City of Basketball Love

Matthew Ryan (@matthewryan02) &
Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2021-22 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 9. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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As La Salle enters its fourth season under head coach Ashley Howard, it has its sights set on getting back on track. The Explorers finished the COVID season with a 9-16 record (6-12 Atlantic 10), a step back from a 15-15 mark the year prior, but feel like they’re in a better place than they were last fall.

A major roster overhaul, with six players transferring out of La Salle and six new faces arriving since the beginning of last season — three freshmen and three transfers — have optimism bubbling at 20th and Olney. 

“All the newcomers, they're great,” junior Christian Ray said. “They came in, they're listening. Our leadership is better than it has been… It's just great energy right now.”

Of the players who departed Olney, David Beatty and Scott Spencer are the most notable, each choosing to spend their final year of eligibility elsewhere after a couple up-and-down years in Explorers uniforms. Beatty started 17 of 25 games last season, averaging 8.8 points, and Spencer started more than half of his appearances and averaged seven points.

To fill out the roster, the Explorers welcomed freshmen Daeshon Shepherd (Archbishop Wood), Andrés Marrero (Upper Room Christain, NY) and Khalil Brantley (Our Saviour Lutheran, NY), and transfers Mamadou Doucouré (Rutgers), Josh Nickelberry (Louisville) and Matt McFarlane (Colby CC). It’s a group that Howard’s counting on to provide some instant impact, but also help set the tone for the years to come.

“Honestly, I think our chemistry is probably as good as it's been,” Howard said. “We brought in some really good guys that really want to help us build this program, and are coachable, and are just fitting in well.

“The energy's been great.”

Howard mentioned three newcomers in particular who’ve made an immediate impact not just for their abilities on the court but bringing a voice to the program: Doucouré, Nickelberry, and Marrero, all of whom took different paths to get to La Salle.

A 6-foot-9 forward, Doucouré played four years at Rutgers, earning a starting role as a freshman but averaging around 5 minutes per game over the last three years. Marrero, a native of Venezuela, has international experience, including playing with the Venezuelan Senior National Team at the 2022 AmeriCup Qualifiers; with the U-17 team in 2019, he averaged 21.5 ppg and 4.5 rpg at the South American Championships.

The most vocal at a mid-October practice, however, was Nickelberry. A 6-4 guard who spent the last two years at Louisville, where he averaged 1.5 points in 24 career games, the former top-100 recruit is in the mix for a starting spot this winter. 

“I feel like I'm a natural leader, so when I'm in this situation with these guys, just try to lead by example more than talk about it; I try to do it,” Nickelberry said. “Trying to show these guys how to be a leader.”

Ray, a 6-6 wing recruited to La Salle out of The Haverford School in large part due to the intangibles Howard wanted to install in his program, echoed his coaches’ thoughts. The 2019 Inter-Ac MVP has been the lead-by-example type since early in high school years at Octorara, and has grown into a vocal presence entering his third collegiate season, earning team captain honors as a sophomore.

"Our leadership is better than it has been, but it's more of a leadership by committee," Ray said. "Everybody's listening to each other, freshmen are coming in and listening, playing hard, and it's just great energy right now.”

Ray, who started 16 out of 25 games a year ago and averaged 7.5 ppg and a team-high 6.0 rpg, is one of two third-year Explorers who have been integral parts of the rotation since his arrival on campus. Classmate Sherif Kenney, a 6-4 junior guard, started 10 of 24 games last year, averaging 9.6 points, 1.7 assists and one steal en route to winning A-10 Sixth Man of the Year.

Those two more than anyone else understand Howard’s plan and vision: two of his original recruits to Philadelphia who’ve played nearly 2,500 collegiate minutes so far, each with three years of eligibility remaining due to the blanket waiver the NCAA passed for the COVID season.

“All the guys know what coach Ash is looking for,” Kenney said, “so we’re just trying to express to our younger guys what he's looking for: playing hard, rebounding, being on the defensive side a lot.”

Two other returners and key rotation members the Explorers are counting on to take a step forward in the leadership department are 6-8 redshirt junior shooting guard Jack Clark and 5-11 sophomore point guard Jhamir “Jig” Brickus. Their development will be crucial if La Salle is to outperform its 12th-place selection in the 2021-22 Atlantic 10 preseason poll. 

Both have already made an impact on the court. Clark, a Cheltenham grad, was the team’s leading scorer a year ago (9.9 ppg) and was second on the team in rebounds (5.2), though injuries have limited him to 33 games through his first three years in college. Brickus, the all-time leading scorer in Coatsville history, put together an impressive freshman season where he averaged 8.8 points, 3.4 assists and 1.8 steals.

“I think the biggest thing for Jig is to be more vocal as the point guard,” Howard said. “The more vocal he can be, the more we can depend on him for his leadership on the floor, I think the better our team will be.”

Also returning from last year is 6-10 redshirt senior and Hatboro-Horsham product Clifton Moore, who started 18 games last year and averaged 6.1 ppg and 4.0 rpg with a team-high 33 blocks. He’ll likely start at the ‘5’ ahead of Doucouré and 6-11 sophomore Tegra Izay, with McFarlane factoring into the mix if eligible; a brief stop at Wichita State this summer before transferring to La Salle has that status up in the air.

Sophomore guard Anwar Gill, who averaged 6.1 ppg in a largely reserve role (four starts), will once again be in the mix in the backcourt, along with Brantley, a high-scoring 6-1 guard out of the Bronx.

It might take a little while to see how much the new additions and personnel development have helped. There was early-season success in 2019-20 as La Salle entered conference play 9-3 and were winners in eight of their last nine games. But things quickly turned south, with the Explorers going just 6-12 in the A-10, finishing in 10th place. 

This season gets under Nov. 9 at 8 PM against Sacred Heart, with Big 5 competition starting Nov. 28 against Villanova at the Palestra and the A-10 slate underway Dec. 30 at home against Fordham. The non-con slate is littered with winnable games against quality opponents, including Albany (Nov. 13), at Delaware (Nov. 17), at Bucknell (Dec. 18) and Drexel (Dec. 21).

When will La Salle know if things are actually different with its new-look roster?

“It'll probably be once we hit A-10,” Ray said. "We'll go through our non-conference, we'll get a feeling through that, and then once A-10 comes around [...] we’ll know where we're really at.”