City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)

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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2023-24 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 6. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season click here.)

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Molly Masciantonio’s easy decision was a difficult one.

La Salle’s starting point guard for the last two years, the Archbishop Carroll product had the option to come back for a sixth year of college basketball, having one extra season from the COVID year and one from the year she had to sit out (2019-20) when she transferred from Holy Family to La Salle. 

Wanting to keep playing, that was the easy part.

“I love college basketball, I love the team, I love the coaches,” Masciantonio said. “Having that last year, of course I’m going to take it ... you only get college years once, and I’m lucky enough to have an extra year.”

But the Explorers had to replace almost their entire rotation from a year ago, had to start almost from scratch with Mountain MacGillivray and his staff hitting the transfer portal hard in the offseason. Who Masciantonio’s teammates would be, not to mention how good they would be, was mostly unknown. 

“She was like, should I even come back? Should I just get started and do what’s next?” MacGillivray said. “And obviously that decision was hers, but we just painted the picture, like, you have an opportunity to make this culture and environment exactly what you want because it’s going to be brand-new.

“He basically was like, ‘Trust me,’” Masciantonio said. “‘Trust in me that I will get girls around you and keep helping you and building you.’”

So Masciantonio stayed.

“I was a little skeptical when I found out a lot of girls were leaving, but I trusted the coaches and I knew that they had a goal and how they recruit people,” she said. “I trusted them.”

Fast-forward to the fall, and she’s by far the most experienced member of an Explorers roster with nine new faces, needing to get everybody on the same page to make the most out of her final season of college hoops. Gone are seven of the top eight scorers from last season, the entire rotation that played more than 10 minutes per game, except Masciantonio.

She’s not the only graduate student on the team — transfers Makayla Miller (Ouchita Baptist) and Jolene Armendariz (San Francisco State) both come in with plenty of Division II experience — but on a team with nine newcomers, seven underclassmen and five freshmen, her voice certainly carries more weight than anyone else’s. 

How little D-I experience does the rest of the 2023-24 La Salle women’s roster have? The number is a little staggering.

Masciantonio has played twice as many Division I minutes as the rest of the La Salle women’s roster — combined. Her 2,194 minutes are 2.2 times that of the combined minutes of juniors Julie Jekot (430) and Emilee Tehata (72), and sophomores FIona Connolly (272) and Emma Egan (223). 

“Definitely, I feel like the grandma on the team,” she said with a laugh. “The leadership role is a lot different from when I first got here.”

Masciantonio is the right kind of player to get everybody on the same page if you want to build a program from scratch. The nation’s leader in assist-to-turnover ratio a year ago (4.72:1), she was seventh in the Atlantic 10 in assists per game (4.5) and turned it over just 25 times all season.

Masciantonio has done what she can to get the team together off the court, hosting a team dinner at the apartment she shares with several of the other older members of the program, but MacGillivray noted her on-court style makes it easier, as well.

“She’s a pass-first point guard, so when that girl’s always giving you the ball, you feel good about her, too,” he said, laughing. “She really knows how to bring the group together.”

It doesn’t hurt, either, that Masciantonio took the path several of her new teammates took, making the D-II to D-I transition seamlessly after starting off her college career at Holy Family. MacGillivray noted he used both her success as well as that of Charity Shears, who made the same move as a grad transfer last year, as selling point to bring in the pair of transfers this spring.

Masciantonio said she hasn’t yet specifically talked about the move with Miller or Armendariz, but she said it’s clear the impact they want to have from their energy in practice. 

“The girls who are coming up from JUCO and Division II, you can see the fight in them because they’re grateful to be here,” she said. “You see a lot of Division I hoopers that have been (at that level) for years that get complacent and stuff. It’s really nice having them be grateful and fight every day to be here, and you can tell that in practice.”

There’s much to be explored about the Explorers this year, the on-court product very much a mystery other than Masciantonio is sure to play a big role in whatever happens. But while roles are still very much being determined, one thing is clear: Masciantonio’s going to be counted on not just to pass but to score. Coach and player know she needs to improve on her career marks of 28.8% mark from 3-point range and 6.9 ppg — perhaps not doubling it, but getting into double figures for the first time as a D-I ballplayer.

“I’m definitely going to be doing that more this year,” she said. “I know that to help the team win I have to score more and look for myself. I am a shooter at the end of the day, too. I just have to be confident with my shot.”