City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This story is part of our 2016-17 college season preview, six weeks of coverage that will span everything from Division I through Division III, junior college and more. To access our entire college of preseason content, check out our Season Preview Hub.)

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Earlier this offseason, CoBL spoke with each of the Division I coaches in the area for a Q&A session, and now we’re expanding it to include the various Division II programs in the CoBL coverage region.

With the first full-time D-II and D-III practices beginning on Oct. 15, we’ll be using the next few weeks to sit down with the area’s D-II head coaches and see where they’re at as they prepare for the 2016-17 season.

Our first conversation was with Chestnut Hill College’s Jesse Balcer, who became the program’s first head coach during the Griffins’ inaugural season in 2003 and has guided them through each of the last 13 years. Coming off a 13-win season that was a seven-win improvement on the year before, CHC graduated five seniors but still returns a lot of experience, including juniors Edward McWade (13.5 ppg, 5.0 rpg) and Demetrius Isaac (12.5 ppg, 3.5 apg).

Here are the (copy-edited) highlights of a 45-minute conversation:

City of Basketball Love: A month out, are you the same every year? Does it feel different each time?

Jesse Balcer: It’s funny you say that, because I am the same every year. I always feel like we have a shot to win it. My wife tells me the same thing every year, ‘you say this every single season.’ And I do, I feel that way. That’s the best part about a new season, you always have that feeling like, brand new slate, new team, new group, new chemistry, why not us?

CoBL: Even beyond the expectations of the season, four weeks out from practice, how do you handle the lead-up?

JB: Each year that comes in, I get a little more calm, with what’s about to happen. Because I know how long the season is, I know about the grind and how many things can change along the way. You don’t focus on one particular thing. So I think each year, it gets a little bit easier. The excitement is always there, October 15 can’t come soon enough. And with the way the rules change, you can actually practice a couple of hours a week now, it’s taken Oct. 15 out of the picture a little bit because we’ve already done individual workouts and a few full-team workouts and I’ve seen the guys play. It’s taken the anxiety of the Oct. 15 date away, but at the same time you’re working your way up to the big day. If it’s not exciting around now, it’s time to quit coaching and find something that does excite you, because that’s the best part.

When you couldn’t do anything until Oct. 15, there was a lot of build up...Oct. 15 is your first day of practice, a lot of times your first scrimmage might be the end of October, 15-16 days later. You have 15, 16 days, which if you add in one day off a weekend, that’s like 13 practices to get ready. A week before your first game you still haven’t put in an inbounds play or you might not have your zones in or your zone offense or something. So it takes that out of the picture because there’s things you are doing in the preseason that builds you up to that.

CoBL: Does it make a noticeable difference this year? Graduated five seniors, a few freshmen coming in, some transfers -- a lot of new pieces to work in.

JB: The funny thing is, is this: one of the freshmen was here last year, so he knows everything, he was a redshirt, he broke his ankle, Kevin McWade. And we only have three other freshmen, and then two transfers. But the thing is, everyone else that’s returning, I think they’ve all played before, they have experience. So I’m not really that worried. I’m super-excited for meshing these new guys in, because there’s a lot of experience coming back, it’s not as much of a new thing as it might look if you just look at the roster, go ‘wow, they lost five guys.’”

They’re all doing really well, and that’s great for the program, and then here come these new guys; it’s a great bunch of new kids we have coming in on top of what actually turned out to be a pretty good group, after we lost some guys and others had to start playing -- Bryant Quill, we saw what he was able to do at the end of last year, it makes you see you have something there.

CoBL: When [graduated senior and leading scorer] Luke Dickson goes down with eight games left, were you thinking at all that this was going to be good for you this year?

JB: No. (Laughs). When Luke broke his finger, we were playing at Felician, and it was a game I thought we should have won, and we lose him early in the game and we lose a really tight game. So at first it was a little depressing, we were going to Georgian Court in two days, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it. When it first happened, I was like, uh-oh; first game happened, we beat Georgian Court at Georgian Court by one...I thought that’s great, but Georgian Court didn’t have any wins yet in the league, so though any win’s a good win, it was like, alright, we’ve got Wilmington coming up. They were up big on us and then Ryan Griffin hit like six 3s in the first half and then we won that game...after that is when i started going like ‘wow, this might be really good for us,’ because all of these guys are getting playing time and I get to see if they’re any good, and they end up being pretty decent.

CoBL: Before we start getting into the specific players and some expectations for them this year, as a team--seven-win improvement from the year before, do you set a goal where if you do that again, it’s a 20-win season?

JB: Twenty wins would be phenomenal, and never talk about exactly how many wins we want to have. The goal is to improve from last year: from six to 13, from 13 to who knows? We could win 17, 18 games this year and I’ll still feel like it was an improvement, or who knows, we might win 18 and I might look and go we should have had 22 but we blew three games because we didn’t do this-or-that. But the goal is to win a championship, and I think there’s a lot of good teams in our conference. Each year you come in, and you go like alright, let’s put our team up against their team, and I think this year, without saying how many wins I think we’ll have, I think we’ll be very competitive in the conference, and why not us?

CoBL: Two biggest reasons for optimism are juniors Eddie McWade and Demetrius Isaac, your second and third-leading scorers from a year ago. How much of the leadership burden is theirs now?

JB: Demetrius, can’t say enough about how he’s come along since he came here from Penn Charter. His freshman year, he was playing well throughout the year, with about six or seven games left we started him, to see if we had the point guard of our future, to see if he could do it, because that was the year we only won six games and we’d only won three or four when I said ‘we’ve got to change a lot here, let’s see what we’ve got moving forward.’ And he played really well at the point. Meech made a huge jump from freshman to sophomore year, and I’ve seen nothing but hard work and I expect to see another jump from sophomore to junior year. He’s a floor general, he can get to the basket, he gets to the foul line, he leads by example, exactly the way we want this program  to be known for. We play hard, we don’t talk trash, but we play tough and we don’t let people walk all over us. And that’s Demetrius to a ‘T.’ And then Eddie, you’re not going to find many more tough guys than him. And he doesn’t say a word, he just plays.

So they embody what I try to talk about in practice, and when we meet as a team, what we want our program to be, those two guys are it. I’m not even talking about numbers, I’m talking about play, show us the way. And the best part about it is they’re going to be here for two years. This year and next year, everybody that’s going to be playing behind those guys, they know who they’re watching.

CoBL: If you had to critique each of them, something they each had to focus on, what would you say?

JB: If we were having a conversation with Meech, he would know exactly what I’d say to him -- he has to be able to knock down the open jump shot. We talked about that at the end of last year, because that was the most glaring thing in his game, he’s got to be able to knock down the open jumper. He’s really good at the pull-up jumpers, he’s money, but he’s got to be able to shoot the 3 every once in a while and keep teams honest.

And Eddie, me and him talk about it, I want to see him more aggressive. He goes through periods of time where he defers to other guys, and to his credit, it’s because he’s not trying to take a bad shot. He’s always thinking about everybody else, and sometimes we need him to score. Don’t worry about making the extra pass on that play, I need him to get a basket. But you can never argue his hustle, you can never argue his attitude.

CoBL: You have three freshmen coming in, plus Kevin McWade, who redshirted last year. Has anybody in that group stood out to you so far?

JB: Well, [Martin Luther King grad] Nasir [Bell] is terrific, I think he’s very underrated, and I think his personality is very underrated, because he’s such a super person. We have a graduate transfer, [J.J. Butler from Lipscomb], and Nasir was going to be number five. He called Nasir up, talked to him about do you mind changing it over, and Nasir texted me asked what other numbers I said. He said ‘alright I’ll take 30 this year and I’ll take 5 next year because he’s a senior,’ and that’s the kind of guy he is. Here he is, a freshman, recognizing that a senior wanted a number, even though he’s new as well; he didn’t have to do that.

We have a kid Keith Williams from St. Joe’s Prep who didn’t get much playing time with them at all, and athletically he is awesome; he gets to the rim, he’s got a decent shot, he’s got a great frame, he’s 6-5. He’s got serious bounce. We could have lucked out and gotten a kid that his college career is going to be much better than his high school career. I watch him sometimes and his junior year, people are going to be like ‘where the frig did they get him?’

I feel the same way about this kid Billy Miller from South Jersey. Billy’s from Overbrook (N.J.), he went to La Salle last year, was walking on and decided not to. His father played at Abington Friends with me, we were boys in high school...he called me up, I didn’t have any chance to try (Billy) out, but I said I’d take him on the team based on knowing his father was. I looked him up, every video was a football player, he reminded me of Brian Dawkins -- safety, great tackler, lots of intensity. So I thought he an athlete, we’ll take him. And he’s holding his own -- and then some -- in practice.

And last but not least, there's Kevin McWade, Eddie’s younger brother, who redshirted last year. He is the best on-ball defender we have ever had. He plays so hard and works so hard that he is going to force his way onto the court. I am really excited about what he brings to the table. He is a game-changer on defense.

We also have Jalil Myers, who’s transferred from West Chester.

CoBL: Is he fully healthy?

JB: He is; he broke his ankle at West Chester a few years ago. I didn’t even know. When [West Chester coach] Damien [Blair] called me to see if we’d be interested in him, he told me that he had broken his foot, but it must have gone in one ear and out the other, because he was 100 percent healthy every time I’ve seen him since then. You can’t tell...I didn’t see him before it, so maybe he’s a little less mobile, but he’s pretty mobile. He’s still driving and dunking on people and shooting the ‘3’ and pushing the ball. He can run.

CoBL: Expecting him to get some minutes this year?

JB: Absolutely. I’m expecting him to be a major, major part of our offense, and defense.

CoBL: You said that offensively you think you could be in better shape initially than defensively. How much do you need [sophomore forwards] Dakpe Yiljep and Tony Toplyn help you guys on the defensive end of the court?

JB: Tony’s looked amazing. His workouts have been great, he’s being a lot more aggressive this year than he was last year off the bat. Maybe he was just feeling his way out his first year here and everything, but big difference this year. I see Tony and DP both as likely starters; we’ll see. I’m not joking you, I know coaches say all the time -- I know Meech will start and I know Eddie will start, but these other spots, there’s a lot of other guys [who could get them]; DP, he really improved his handle over the summer, and his shot. We play in that summer league at Williamson (Trade Center), he looks really good, he’s getting to the rim, he’s improved.

And I think Tony will play a lot of minutes, too. It’s going to be interesting, it really is. Our practices are going to be so competitive. The thing about Tony, last year he pretty much was a sixth man for us, he came off the bench all season, and even after we were losing guys to injury, I was bringing other people in and keeping him off the bench. The first time I did it, i pulled him aside and said ‘look, I’m going to start this guy,’ and I didn’t even get the sentence out and he was like ‘don’t worry about it, Coach, I’m good.’ So that’s the kind of kid Tony is. If he is playing out of his mind defensively, he’ll be on the court when we start the game. But it doesn't really matter about starting -- at the end of the game, look at the end line, the minutes. Are you playing, are you in the rotation? That’s what matters.

Also up front, we have two other guys who are going to factor into the rotation. Chris Evans [a 6-6 junior] has battled injuries over the past two seasons which have kept him on the bench, but he came back to school ready to go and has shown a lot of leadership. He is a great “team first” guy, and we are hoping he contributes this season. Then there’s [6-6 senior] Gerald Evariste, a four-year player who has gotten better each season. He will provide some size and athleticism in the middle; he’s a really strong rebounder and rim protector. He has worked really hard in the offseason on his offensive game so we are hoping he can give us some scoring punch in the middle as well.

CoBL: You’ve also got Bryant Quill, a sophomore who came on strong at the end of last year. With all these options, does that make it easier to challenge the guys? How far out do you set the rotation?

JB: This season, more than any team that I’ve ever had, everybody needs to be on their P’s and Q’s at all times. The day you mess up, you’ve lost your spot to a guy who might very well take over that spot. Ever hear of Wally Pipp? This is the conversation we have with our team, the first meeting every year: this is what I’m looking for, I’m looking for gentlemen, I’m looking for tough guys. If you’re not playing, stay straight, because as soon as someone messes up, you’ve got your spot and they have to take it back off you. If you’re on our bench, you better be ready, because if they start doing knucklehead stuff, it’s like enough of that, I’m going to give the other guy a chance. We’ve got guys that I really know can play in our league. So if you want to take a chance and not hand in that paper, go for it; if you want to oversleep and come to practice five minutes late, get out, and now you’re a practice behind it. And that’s the way we’ve always done it, but now we have the depth. You’re making the decision easier on me. I’m not even going to battle in my head. And we’ve been off to a pretty good start -- not perfect, there’s been bumps, but pretty good.

CoBL: This is your 14th year, you’ve taken the program from infancy, from D-III up to D-II and now you’ve been D-II nearly 10 years. How have you seen the landscape change, not just at Chestnut Hill but Philadelphia small-college basketball?

JB: It’s amazing. First of all, Chestnut Hill, when I started and we were Division III and we were a lot more successful at D-III than we’ve been at D-II in terms of win and losses, but like I still think we’ve been successful because the kids we have graduating. I look around now, sometimes I look and I start naming guys and they’re professionals and they’re doing really well. I see what the gym looked like when we first started to what it looks like now, I see the level of players when we first started at Division III and Division II to what we are now. I look at the conference...right now, to be a Philadelphia small college in the midst of West Chester, Philly U, Holy Family, University of the Sciences, Gwynedd-Mercy, Cabrini, these are great programs. And I remember when we first started, I always felt like the illegitimate college, because we were brand-new, we didn’t have any type of history. And if you talk about championships, we have zero history, because we haven’t won anything. However, I think we are well-engrained in the Philadelphia sports scene. People know who Chestnut Hill College is, and anybody who really pays attention knows that we do right by the kids and we have a lot of great professionals out there right now that came through our program. I feel like I’m in such a great spot right now.

Every year that goes by, I’m like dang, it’s my 14th season, I haven’t gotten to the tournament yet. We were in the CACC semifinals against Bloomfield [in 2012], we’ve been int eh playoffs every year except for the year we had six wins, that was a nightmare of a season. But last year I’m watching the tournament, the NCAA Tournament, and one of the coaches, I forgot who it was, it was his 17th season and it was his first appearance in the NCAA Tournament. And I heard that and I thought “hell yeah.” It’s going to be done. I can’t worry about the longer it takes me, it is what it is. We’re going to keep on churning out graduates, we’re going to keep on recruiting kids the way we want to be at Chestnut Hill, so that they’re proud of it, we’re proud of it. I’m not going to change anything we’re doing. We’ve just got to work a little bit harder and get there.