City of Basketball Love

David Driver (@DaytonVaDriver)
––

WASHINGTON – La Salle men's regular season began back on Nov. 9 with an overtime loss at Tom Gola Arena to Sacred Heart, a team that would lose 20 of its next 29 games.

Conference play began on Dec. 30, again at home and once again with a loss – this time to perennial Atlantic 10 bottom-feeder Fordham.

And the season came to a merciful end for the Explorers on Thursday afternoon before only the most die-hard of La Salle fans at the Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C.

Playing for the second time in two days in the conference tournament, No. 12 seed La Salle was handily defeated 71-51 by No. 5 seed Saint Louis.

It was a horrible shooting day for the Explorers, who missed 15 of their last 16 shots in the first half while Clifton Moore misfired on his first eight attempts.

La Salle trailed by 18 points at halftime and the second half was simply a countdown to the inevitable as the Explorers trailed by 33 at one point.

“You know what: Saint Louis is a tough, athletic, skilled team and they played well today,” said La Salle coach Ashley Howard, who wrapped up his fourth season as head coach. “I thought early on we were able to hang in there with them; I thought we had some really clean looks early. But shots didn’t fall for us and that allowed them to get out in transition and then they jumped on us. We won four of our last five games, so I am proud of that. These guys stuck together through some really difficult times. We lost a lot of close games, a lot of heartbreaking games, and our guys never quit. I look forward to continuing to build and see where we can take this program.”

Howard will quickly turn his attention to the off-season and told City of Basketball Love after the game his program is planning a trip to Europe in August.

“We have had a head start on putting the trip together,” said Howard, noting the war in Ukraine could have an impact on the European plans. “We don’t know how things are going to progress with all the unrest in the world right now. As of right now, we are planning on going to Europe in August. We are going to touch a couple of countries.

“It will give us the opportunity to have 10 days of practice in August, where we can really tighten some things up and get a head start on putting things together,” Howard added.  “But we have a lot of guys, a lot of young guys, that use that experience, even our older guys get over there and playing against some professional players. So even for our older guys to get an opportunity to experience that, to kind of see where they are as they start to prepare for the next journey in their careers.”

The NCAA normally allows one overseas trip every four years and that allows a program to get an extra 10 days of practice, plus the chance to play top European clubs that have veteran pros.

Howard used 11 different players in the starting lineup this season. Moore was the only player to start all 29 games and no other player had more than 23 starts for the Explorers.

The starters for the opener against Sacred Heart were Josh Nickelberry, Clark, Moore, Brickus and Ray.

La Salle used a starting lineup of Moore, Clark, Brickus, Gill and Mamadou Doucoure in the first conference contest.

The starters on Thursday were Moore, Jack Clark, Christian Ray, Jhamir Brickus and Anwar Gill, who grew up in Washington and went to Catholic powerhouse Gonzaga College HS.

Brickus had 11 points, Ray had nine boards, and reserve Khalil Brantley had 11 points and three assists. Clark missed eight of nine shots.

But the Explorers hit just 31.5 percent of their shots and lost the battle of the boards 48-33 while Moore missed nine of 10 shots.

“If shots aren’t going, to stick to our defense,” Moore said. “I think that really second-chance points was really the thing that hurt us today.”

“They tagged us every single time a shot went up,” Ray said of Saint Louis. “It was hard for us to get second-chance points that we usually got.”

Saint Louis (22-10) was paced by Francis Okoro with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Gibson Jimerson added 19 points for the Billikens and Fred Thatch, Jr. had 10 points and 11 rebounds. The Billikens will face defending champ St. Bonaventure on Friday.

Brickus made his first three shots while the rest of the team was 1-of-19 at that point.

A 3-pointer by Thatch built the margin to 26-13 and Saint Louis led 34-16 at halftime.

“Unbelievably talented,” Howard said of Brickus. “He’s a Philadelphia high school – a Pennsylvania high school legend, right? But I think that he has so much more potential that’s untapped. I think it’s going to be a very significant off-season for him, even though he shows flashes throughout the course of the year. He’s the leader of our team. We’re looking forward to seeing his development throughout the course of the off-season.”

La Salle ended the year 11-19 and is 45-71 under Howard in four seasons.

He has been part of just one winning season in eight years as an assistant and head coach with the program – that winning campaign was a record of 18-10 in 2005-06.

But the team will try to build on four wins in five games to end the year.

“I think that it obviously builds momentum, and we believe in momentum,” Ray said.

Editor’s note: David Driver has covered college basketball in the Washington area for 30 years and can be reached at www.daytondavid.com and @DaytonVaDriver. His book “Hoop Dreams In Europe: Americans Building Basketball Careers Overseas” was published this week and is available on Amazon.