Begley and Toole: Same high school, now same college

The unique aspect of this pair of Christian Brothers Academy (N.J.) graduates is that they never played together.

Highly regarded freshman guard Tim Begley, who led his school to a 52-2 record his last two years of high school, is one of the centerpieces of this year's Penn men's basketball recruiting class.

"I always wanted to play in the Ivy League, more so than some of the bigger schools where you don't get such a good education," Begley said.

Junior point guard Andrew Toole has taken a much less orthodox rout to the Penn basketball program.

After two seasons at Elon College, Toole transferred in 1999 and sat out last year in order to be a part of this year's Penn squad.

"Transferring was a win-win situation for me," Toole said. "I'm getting a chance to hopefully go to the NCAA Tournament and to get a great education."

So while Toole was leading CBA to its second consecutive A-North Division championship, Begley was cutting his teeth as a freshman.

According to Toole, he and Begley owe a great deal of their makeup as players to high school experiences. They played in a tough program with a coach who stressed fundamentals.

Begley had the opportunity to watch Toole in his high school heyday when Begley was just beginning to develop as a player.

"Coming in as a freshman in high school, you seem much younger. I can actually play with Andy now," Begley said. "It was his team then, and in some sense this is his team now, with a couple of the other guys on the Penn team."

Toole could indeed quickly make himself an integral part of the Quakers attack. He practiced with the squad all of last season, so he already has an extensive working knowledge of the Penn offense.

He has come on so strong that he has a chance to win the starting point guard position to open the season, and will at the very least be a front-runner in the crowded competition for backcourt minutes.

Penn's deep group of guards includes returning junior point guard David Klatsky, as well as junior Duane King, sophomores Charlie Copp and Jeff Schiffner and freshman Pat Lang.

And although there are no clear-cut favorites to start at this point, Toole will be given every chance to work his way into the rotation.

"Every day you've got to come to practice and work hard or you're going to lose minutes," Toole said. "We've got six or seven really good guards who go at it every day in practice to make everyone else better. Whoever plays in the games will be ready to go just from practice."

Judging by the way Toole has performed in practice, he should be taking over as a top performer and a team leader.

"Sometimes in practice, Andy is unstoppable," Begley said. "Back in high school he was more of a scorer, but now he can score and get in the lane to create, too. He's more versatile than he ever was in high school."

Begley, by virtue of an impressive first offseason, will also be thrown into the fray in the battle for playing time.

And Toole has already noticed the younger player's virtues.

"He makes great decisions, shoots the ball well and plays hard," Toole said. "He complements [forwards] Koko [Archibong] and Ugonna [Onyekwe] excellently. He gets them the ball when they need to score, but you can't double team them because he'll burn you all night."

Regardless of who is the starting pair for the Quakers this season, the team will benefit from the talents that these Christian Brothers alums bring to the court.

Toole is a versatile performer who can create and score equally well. He was a shooter at Elon, and with the graduation of principle three-point threat Lamar Plummer, he will undoubtedly be used as a long-range sniper.

Standing 6-foot-4 and tipping the scales at 185 pounds, Toole lacks an imposing outward appearance, but his bevy of talents on the court should make Penn's opponents notice him right away.

"I will pass the ball to whoever is hot, make open shots when I can, and guard their best player and do the best that I can," Toole said. "Whatever it takes to win -- I hope my teammates see me as that type of player."

Begley, at 6-foot-5 and 210 pounds, figures to fit more in the mold of a shooting threat.

Toole, by virtue of spending his senior year around Begley and through playing in summer leagues with him, has the best perspective of anyone in the Penn program of the freshman's strengths.

"A lot of the things that we do are similar," Toole said. "He makes great decisions, passes the ball well, shoots excellently and he'll work as hard as he can on defense. He is doing the little things that will make us better in the long run."

Begley has a much more lighthearted perspective on what he can bring to the Penn program.

"I'm not an athlete," Begley said. "I'm not going to go by anybody, and sometimes I'll get beat a little bit. What I've got to do now is to learn how to cheat and how to play solid basketball."

Begley made it clear that Toole also finds success because he is a fundamentally sound player -- a function of the demanding high school program that they both grew up in.

"Andy will fool around before practice and try to dunk the ball, but that's about as athletic as he'll get," Begley said. "We're both basketball players, not athletes."

They are indeed both basketball players, and from all signs thus far they will be very good ones.

The Penn program can be thankful that the CBA products have both found their way into Red and Blue uniforms, even if they got there in a very dissimilar manner.

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