City of Basketball Love

Will Slover (@WillSlover31)
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Even though final exams caused this week to be a slow one for college basketball, seven players with local ties still managed to make their mark, earning their way onto their respective conference’s weekly awards lists.

B.J. Johnson (La Salle/RS-Jr.)
Johnson, the 6-foot-7 wing, used a career performance in La Salle’s 84-80 win over Florida Gulf Coast on Saturday to earn Atlantic 10 Player of the Week. Johnson poured in a career-high 35 points, with 28 of them coming in the second half, while also adding in four steals on the defensive end. Johnson was also super-efficient in his outing, as he shot 10-of-16 (.625) from the field, and 12-of-14 (.857) from the free-throw line. This performance pushed the Syracuse transfer to the top of the team’s scoring leaderboard, as he now paces the Explorers with 19.9 points per game, which is also good enough for fifth in the Atlantic 10. This is the redshirt junior’s second time winning this award, as he took home the honor on December 5th as well.

Charlie Brown (St. Joseph’s/Fr.)
Brown turned in two solid performances for the Hawks this week, as his squad turned in a 1-1 record on the week, defeating Princeton by a score of 76-68 on Wednesday before falling to Illinois St. on Saturday, 81-72. The 6-foot-7 wing turned in a 12 point, seven rebound performance against Princeton and followed that up with 14 and four against Illinois St. On the week, Brown averaged 13 points, 5.5 rebounds and one steal per contest on his way to making it onto the Atlantic 10 Weekly Honor Roll.

Josh Hart (Villanova/Sr.)
Hart, a National Player of the Year frontrunner, followed up last week’s Big East Player of the Week awarding by turning in another quality performance this week that was good enough to get him a spot on the Big East’s Weekly Honor Roll. The Silver Spring, Md. native who leads the top team in the country in both scoring (20.1 ppg) and rebounding (6.5 rpg), torched Temple on Tuesday for 26 points while not turning the ball over at all in a 78-57 win that gave his Wildcats their fourth straight Big 5 Title and also gave he and his senior classmates, Kris Jenkins and Darryl Reynolds, an undefeated career mark of 16-0 against city opponents.

A.J. Brodeur (Penn/Fr.)
The Massachusetts native stuffed the stat sheet for Penn on Monday in their upset 58-49 win over Central Florida. Brodeur finished with 10 points, six rebounds, four blocks, three steals, and three assists while also having to guard the 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall in the process. His ten points gave him his seventh consecutive double-digit scoring effort. The 6-foot-8 forward’s valiant effort against the previously 7-1 Knights was enough to earn him his second Ivy League Rookie of the Week Awards, as he was also given the title back on November 14th.

Stevie Jordan (Rider/Fr.)
Jordan, the previous attendee of Conwell-Egan (Pa.), was outstanding for Rider this week, as the Broncos went 3-0 in contests against Kennesaw State, Drexel, and North Carolina A&T. In their first game of the week, Jordan turned in a career-high 12 assist performance and followed that up with a career-high of 26 points just two days later. After turning in an all-around solid performance of eight points, six rebounds, six assists, and two steals in their third victory of the week, Jordan turned in weekly averages of 13.3 points, 8.0 assists, 5.0 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game on his way to winning his second Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Week Award.

Samir Doughty (VCU/RS-Fr.)
Doughty, a Math, Civics, and Sciences (Pa.) product, was a force off the bench in VCU’s 80-77 win over Middle Tennessee State. The 6-foot-4 guard turned in a 14 point, four rebound performance in 31 minutes to help his team get the win in their only contest of the week. This performance was also good enough to get him a spot on the Atlantic 10’s Weekly Honor Roll for the second time this season.

Sam Jones (Penn/Jr.)
The 6-foot-7 Jones was an offensive force for the Quakers in their lone game of the week, an upset victory over the Knights of UCF. He lit up Central Florida for 15 points on 5-of-10 shooting in just 23 minutes of play. This offensive outbreak was enough for Jones to make his season debut on the Ivy League Weekly Honor Roll.