Mount St. Joseph suffered heavy graduation losses last year and came into the season with question marks at all but one spot in the lineup.

“We lost four starters from a year ago," MSJ coach Pat Clatchey said. "We had a really good season, but we lost Jalen Smith, who was one of the best high school players in the country and one of the best players in the history of our program. We had tough, seasoned guards in Tyree Myers and Kendall McMillan and Tim McDonald was kind of a blue collar, program-type kid. And coming into the season, our only proven player was James [Bishop]. "
 
An LSU commit, Bishop put together a stellar senior season en route to Baltimore Catholic League Player of the Year Honors. He was named Most Outstanding Player at Alhambra after averaging 38.5 points per game in three contests.

“I mean, he had to score for us," Clatchey said. "Some people might look at that as [shooting too much], but we needed him to do that, because if not, we really didn’t have a chance to win. Now, he didn’t do that all year, but he probably averaged about 25 points a game and he had over 2,000 in his career, and he walks away with the most wins in the history of our program, which I think says quite a lot.”

Without Bishop, 2020 guard Tyler Brelsford will need to step up his offensive production, and  2020 forward Jason Edokpayi and center Javonte Brown looked better and better as this year progressed. 2022 guard Antonio Hamlin and 2021 guard Ausar Crawley give Clatchey two talented young pieces in the backcourt to develop.

Overall, Clatchey said he was pleased with how the season played out, given all the uncertainty coming in.

"We made it to the semifinals in the BCL and MIAA tournaments and we had some good wins," he said. "But if I had to summarize, to beat really good teams like you face up here [at Alhambra], we just didn’t really have enough scoring punch or balanced scoring. And we couldn’t stop people enough. But overall, I mean, we won 27 games, and a lot of times when programs lose four starters, they disappear for a while, and we really didn’t do that. I think a lot of that had to do with James and his performance on the court and leadership off the court. He kind of kept us relevant.”