City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2016-17 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 11. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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There’s a noticeably different dynamic around La Salle’s practices this fall.

It’s still clearly John Giannini’s show, as the head coach begins his 13th season at the helm of the Explorers. But now, there’s a second voice that’s being heard plenty at practices.

Matt Brady, who spent the last eight seasons as head coach at James Madison, is now on the staff at La Salle as an assistant coach, brought aboard in April shortly after his dismissal at JMU.

It’s a relationship that the two, who first met working camps together in 1990, are greatly enjoying as they work in full-time capacity together for the first time.

“I think I’m here at a good time, and to the extent that G allows me to coach, I certainly feel blessed,” Brady said. “Obviously I’d like to think I’m just trying to add value in every aspect of the program and in any way that I can.”

“It’s great,” Giannini said. “We’ve talked a lot of basketball over the years, and he’s an absolutely brilliant coach. So we’re going to utilize his knowledge and his feel for the game and it’s definitely going to make us better.”

And at an early-preseason practice last Wednesday, it was clear that Giannini is giving Brady plenty of say.

During 5-on-0 shell drills, it was Brady who was lecturing the players on spacing, pointing out the intricacies on where to move and flow in the Explorers’ offense. And when the roster split in twain for 5-on-5 work, Brady worked with one team while Giannini coached the other.

Quickly, they’re developing a style that bears some resemblance to the way a different sport’s coaching staff operates.

“Coach Brady is like the offensive coordinator,” said redshirt sophomore Pookie Powell, who transferred in from Memphis last offseason and will play his first game in a La Salle uniform this fall.  “He’s really good with everything, like footwork, and brings a lot, even bringing NBA potential to a player...I really like him as a coach, he’s always hard on me so I like that as a player.”

Brady agreed: “John’s comfort level with me...I think it really lends itself to the offensive end of the court,” he said, “and I’m tremendously comfortable spending most of my time at that end.”

The 12-year head coach, who also spent four years at Marist, still wanted to dispel the notion that his knowledge was limited to 45 feet: “My team last year at JMU, we were the number one team in the country for 3-point field goal percentage defense, and we set a program record for field goal percentage defense,” he added.

Getting Brady was a bit of a coup for Giannini to begin with. Brady’s removal at JMU was perhaps the most surprising in Division I hoops last summer, considering the Dukes were coming off a 21-win season and had 40 victories in the previous two years. They’re two coaches who both led their programs to the 2013 NCAA Tournament, when La Salle made its last Sweet 16 run while the 16th-seeded Dukes fell to Indiana in the first round.

Though La Salle went just 9-22 last season, the eligibility of three talented transfers and return of the top six scorers from a year ago means this Explorers squad has the potential to be one of the best in the Atlantic 10, if they can put all the pieces together.

Already, Giannini sees Brady’s presence paying off on the court.

“I think he’s taken some of the things that we’ve done in terms of our four-guard offense and just made it better,” he said. “I think our spacing is better and our reads are a little bit better, so I think he’s just taken some of the things we’ve done in the past and just made them better.”

Coaching in Philadelphia means return to familiar territory for Brady, a Haddon Heights (N.J.) native and Paul VI (N.J.) grad, who previously spent time as an assistant coach at Saint Joseph’s (1993-04) following a playing career at Marist.

And more than just the ability to have a cheesesteak or hoagie more often, the move back to the City of Brotherly Love means more quality time spent with family. Brady is the youngest of five children, and while his mother Lorraine currently resides in Ocean City, his three older brothers -- Mike, Dennis and Bud -- all live in South Jersey as well.

“The only time I would ever see them is a couple of weeks in the end of August,” Brady said. “And they’ll come to games, it was really hard for anybody to have done that other than the Drexel and Delaware games [against James Madison]. Now I’ll see them at the Palestra for a game...this will be great for my family, and looking forward to reconnecting more often.”