City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

(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)

~~~

The majority of the Division III rosters in this area are stocked with local and regional talent.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware and Maryland have more than enough high school players for the vast majority of the two dozen or so D-III programs located within Philadelphia or in the surrounding counties

The roster of Eastern University, located in Wayne, Pa., is a clear outlier. Seven of the Eagles hail from Florida--more specifically, from Miami.

“I get a sunburn when I step outside, so Miami’s certainly not one of my favorite places for that,” joked Nate Stewart, the team’s head coach the last four seasons and now the school’s Director of Athletics. “But it’s been great for us for recruiting.”

That’s all due to Eric McNelley.

Though it would seem a difficult task to get seven players to move 1,200 miles up the East Coast to pay their own way for college--Division III schools don’t give athletic scholarships--there isn’t the same competition locally. Florida is entirely devoid of Division III schools, with the only options to go either Division I or II, play at an NAIA school or go to junior college.

“It’s a great opportunity for kids to come up and get a great Christian education, a college education here in Philadelphia and there aren’t too many places better to play basketball than the tri-state Philadelphia area,” said McNelley, who’s the team’s interim head coach this season after serving as an assistant the year before. “It’s not hard once you have your foot in the door, to tell you the truth.”

A South Florida native, McNelley developed those connections through years of coaching at the high school and AAU level since he was 22 years old, spending time at four different Miami-area high schools.

He first came to Philadelphia in 2008-09, when he was the Director of Basketball Operations under John Giannini at La Salle University.

McNelley only lasted one year in the city that time around, as his wife, Jessica, received a promotion at her company that necessitated a move back to Florida. In the summer of 2013, they moved to Indiana for the same reason, where they lasted for 18 months before her job brought them back to Philadelphia in December 2013.

Though it was too late to get a coaching job right away, McNelley was able to find an assistant position with Eastern for the 2014-15 season, where he impressed Stewart.

“Obviously, his ability to recruit and lure kids to Eastern was a big part of it,” said Stewart, whose promotion in August necessitated McNelley’s insertion as interim head coach. “He’s done a great job as an assistant coach with X’s and O’s and strategy and helping our kids. That’s the biggest thing we want to do, is get our guys to grow and develop, most importantly in the classroom and on the court as well. And I just felt comfortable that he was going to have all those things happen as a head coach.”

The Eagles aren’t devoid of a local presence on the roster. Junior wing Shaquan Turk, the league’s leading scorer a year ago (17.6 ppg), is a Philadelphia native who graduated from Gospel of Grace HS.

While Turk is making the transition from being a face-up forward to playing out on the wing, that’s not what his coach is most heavily focused on for his star player.

“The biggest challenge I have for him is to be a defensive stopper, to be my Jimmy Butler,” McNelley said, referencing the former Marquette star who’s now an NBA All-Star with the Chicago Bulls. “We’re going to ask him to play on both sides of the ball this year, last year we tried to hide him at times because we couldn’t afford to get him in foul trouble. This year we’re going to really put him out there and see where he can take his game.”

With Turk, plus junior sharpshooter Tarek Hamzeh (10.2 ppg) and senior wing Malcolm Garrison (12.0 ppg) back in the fold from a team that went 7-7 in Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom Division play (10-15 overall) a year ago, Eastern has expectations of playing for a MAC Freedom title in the spring.

And while McNelley plans on utilizing his connections down south to continue to build Eastern’s brand of basketball, he’s not intending on ignoring the recruiting hotbed in which his school is located.

“Our goal wasn’t to fill up with an entire Florida roster, it’s trying to create a brand here at Eastern, make us competitive so we can get the local kids to consider Eastern as one of their top choices,” he said. “We’d like to be able to get into every high school and build a winner here, get some Philly kids and build a national program if possible, that’s what we’d like to try to do.”

After moving all over the country over the last seven years, McNelley is hoping he’s found a place to stay.

Of course, first he’ll have to do enough this season to impress his predecessor and get that interim tag removed.

“Obviously that’s not my decision, but yes, that’s definitely what I would be hoping for,” he said. “I’m looking to make Eastern home and trying to build something special here.”