- About
- Admissions
- Academics
- Athletics
- Student Life
Basketball
Philosophy
Playing hard, playing smart, and playing together is what South Kent School Basketball is all about. We create offense from our defense and look to score early and often. We run the floor and always look to make the extra pass. We play as a team and win as a team.
We prepare these young men for the challenges of competing in Division I collegiate basketball. Keeping that in mind, we run every aspect of our program as such and the members of the program are provided quality instruction with access to excellent facilities. Practices, individual instruction and strength and conditioning programs are conducted at the highest levels.
Our student-athletes are challenged daily and improve dramatically on and off the court. Our goal is to continue to produce high level student-athletes who care deeply about the game, their teammates and the world.
Head Coach
Raphael Chillious
Chief Athletic Officer
Director of Basketball
Head Coach Prep Basketball
Coach Chillious returns to South Kent School after several years of coaching at the collegiate level. Chillious' first term at South Kent School was from 2003-2008, during which time he was the architect of the School’s basketball program and the driving force behind its rise to national prominence. He led the early Prep Basketball teams to national rankings every year of his tenure, reaching as high as #4 in the ‘03-’04 school year. Chillious has a proven track record of recruiting and developing high-performance talent, with 17 of those players making it to the NBA, including South Kent School alumni Jack McClinton ’04, Dorell Wright ’04, Andre Blatche ’05, Isaiah Thomas ’08, and Dion Waiters '10. He also coached Josh Boone and recruited/developed #1 draft pick Markelle Fultz, Dejounte Murray, Terrence Ross, Marquise Chriss, Quincy Pondexter, CJ Wilcox, Matisse Thybulle, Ryan Archidiacano, Darrun Hillard, and Justin Holliday as a collegiate assistant coach.
After South Kent School, Chillious held several high-profile collegiate coaching positions, including the University of Washington from 2009-2012 and 2013-2017. He helped the Huskies earn the 2010 and 2011 Pac-10 Tournament Championship and 2011-2012 Pac-12 Regular Season Championship. In addition, he helped them advance in the NCAA tournament in 2010 and to a Sweet Sixteen berth in 2011.
Between years at Washington, he spent one season at Villanova under Head Coach Jay Wright, where he helped recruit several players that would eventually win the 2016 NCAA Title.
From 2017-2018, he returned east to work with the University of Connecticut as the Associate Head Coach, where the 2018 recruiting class was ranked #22 in the country. Most recently, Chillious was the Associate Head Coach at East Carolina University from 2018 until he returned to the Cardinals at South Kent School.
Coach Chillious’ coaching pedigree is exemplified by the fact that each collegiate Head Coach he has worked for has either won the NCAA National Championship as either an Assistant or as a Head Coach.
Assistant Basketball Coach
Craig Carter attended and played basketball at Rutgers University, where he had a successful career as a guard, captaining the squad for two years, appearing in the NCAA Tournament in 1989 and 1991, and making the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1990. Carter earned an All-Tournament Team selection for the Atlantic 10 Conference in 1989 as a player.
Carter started coaching at the high school level at Lincoln High School in Brooklyn. With persistent dedication and hard work, he eventually began coaching at the collegiate level in 2001 at Elizabeth City State. His work there earned him positions at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and Umass Amherst as the Director of Basketball Operations.
Coach Carter made a home for himself at the Division I level with Siena College from 2005-2006. He then spent four years as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Rutgers, before returning to Siena for another three years. After a brief stint with Skidmore College from 2013-2014, Coach Carter excelled as an assistant coach for Longwood University. While Coach Carter was with Longwood from 2014-2015, he helped the Lancers reach the Big South Tournament Semifinals after upsetting the top-seeded Charleston Southern. After Longwood, he coached at Cornell from 2015-2016.
Coach Carter then switched to the women’s side as an assistant with the Wisconsin Badgers women’s team, primarily working with the guards. He then carried his experience to Tallahassee as an Assistant for Florida State University, playing a vital role in recruiting under head coach Sue Semrau. Semrau describes Coach Carter as a “coach with integrity and extensive experience…understanding the needs and challenges of the athletes [he coaches].”
In his free time, Coach Carter loves spending time with his family, including his daughter Amber, 33, and grandson Ellis, 11.
Assistant Basketball Coach
John DeGroat joined South Kent School as the Assistant Prep Basketball Coach and Head Development Team Coach in the fall 2022-2023 academic year. DeGroat received his Associate Degree at Northeastern Community College before earning his Bachelor of Arts in Administration of Justice from the University of Pittsburgh. Having competed professionally overseas for over 15 years, DeGroat joins the South Kent community as a passionate basketball player-turned-coach, ready to help inspire young players to work hard on and off the court.
Coach DeGroat launched his coaching career volunteering with the R.Y.T.E.S. Warriors Pittsburgh AAU team and the Winchester Thurston High School team before becoming Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There, he helped lead his team to become the 2022 PSAC Champions and 2022 Atlantic Regional Champions, with a 2022 appearance in the Final Four (33-3 Overall; 20-2 Conference play). As a player, DeGroat traveled and competed professionally as a Small Forward in several countries. During his seven seasons in Argentina, he was awarded Argentina Power Forward of the Year. When not playing or coaching basketball, Coach DeGroat enjoys golfing, fishing, the outdoors, and spending time with his family.
