‘Organized chaos’: Bo Kimble coaching ‘the system’ at Overbrook High School

Imagine a camera’s lens panning a basketball court while a coach, who is out of focus, fields a reporter’s postgame questions.

Over the coach’s shoulder, several of his players — just minutes after their relentless pressure forced 41 turnovers — can be seen hoisting practice shots and playing one-on-one, seemingly free of fatigue as they await their coach’s lead back to the team bus.

That was the scene last week after Overbrook High School dispatched Ben Franklin at the Best Athletic Association-iHearthoops holiday invitational in Bristol.

The amount of energy the Panthers expended during the game may have made the extra work after it seem unfathomable.

It should all come into focus, however, when the camera returns and sharpens on the coach’s face.

Bo Kimble, the North Philadelphia legend who, alongside the late Hank Gathers, rose to national prominence in up-tempo fashion at Loyola Marymount, is the new coach at Overbrook.

“The system,” as it was dubbed by its architect, Paul Westhead — another son of Philadelphia — is being employed by Kimble and the Panthers.

“First of all, I tell everybody that I’m proud to be from North Philly,” Kimble said. “Basketball has been benefiting me my entire life. This system changed mine and Hank’s lives. Paul pretty much let the horses out the stable … so I’m giving that opportunity to our guys. They have extraordinary freedom. The system is to go as fast as you can.”

» READ MORE: Damar Hamlin’s ordeal motivates Bo Kimble to keep honoring the memory of Hank Gathers

The early results have been positive.

The Panthers (7-5) had won three straight games, including the BAA-iHearthoops championship against Central last week. Kimble’s kids also beat host Chester on Tuesday before Thursday’s 90-83 loss against Sankofa Freedom Academy at Frankford.

The 1992 NBA lottery pick hopes the system teaches his players what it taught him about the value of hard work and how to succeed as underdogs. He also hopes it can change his life one more time as a college head coach, a position he says he’s applied for more than 100 times at various levels in the last 10 years.

The way Kimble explains it, the system isn’t complicated.

“We’re programming everyone to shoot it every single time they’re open,” he said. “Bombs away!”

He hopes that tempo creates about 40 more possessions per game.

The equation also seems simple: More shots plus creating more turnovers equals more possessions, which, in theory, means more points than the opponent.

“If we’re running the system properly,” Kimble said, “our opponent should be averaging about 25 turnovers per game and we should be getting about 15 offensive rebounds per game because we should be shooting the ball every five seconds … and we’re full-court trapping.”

Much more complicated, however, is building the requisite stamina to play such an aggressive style.

“I thought it was hell,” said senior center Mike James as a smile crept across his lips. “It felt like hell when we first started running.”

“The system is not easy,” James added, “but anything that’s good doesn’t come easy.”

At 6-foot-7 and 200 pounds, James has one of the system’s most difficult jobs. During games, he runs from baseline to baseline, rebounds and protects the basket. He is also the team’s leading scorer (15 points per game) and rebounder (nine per game), which has garnered some attention from a few Division III colleges.

The workload in games is exactly why Kimble makes practice so grueling.

“The game should be easier than practices,” he said, “so that’s why we run them so hard in practice. We should be the best conditioned team, and we should be the highest scoring team … and we’re working on both.”

Kimble, 55, and his nephew, Jabbar Kimble, an assistant coach at Overbrook, call the conditioning program “cycles.” It’s a numbered fast break according to Westhead’s offensive structure.

Each player, one through five, must score. The group must make a certain number of baskets within a given timeframe while transitioning up and down the court at full speed.

It’s about as fun as it sounds.

“A lot of running,” said junior guard Omar Davis. “Then a lot more running. Sometimes we spent a whole day of practice until we couldn’t do it anymore.”

There is, however, a method to what can look like madness. Against Central last week, Overbrook led by a point at intermission.

In the third and fourth quarters, however, Central players appeared fatigued, while the Panthers got stronger en route to an 87-68 victory.

“Yeah, it felt like [they got tired],” said James, who transferred to Overbrook from Virginia last year.

Davis, who played at Dobbins last year, said: “It boosts our adrenaline and gives us more energy when the other team gets tired.”

Central finished with 32 turnovers. In the previous contest, Ben Franklin had 27 turnovers in the first half. The Panthers eventually prevailed, 82-68.

“I call it organized chaos,” said Jabbar Kimble, 45. “We learn how to shoot completely fatigued [in practice]. In a game, it’s one thing to shoot when you’re 100% fresh. It’s a whole nother thing to shoot when you’re fatigued.”

Perhaps most impressive about Kimble’s coaching job thus far is that only two players — James and Davis — have experience playing varsity minutes.

“Everyone else was either junior varsity or wasn’t playing at all,” Jabbar Kimble said.

That includes 5-foot-5 junior point guard Nashawn “Pop” Jones.

Jones, who said his nickname refers to his old soul like that of a “grandpop,” scored a game-high 27 points against Franklin. He added five assists and five steals.

Not bad for someone with no experience who suddenly has to steer what could be the fastest car in the Public League.

“I’m used to playing street ball,” Jones said. “This is my first year of playing high school basketball. It was very hard getting used to knowing where to pass the ball, knowing where teammates were gonna be, knowing how the five-man runs down the court, and then knowing my spot and where I’m supposed to be.”

Jones grew up playing on the courts near 25th and Master streets, less than a mile from the newest Hank Gathers mural near 25th and Diamond streets outside the recreation center named in Gathers’ honor.

“We get a lot of the guys who are overlooked,” said Jabbar, who graduated from Overbrook in 1995. “We’re not getting All-American guys, so we are developing our guys into being good players.”

Underdog status seems to resonate with Kimble. He and Gathers went to USC after leading Dobbins Tech to a Pub title in 1985. After a year with the Trojans, the duo transferred to little-known Loyola Marymount, where they played for Westhead, a West Catholic and St. Joseph’s product.

“I’ve been an underdog my entire life,” Kimble said. “Being at Loyola Marymount, a lot of teams didn’t respect the way we played.”

Gathers led the nation in scoring and rebounding as a junior and was NBA-bound before he died at 23 because of a heart condition during his senior season, two weeks before the start of the NCAA Tournament.

Kimble, who led the nation in scoring as a senior, then authored one of March’s most memorable college basketball moments in the tournament’s first round.

He shot and made his first free throw left-handed in honor of Gathers, who was right handed, but had switched southpaw to change his struggles at the line.

“A lot of people think you need a Hank Gathers or a Bo Kimble to run this system,” Kimble said. “It’s quite the opposite. If you don’t have [those guys], you want to run this system because it can hide some of your deficiencies.”

Kimble would like a chance to prove what “the system” can still accomplish in college. He points to the success of Westhead, with whom he still is in contact, for proof it can work. Westhead is the only coach to win an NBA championship (1980 Lakers) and a WNBA title (Phoenix Mercury in 2007).

“My dream is to be a Division I college coach or an NBA coach,” Kimble said.

In 2011, Kimble was an unpaid assistant coach at Shoreline Community College in Seattle, where he implemented “the system” and said the team scored around 100 points per game during his two-year tenure.

He has been trying to get a head coaching job since.

Kimble said he has applied more than 100 times to various openings from Division I and II colleges to junior colleges. One year he got an interview at Jacksonville University, which, he said, he appreciated.

He also said he applied several times when Loyola Marymount had coaching vacancies.

“There’s a lot of politics in college basketball,” Kimble said. “It’s the old boys club. But that doesn’t deter me. The only way it won’t happen is if I give up, which I won’t.”

Later, he added: “When I get an opportunity anywhere in college I’m going to run this system and it’s going to work.”

He believes college recruiting would be his strength once recruits see the offensive freedom the system affords.

“I don’t care where it’s at,” Kimble said. “If there’s an opportunity to coach anywhere in Division I, I would take it in a heartbeat because it’s all about the journey. When Hank and I went to Loyola Marymount, it wasn’t on the radar at all. We went there for three years and changed the history of college basketball.”

Last year, Kimble volunteered at Dobbins, which still is running the system this season, though the schools aren’t scheduled to meet.

Kimble said he was humbled to receive the job at Overbrook, where he also coaches his son, Ethan, a talented 6-foot-3 sophomore forward who comes off the bench and occasionally starts for the Panthers.

“Coaching is just another vehicle for me to give back to the community to help these guys be the best student athletes they can be and have the opportunity to get a free education,” Kimble said. “But more importantly let my experiences help them become the best young men that we can put into society.”

His players seem to appreciate the knowledge he has passed down thus far.

“It’s a great opportunity to be coached by a retired NBA player,” Jones said. “Everything he teaches us, I listen because I know it’s gonna help me. Not just with basketball either, but in life situations. I know it’s going to take me far.”

Just as David Spencer, who recruited Kimble and Gathers to USC, is still a prominent figure in his life, Kimble says he will be in his players’ lives for the long haul.

“I’m asking them to dedicate two hours of practice to me and I’m going to dedicate the rest of my life to helping them in any way that I can,” he said. “Not just in their time at Overbrook.”