Basketball
Favorite athlete: Ryan Arcidiacono
Favorite team:Philadelphia Eagles
Favorite memory competing in sports: Scoring 51 against Lower Merion and winning to make Elite 8 of state tournament.
Most embarrassing/funniest things that has happened while competing in sports: A teammate of mine made a layup as his pants were falling off and started running back on D with his shorts at his ankles
Music on mobile device: Pretty much anything but country
Future plans:Go to a four-year college to play basketball and get my degree
Favorite motto: “Be the hardest working kid on the court every time you step out there.”
One goal before turning 30: Make the NCAA Tournament with my college team
One thing people don't know about me: I love to golf
By Ed Morrone
The moment Ryan Arcidiacono’s heads-up assist won Villanova a national championship in 2016, his younger brother, Chris, seemed destined to live in a Pennsylvania-sized shadow rivaled perhaps only by Punxsutawney Phil.
Not only did the elder Arcidiacono become a legend by winning college basketball’s most coveted trophy, but he also took home the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player honor before taking his talents to the NBA. Chris was used to following in his older brother’s footsteps, serving as the water boy for the Neshaminy basketball program while Ryan was busy becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer.
Chris, six years Ryan’s junior and an accomplished hoops player in his own right, heard it from opposing student sections every time Neshaminy went on the road that he would never be the ballplayer his brother was. In the end, Chris got the last laugh, quieting rowdy crowds on a nightly basis with his ability to score at will. He took Neshaminy to places Ryan never saw, and by the end of this past season, Chris posted the program’s highest single-game output in school history, dropping an eye-popping 51 points in a double overtime state playoff win over Lower Merion.
Those jeering student sections were in essence right about one thing: Chris Arcidiacono is not his brother. Biologically, yes, this is the case, but Chris is also so much more than just that, having done what once seemed improbable — he carved his own unique basketball legacy in the shadow of one of the most legendary local college players to ever lace up a pair of high-tops.
And make no mistake about it: Chris never hid from the spotlight; in fact, he relished every single minute of proving his doubters wrong.
“My favorite part of playing in high school was being on the road,” Chris said during a recent phone conversation, a few days after Neshaminy was eliminated in the state quarterfinals. “Shutting up the student section became a goal. They would tell me, ‘You’re not your brother,’ but I knew if I went out and played my game and got buckets, maybe scored 15 in the first quarter, then they can’t say too much after that.
“It’s been a lot of fun, and it fuels me to have better games. It’s nothing too bad, they’ll say I’m the family letdown, stuff like that, and I just laugh and try to go kick their butt on the court.”
In addition to Ryan, Chris has four other siblings: older sisters Sabrina and Nicole, older brother Michael and twin sister Courtney. Growing up in such a big family, Chris said the abuse he got from student hecklers paled in comparison to the ribbing he got from his siblings.
“I got heckled by every single one of them, so really going on the road and hearing that stuff was no different than growing up, except for the fact that my siblings were always on my side at the end of the day,” he said. “My oldest sister, Sabrina, hated it when the student section would say stuff to me. She’d say, ‘Chris, go shut them up or I’m going to go do it for you.’ They’ve always had my back and I’ve always been able to lean on them for comfort, win or lose.”
Although Ryan and Chris Arcidiacono are the top two scorers in school history, the brothers took vastly different paths to high school basketball stardom. Ryan (Class of 2012) was an immediate starter as a freshman, already boasting his current height of 6-foot-3, and averaged 16 points per game in his first season. He reached 1,500 points in just three seasons, and could have hit 2,000 if not for a back injury that wiped out his senior campaign. Ryan then went on to become one of the most decorated players in Villanova history, even becoming the first player at the school to score both 1,500 or more points (1,604) and dish out 500 or more assists (535).
Chris, by contrast, didn’t play much his freshman season at Neshaminy and missed all but five games his sophomore season due to injuries. There was also turmoil within the program his second year (former head coach Jerry Devine was let go after making contact with a referee during a game in Jan. 2016, a story that made national headlines), and Neshaminy had bottomed out in the Suburban One, having not made the district playoffs since Ryan graduated.
Then, heading into his junior year, things began to look up in a big way. Mark Tingle, who was an assistant at Neshaminy from 2004-14, was hired as the new basketball coach at the same time Chris hit a much-needed growth spurt and eventually sprouted to 6-foot-4, his current height. He attacked that offseason with a ferocity he hadn’t before, and the results were instant. Though the Redskins finished with a losing record in 2017, they got back to the district playoffs for the first time since Ryan’s final season.
“It was tremendous, and we were all so pumped to play in a really meaningful game again,” Chris said. “We were sick of winning five games a year, so we got in the gym that summer and promised ourselves it wouldn’t happen again. We reached our goal. We took a tough loss to Penn Wood, but we were happy with the season, getting the program back to where it should be: in the playoffs every year.”
Added Tingle: “Ry had the superstar status early on, while for Chris it came later. We knew Chris had it in him, it was just a matter of putting in the work in the offseason, which he did. He’s such a smart, confident, tough, competitive kid.”
Chris inherited a lot of those qualities from his older brother, as well as his attitude and overall physical resemblance. There are also similarities in the two’s games: same ability to create contact and get to the foul line at will, same head fake, same facilitating ability that makes teammates better. Chris even wears Ryan’s No. 15 jersey, so even though opposing fanbases like to tease him, there are certainly worse things than being known as Ryan Arcidiacono’s brother.
“When I was the water boy, I saw the success he had and knew I wanted that for myself,” Chris said. “As we’ve gotten older, he’s given me more knowledge of the game. When he comes home, we talk about what he learned in college, and now in the NBA, just how to handle certain situations.
“Our relationship has definitely evolved and we talk a lot more basketball. When I was a kid, all I cared about was putting the ball in the hoop; now I understand game situations better, which he taught me. I’ve definitely followed his work ethic. Us two, we’re not the most athletic kids, so we have to work a lot harder. The thing I’ve taken from Ryan the most is to be the toughest guy on the court.”
As much as Chris looks up to his older brother, the same can be said of Ryan toward his kid brother. Older brothers can certainly make their younger counterparts’ lives hell growing up, but despite any name-calling or hair pulling that might take place, at the end of the day they are protectors, a job most good ones take seriously.
Ryan is one of the good ones.
“When we were younger, there was some of that big brother-little brother tough love,” Ryan said by phone from Chicago, where he’s currently playing for the Bulls. “I’d beat him up, and when we’d play one-on-one I’d let him score a few points but I made sure I always won to show him who was boss. But at the same time, as we got older, he was able to make his own name and have a very respectable high school — and soon college — career. He’s become Chris Arcidiacono, not just Ryan’s little brother.
“Chris has been dealing with it since seventh or eighth grade. ‘Oh, that’s Ryan’s little brother, this and that.’ But he’s made a name for himself, and anytime he went on the road it was another shot for him to shut them up. Chris loves the crowd energy. When they get on him, he’s going to have a good game.”
During his senior season that just ended, Arcidiacono accomplished things no other Neshaminy basketball player has done, including Ryan. The 51 points he scored against Lower Merion in the state playoffs was not only a Neshaminy single-game record, but was also the highest scoring output by a District 1 player ever in the PIAA tournament. He got them to the Elite 8 for the first time in school history, in addition to winning multiple district playoff games and crossing the 1,000-point milestone in the process.
Any doubt that Chris couldn’t successfully distinguish himself from his brother’s celebrity was extinguished with the force of a fire hose in the state playoffs before the Redskins’ run was finally ended by Abraham Lincoln in the quarterfinals.
“It was such a crazy run, and the best part is nobody expected us to make it to states, let alone go on the run we did,” Chris said. “We finished 18th in the district and had to fight and claw our way through districts. Making it the farthest any Neshaminy team has ever gone, it’s hard to wrap my mind around that because there’s been so many good players and teams over the years.
“It’s a special group of guys, and we’re going to remember this run for the rest of our lives. The younger guys who didn’t play much, they saw the joy that run brought us and that has to be the goal to get back to where we did. After this, who wouldn’t want to go back again and etch their name in Neshaminy basketball history?”
While Ryan was unable to see Chris’s games this season, he followed along as best as he could. And, as an added bonus, with all of the extra district and state playoff games on Neshaminy’s schedule, a new storyline nobody saw coming began to unfold: the race for the school’s all-time scoring record.
Ryan hit 1,500 points in just three seasons at Neshaminy, while Chris didn’t get to 1,000 until Jan. 19 of this season. He had a 42-point game in an overtime win over Truman, as well a few 30-something games mixed in before he erupted for 51 against Lower Merion in the double overtime victory. When all was said and done, Chris fell short of his brother’s record by a measly six points.
“I just missed him,” Chris said with a laugh. “It was funny, because before the year I said something to him that I was going to try to get it, but it seemed too far away. I needed the extra eight games, and I got closer and closer until I came up six short. Now I just keep thinking about the shots I could have made.”
Ryan, for his part, said he graciously would have passed the baton to his brother.
“I was rooting for them to keep winning so he could break it,” Ryan said. “Going into the district tournament I thought there was no way in hell, but then he scores 30, 40, 30, 50, and it becomes, ‘Oh my God, he might actually break it.’ It’s special. We’re two kids from Langhorne who went to the same local public high school, and I’m one and he’s two.
“I joked with him that if I had a senior year my total would have been way higher, but I wish he would have gotten it for his sake. He’s grown so much on and off the court, and so has his work ethic and dedication to getting better. I’m very proud of him and was rooting for him to break it, but we’ll have to settle for one-two until someone else comes along and passes us both.”
Chris’s meteoric rise as a player the last two seasons has certainly caught the eye of Division-I college programs. He averaged 25.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.2 steals per game this season, and thus far has picked up offers from mid-majors Eastern Kentucky, Delaware, Presbyterian, Mount St. Mary’s, Quinnipiac and Rider. More could come, and Chris could play a year of postgraduate ball at a prep school if he chooses to wait it out and see if more offers come in from bigger programs. He’s got plenty of options, a good problem to have.
“After the 51-point performance, he had two offers the next morning,” Tingle said. “My phone has been ringing off the hook with coaches asking to see his game film. The sky’s the limit for Chris. Wherever he goes, he’s going to make an impact. He can shoot it, and his IQ is off the charts. His competitiveness is like his brother’s in that they refuse to lose. That’s something you can’t really teach.”
Wherever Chris ends up, he knows he’s got one of his biggest fans one phone call away, someone who has lived and breathed it.
“He knows he can ask me anything anytime,” Ryan said. “I put my two cents in here and there because I went through it, so I’ll tell him what I think is the best chance for him to be successful. In the end, it’s his decision. Wherever he goes, that school is getting a high-character, smart, hard-working kid who has a fire and desire to win games. He comes from a good family and he’s going to work his butt off to make sure he thrives and gets them into the NCAA Tournament.”
It can’t be easy living in the shadow of somebody with Ryan Arcidiacono’s accomplishments, but Chris has found a way. Just ask all those opposing student sections he routinely silenced over the past two seasons.
“Outsiders, they used to only look at me as Ryan’s brother,” Chris said. “These past couple years, I’ve made a name for myself and have shown people that I’m a good player just like he is. The run our team made, the record amount of points by a District One player in a state playoff game…they’ll remember me for something else than just Ryan’s brother now.”
