City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Get ready to exhale. Basketball season is nearly here.

This Friday, the first meaningful games of 2017-18 will tip off across the country, as the Division I season gets underway in earnest with 163 games -- 115 of which are D-I vs. D-I matchups.

For the first time this year, CoBL will be doing a City 6 Power Rankings, as we attempt to settle any arguments about which team is the best in the city at any given time. We'll release these rankings bi-weekly in the fall, and switch to weekly in January as conference play begins.

Keep in mind these rankings will be more based around momentum and overall team play, as compared to who might win head-to-head.

Without further ado, our first-ever City 6 rankings:

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6. Drexel Dragons
Last Year’s Record: 9-23 (3-15 CAA)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: Kurk Lee Jr. (Soph/PG)

Update: The second year of the Zach Spiker era at Drexel should see the Dragons turn up the tempo even more from last year, when they went from one of the 30 slowest teams in the country in the final year of Bruiser Flint’s tenure to top 70 in the country; when Spiker was at Army, his teams got into the top 20. For the second year in a row, the ball will be in the hands of dynamic 5-10 point guard Lee, but this year the Baltimore native will have some help in the form of a pair of transfer guards, Tramaine Isabell (Missouri) and Troy Harper (Campbell). There are several others who can score, including senior wings Miles Overton and Sammy Mojica, but they’ll need senior big man Austin Williams to stay on the floor to be competitive. Chance for a decent opening win against Bowling Green, but that’s a tough draw in the Paradise Jam against a dangerous Houston squad; that tournament will be played at Liberty instead of the Virgin Islands due to the hurricanes that struck the Caribbean this fall.

Next Two Weeks: vs. Bowling Green (Nov. 10, 7 PM), vs. Arcadia (Nov. 13, 7 PM), Paradise Jam (Lynchburg, Va.): vs. Houston (Nov. 17, 2:30 PM, ), vs. Liberty/Mercer (Nov. 18), vs. TBD (Nov. 19)

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5. La Salle Explorers
Last Year’s Record: 15-15 (9-9 A-10)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: Amar Stukes (R-Sr./PG)
Update: Expectations were decently high for La Salle last year, considering the addition of three transfers to a rotation that already had a good number of upperclassmen, with depth at seemingly every position. But the Explorers never really seemed to find their rhythm last season aside from a five-game winning streak that took them to 5-1 in league play (11-5 overall), after which they lost nine of their next 12. Jordan Price and Cleon Roberts graduated and Demetrius Henry turned pro a year early, but there’s still a lot of experience on this roster. Five players -- Stukes, Johnnie Shuler, B.J. Johnson, Tony Washington and Pookie Powell -- are in their fifth year of college, and they’ll make up the majority of the rotation. If sophomores Isiah Deas and Saul Phiri can give them some extra scoring pop while freshman big Miles Brookins is a reliable backup post, the Explorers could overachieve this year.

Next Two Weeks: vs. Saint Peter’s (Nov. 11, 3 PM), @ Penn (Nov. 13, 7 PM), vs. South Alabama (Nov. 16, 7 PM), Naismith HoF Tip-Off (Uncasville, Conn.): vs. Northwestern (Uncasville, Conn., Nov. 18, 2:30 PM), vs. Texas Tech/Boston College (Nov. 19, TBD)

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4. Penn Quakers
Last Year’s Record: 13-15 (6-8 Ivy)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: A.J. Brodeur (Soph./PF)

Update: The Quakers finished last season stronger than anybody else in the city besides Villanova, winning six of their final eight regular-season games before giving eventual league champ Princeton an overtime battle in the first-ever Ivy League semifinals. They will have to replace do-everything wing Matt Howard, the team’s second-leading scorer, from the starting lineup, but otherwise the rotation returns intact. The sophomore class is the key bunch for third-year head coach Steve Donahue, who’s trying to return Penn to its former glory days atop the Ivy league after spending most of the last decade near the bottom. Brodeur, a 6-8 forward and a preseason All-Ivy selection, was the team’s leading scorer, rebounder and shot blocker a year ago, and now he’ll work on moving from the ‘5’ to the ‘4.’ His classmates, 6-5 shooting guard Ryan Betley and speedy 5-10 point guard Devon Goodman, were also major reasons why the Quakers finished strong last year; Betley could end up being the team’s leading scorer this year. Keep an eye out for another good group of freshman, especially forward Jarrod Simmons and wing Eddie Scott, and how they handle this opening stretch.

Next Two Weeks: @ Fairfield (Nov. 11, 1 PM), vs. La Salle (Nov. 13, 7 PM), vs. Navy (Nov. 15, 7 PM), vs. Penn State-Brandywine (Nov. 18, 11:30 AM)

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3. Saint Joseph’s Hawks
Last Year’s Record: 11-20 (4-14 A-10)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: Shavar Newkirk (Sr./G)

Update: Last season was a tough one for Phil Martelli’s Hawks, as two different starters went down before Atlantic 10 play with season-ending injuries, while several others missed various amounts of time with injuries of their own. But St. Joe’s is (largely) on the mend now, and without any significant pieces gone from a year ago, there’s plenty of optimism on Hawk Hill. The Hawks will open the season without the services of sophomore wing Charlie Brown, a potential breakout candidate who’s likely sidelined until early December with a broken left wrist; Newkirk, a senior guard and the team’s leading scorer through its first dozen games a year ago, is up in the air whether or not he’ll be back from the opener as he recovers from a torn ACL suffered in the Atlantic 10 opener a year ago. But there’s still plenty left on the floor, including junior guard Lamarr Kimble, sophomore forward Pierfrancesco Oliva, senior wing James Demery and two freshmen who should contribute right away in Anthony Longpré and Taylor Funk.

Next Two Weeks: @ Toledo (Nov. 11, 7 PM), @ Illinois-Chicago (Nov. 13, 8 PM), vs. Princeton (Nov. 18, 7 PM)

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2. Temple Owls
Last Year’s Record: 16-16 (7-11 AAC)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: Josh Brown (R-Sr./PG)

Update: The Owls look primed for a bounce-back year under Fran Dunphy, who enters his 12th season on the Temple sideline after a tremendous 17-year run at Penn. Dunphy has taken 16 different teams to the NCAA Tournament, including seven at Temple, and he’s got a group that’s experienced and deep enough to make it eight, even in a deeper and tougher American Athletic Conference. Temple’s schedule starts off five or six days later than the rest of Division I hoops, which could hurt them if they came out cold against an ODU team that will be playing its third game of the season by the time the Charleston Classic gets underway next Thursday. Brown, a redshirt senior point guard and one of the team’s two captains, returns to the lineup after missing last season due to Achilles surgery; he and senior Obi Enechionyia, as well as junior guard Shizz Alston Jr., give the Owls a strong trio, but they’ll need contributions from sophomores (Quinton Rose, Alani Moore II) and freshmen (Dre Perry, Nate Pierre-Louis) to be a top-five team in the AAC.

Next Two Weeks: vs. Jefferson (Exhib., Nov. 9, 7:30 PM), Charleston Classic (Charleston, S.C.): vs. Old Dominion (Nov. 16, 2 PM), vs. Auburn/Indiana State (Nov. 17, TBD), vs. TBD (Nov. 19)

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1. Villanova Wildcats
Last Year’s Record: 32-4 (15-3 Big East)
Last Two Weeks: N/A
Star Watch: Jalen Brunson (Jr./PG)

Update: The four-time defending Big East champions and 2016 national champions should keep it rolling this season, led by preseason All-American point guard Brunson, redshirt junior wing Mikal Bridges and redshirt junior guard Phil Booth, plus the addition of five-star big man Omari Spellman. Wright is certainly easing his group into the season, with three games against lower-level conference opponents that all finished under .500 last year. Back in Nov. 2012, the last time Columbia visited Villanova, the Lions actually pulled off a 75-57 win behind 21 points from Alex Rosenberg. That was right at the beginning of Ryan Arcidiacono’s freshman year, and certainly served as an early wake-up call for a team that barely made the NCAAs that year but became one of the country’s best teams the next. Don’t expect recent history to repeat itself in the opener. Remember -- all of VIllanova’s home games will be played at the Wells Fargo Center, aside from playing Penn at the Jake Nevin Field House later this month.

Next Two Weeks: vs. Columbia (Nov. 10, 8:30 PM), vs. Nicholls State (Nov. 14, 6:30 PM), vs. Lafayette (Allentown, Pa., Nov. 17, 8:00 PM)

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