN ranks as the No. 1 player in the state and No. 6 in the nation, has enjoyed a meteoric rise.

The 6-foot-5 wing, most known for his long-range shooting and ability to score in bunches, admits that the spotlight, at times, has been too bright.

Adoration from young fans, negativity from older ones, numerous interview requests, and mounting pressure to perform can be difficult to navigate in the social media-driven world of a teenage phenom.

Still, Bethea, according to those around him, has remained the same compassionate honors student while staying humble enough to seek advice from those who came before him.

“Nobody knows how normal I am because people just see the fame, the followers, the image I have,” Bethea said, sitting inside a classroom on Wood’s campus in Warminster. “They just think that I’m Hollywood. But I’m really just a normal, down-to-earth person who likes to meet new people.”

Long before he had nearly 230,000 followers on TikTok, almost 80,000 more on Instagram, and more than 8 million likes across both social media platforms, Bethea was a little boy launching three-pointers at Simons Recreation Center.

Though he currently lives with his older sister near Wood, he grew up in West Oak Lane, where he often watched Jibril play. By age 4, he was already focused on shooting from distance.

“I was shooting threes with all my might,” he said. “I didn’t really have form back then. I was just throwing it.”

At 8 years old, his father, Steve, remembers taking him into the city.

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“We were walking downtown and he asked me if I had any ones,” Steve, now 60, recalled in a telephone interview. “I said, ‘Ones? What do you want ones for?’ There was a homeless guy on the ground and he wanted to give him some money. He’s always been like that.

“He’s more than a basketball player. He’s always loved the underdog, the underprivileged. … I think his first million dollars, he may open up a homeless shelter or something like that. Who knows?”

If it seems premature to be thumbing through millions already, think again. Earlier this month, an ESPN mock draft projected Bethea as the No. 4 pick in the 2025 NBA draft.

That, of course, assumes he would spend only a year at Miami, which he committed to in September.

Stardom, however, didn’t happen overnight, even if Bethea’s ascent from the top 200 to top 10 happened fairly quickly.

As a 6-foot freshman, Bethea contributed off the bench on the Vikings squad that won the 2021 Catholic League title, the school’s second in history.

Rahsool Diggins, who was named league MVP that season, was the team’s leader. Diggins was also a sought-after recruit, signing with UConn before eventually transferring to UMass.

Bethea, who shared league MVP with Archbishop Ryan’s Thomas Sorber this season, started seeking advice back then: What was recruiting like, how do you handle offers?

“My biggest mentor that year was Rahsool Diggins,” Bethea said. “That was the person I really looked up to. Me and him still text to this day. He congratulated me on all my accomplishments.”

» READ MORE: Archbishop Wood’s Jalil Bethea is named to the McDonald’s All American team

Bethea’s game, he believes, took flight after he hit 11 three-pointers in the PIAA quarterfinals as a 6-2 sophomore. He had always been a shooter, but he said that performance gave him the confidence to display the rest of his game.

John Huggins, who played with Eddie Griffin at Roman Catholic, has been Bethea’s trainer since middle school. Huggins played college ball at American International in Massachusetts and then played nine years overseas. He’s now an assistant coach at Wood.

“I think that [performance] was a big part of getting his confidence and knowing that he could do the things we always worked on,” Huggins said.

Bethea’s game surged again in the summer after his junior season.

That year, the 6-4 wing led the PCL in scoring, was named league MVP, and led the Vikings to the PIAA semifinals before losing to Roman Catholic.

His game expanded further on the AAU circuit with Team Final. He even shattered a backboard with an emphatic dunk. Suddenly, Bethea was traveling the country, putting up numbers, racking up followers, and shooting up the rankings.

“People don’t understand,” said Wood coach John Mosco. “He went from being on ESPN’s top 200 in the country to being on ESPN draft boards as a lottery pick. It’s crazy. Nobody can prepare you for that.”

Perhaps that’s because not many have had similar trajectories.

Collin Gillespie, who led Wood to its first PCL and PIAA titles in 2017, burst into the local consciousness after Villanova offered him a scholarship during his senior year.

But Gillespie, who won a national championship at ‘Nova and an NBA championship with the Denver Nuggets last season, had not become nationally known.

Mosco said Bethea has talked to Gillespie and fellow Wood grad Andrew Funk, who is now on a two-way contract with the Chicago Bulls’ G League team, the Windy City Bulls.

Gillespie and Funk, however, never dealt with the same type of pressure, Mosco said. Even Diggins hadn’t been the focus of national scrutiny.

Perhaps because few locals could relate, Bethea has been resourceful, using opportunities such as USA Basketball’s Junior National minicamp in Colorado Springs, Colo., or the Top-100 camp in Orlando, Fla., to pick the brains of other athletes.

Bethea said he has gotten advice from NBA players such as Philly’s Marcus and Markieff Morris, Kris Middleton, Jabari Smith, and Brandon Boston Jr., among others.

It’s not that he couldn’t handle the outside noise and pressure on his own, Bethea said, it’s that those players reside at heights he wants to achieve. “I don’t really care about [the pressure and the noise],” he said, “but sometimes it does get to me because sometimes the stuff people say is just out of pocket.”

He has heard it all.

“You’re trash!” “How are you a five-star?” “He’s not a winner!” “He’s selfish!” “He’s not a leader!”

Jibril says the outside noise often bothers him more than his younger brother.

“It does if you know Jalil like I know Jalil,” he said, adding that Bethea is anything but selfish.

In fact, Mosco has had to prompt his star to be less concerned about teammates who want more shots.

“Sometimes his problem is keeping everybody happy,” Mosco said. “I’ve been telling him all year, ‘It’s my job to keep the other players happy …’ ”

Bethea is also still learning how to preserve his own happiness.

“I’m just hard on myself whenever I have a bad game,” Bethea said. “I know what I’m capable of, and when I don’t do it, I just put a lot of pressure on myself … but I’m getting better at that.”

His inner circle appears to be helping.

Huggins, 41, says he has talked to Bethea about his friendship with Griffin, who died in 2007 at 25 years old.

“When Eddie was coming up,” Huggins said, “there wasn’t as much social media. So people had to come and see him play and see what he could do. With Jalil, it’s difficult because everything is on social media. People criticize him and everybody sees it. It’s hard because that’s what kids are into. So he’s constantly seeing things on social media, ‘Oh, Jalil can’t do this, he can’t do that.’ So it’s hard. It’s hard for a kid ...”

“Ed blew up in one year,” Huggins added. “Next thing you know he’s a McDonald’s All-American. He had ‘friends’ and ‘family members’ he never knew before coming in …”

Mosco has observed something similar.

“[Bethea] has handled it well,” Mosco said. “Every game there’s a different crew coming to games, people making requests, and media with cameras coming in. He’s trying to stay focused while being the focal point of all that, the other team, and fans.”

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For example, earlier this season Bethea scored 40 points during the prestigious HoopHall tournament in Springfield, Mass.

Bethea was signing autographs for a group of children before he was whisked away for a postgame television interview. He had the presence of mind, though, to send a Wood parent to find the children, get them permission to stay in the building, and then he returned to sign every autograph.

His father says children also flock to them every time he and Jalil run errands.

Perhaps the most important child is Bethea’s 9-year-old brother Saleem, who is on the autism spectrum and lights up whenever Bethea is around.

Bethea has a tattoo on his left arm that reads: “My Brother’s Keeper. For him I’d risk it all.”

“When you see those two together,” Mosco said, “you realize who [Bethea] really is. He’s very caring. He’s got a great smile. He’s just a good kid.”