City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of CoBL's 2015-16 College Season Preview, which will run from October 2-November 13, the first day of games. For the complete rundown, click here)

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West Chester has one clear goal in mind: the final four.

Not the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament--although obviously the Rams wouldn’t complain if their season took them there.

Instead, WCU’s focused on the final four of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) men’s basketball tournament, which is hosted this year at the highest seed of the Eastern division.

An Eastern division that happens to be very much up for grabs; defending champions East Stroudsburg has won the last three consecutive titles, but the Warriors graduated two All-Americans from their backcourt. Coming off a 16-13 (14-8 PSAC) season, Matt Wiseley and West Chester have their eyes on the prize, and the advantage it would give them in their quest to make the school’s second NCAA Tournament in three years after a first-round exit in 2014.

“Our goal is this year is to get the East, get the playoffs in Hollinger, at West Chester,” said Wisely, a 6-foot-6 senior forward from Emmaus. “It would be awesome to play in the semis and the championship, if we make it that far, in our home gym.”

Wiseley is one of four seniors on the roster, along with guards Avery Brown and Mike Wilson and grad student wing Ben Mingledough. Wiseley and Brown each averaged 8.3 ppg a year ago, making a combined 52 starts, while Wilson averaged 8.9 ppg as the team’s sixth man and Mingledough made eight starts, averaging 8.0 ppg.

The quartet represents the vast majority of the returning experience on the Rams. Graduated is last year’s starting frontcourt, Cory Blake (14.4 ppg, 6.0 rpg) and Eric Frans (7.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg), and the team’s second-leading scorer, Parrish Grant (9.2 ppg) is gone from the team on what would have been his senior season. Also no longer around is Raheem Hall, who averaged 7.8 ppg as a freshman a year ago.

That means the rest of the roster is looking up to the seniors, especially Wiseley, who led the team in minutes played last year at 34.3 per game.

“It’s definitely a big hit, losing Eric and Cory because they were both four-year guys in the program, so they were good leaders, with me there too we all kind of worked there together,” Wiseley said. “I still have Ben Mingledough who’s been there for a while, he’s helping me out lead the team, but it’s definitely a bigger role than it was last year. I looked to those guys when I had questions and now I’m the guy that they look to.”

The Rams will get a nice boost up front from 6-9 junior Jahmahl Slater, a Coatesville alum, who should start alongside Wisely up front.

To support the upperclassmen, West Chester head coach Damien Blair and his staff brought in a talented group of five freshmen guards: Matt Penecale (Abington), Dejour Williams (Susquehanna Township), Mike Jolaoso (Episcopal), DaShon Giddings (Del-Val) and Malik Jackson (Penn Wood), with the expectation being that some would redshirt and others would contribute right away.

So far, two of the group have set themselves apart: Penecale, a heady 6-3 combo guard who led the Galloping Ghosts to the 2015 District 1 AAAA title a year ago; and Jackson, a 6-0 scoring guard who was one of the best bucket-getters in the region the last two years.

“We’ve had a couple of intrasquad scrimmages and they’ve done more than hold their own,” Blair said. “So we’re looking for big things from both of them, and we’d like to get them in the lineup early, whether that’s starting or coming off the bench, where they can help us to continue to develop into the team we want to be by the end of the year.”

West Chester won’t be the only team in the PSAC East that needs to rely on young players to have a successful season.

East Stroudsburg graduated an All-American backcourt in Whis Grant and Matt Tobin, and Warriors coach Jeff Wilson will need incomers Nick Giordano (Marple-Newtown) and Najee Walls (La Salle HS) to have an impact, as well as sophomore Jakwan Jones (Imhotep).

Kutztown and Shippensburg, two of the other teams expected to be in the top half of the division, bring back more experience, though both have several sophomores who will be instrumental to their success.

“As history has proven, freshmen struggle at different periods of the year,” Blair said. “The key is for ours to be as consistent as they possibly can be for the whole year. If they can do that, I think we have a shot to win the league. But it is wide open.”