City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2024-25 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 4. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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New year, new digs, new La Salle. 

Other than the presence of the venerable Fran Dunphy on the sidelines, and a few holdovers from last year, it’s a fresh start in many ways at 20th and Olney.

Four starters are gone, representing more than 60% of the team’s scoring output on the season, including two All-Atlantic 10 guards in Khalil Brantley and Jhamir Brickus. But an influx of seasoned veterans, playing in some fresh digs, are determined to get La Salle back in contention in the A-10.

“We’re excited,” junior guard Andrés Marrero said. “It’s a completely new team. The last three years, I was so used to Khalil and Jig, so right now, both of them being gone, it’s an adjustment, for sure. But we’re excited, we love playing with each other, we love competing, we’re ready to go.”

Marrero, a 6-foot-3 Venezuelan guard, is in his fourth year at La Salle, staying through the coaching change from Ashley Howard to Dunphy after his redshirt year. The Explorers’ leading returning scorer (7.9 ppg), he came off the bench in all but one of his 26 appearances a year ago.

Brantley (15.0 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 4.1 apg) is off at Oklahoma State and Brickus (13.9 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 4.8 apg) is at Villanova, taking away two uber-talented if undersized guards who combined for more than 2,400 points in Explorers uniforms. Wing Anwar Gill (9.3 ppg) is spending his final season at Howard; junior center Rokas Jocius (8.5 ppg, 5.4 rpg) is at Central Florida. 

Only senior wing and Archbishop Wood grad Daeshon Shepherd (10.6 ppg, 5.6 rpg), who entered the transfer portal but ultimately decided to stay, returns as a full-time starter from a team that finished 16-17 overall, 6-12 in the Atlantic 10. Forward Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi (6.2 ppg, 3.2 rpg), a 6-8 Swedish wing, started 18 of 33 games; third-year sophomore forward Ryan Zan (3.1 ppg, 2.0 rpg) is the only other member of the rotation back.

To supplement, Dunphy and his staff brought in four impact transfers, all of whom are in at least their third year of college basketball. That includes some familiar names to local fans in former Temple wing Jahlil White, a 6-7 fifth-year wing forward from Wildwood Catholic (N.J.) who averaged 10.1 ppg and 5.5 rpg last season, and Demetrius Lilley, a 6-9 junior forward from Lower Merion who averaged 2.8 ppg and 2.7 rpg in 20 appearances at Penn State last year. 

Two others are new to the city. Grad student Corey McKeithan, a 5-10 guard from Windsor (Conn.), averaged 8.0 ppg, 3.8 rpg and 3.3 apg while hitting 35% of his 3s as a full-time starter at Rider last year. And 6-9 forward Mac Etienne brings another big, athletic body, having spent the last four years at UCLA (2020-23) and DePaul (2023-24), playing in 67 career games. 

It’s a group that came in already understanding the college basketball lifestyle; Marrero, Lilley and McKeithan all agreed that the upperclassmen gelled quickly, the newcomers not messing around when they arrived on campus in June.

“We’re all roommates — me, Andres, Jahlil and Corey, we live in a house together,” Lilley said. “It’s just great, it’s fun playing on the floor with those guys. Everything is just fun and business, can’t get any better than that.”

Marreo, meanwhile, got to help the newcomers get used to Dunphy. The 1970 La Salle alum is now in his third year as the Explorers’ head coach, his 33rd overall between his time at Penn and Temple, this fall marking 35 years since that first season at the Quakers’ helm. And while he might have softened somewhat over the years, he’s very much kept his standards and his wit.

“Fran is an unbelievable coach, we’re blessed to have him as our coach, and he’s old-style,” Marrero said. “I just say, don’t take things personally, he wants to get the best out of you all the time, and he’s going to demand the best out of you all the time. It’s not something that you can bring once a week, twice a week. He wants you to bring the same energy, 100 percent, all the time, on and off the court. 

“That’s basically what I say to them, and they have learned — and they love Fran, we all love Fran.”

With the versatile Lilley — who’s been a quality outside shooter and passer since his high school days — at the ‘5’ and without a clear star in the lineup, the Explorers are hoping to be more offensively versatile than they’ve been in a few years. Hopes are also high for freshman guard Deuce Jones, a Trenton (N.J.) native who comes from a basketball family.

“Deuce is a good player,” McKeithan said. “The only thing that’s stopping Deuce right now is him being younger and not experienced, but you know, it starts Monday, and all it takes is one game to be experienced.”

La Salle’s season opener on November 4 against American will also be the debut of the refurbished gymnasium on La Salle’s campus, formerly the Tom Gola Arena, now the John Glaser Arena. The former 3,400-seat gym, which only had seating on the sidelines and was one of the worst in the A-10, is now a more conventionally-oriented arena with seating on all four sides, thanks to a more than $12 million renovation of the space. 

The Explorers have spent the offseason practicing mostly across the river at PCOM as well as at the new Sixth Man Center, with one practice at Chestnut Hill College. They moved into Glaser Arena just a few weeks in advance of the season starting, the arena flip done in the course of one offseason.

“It’s looking awesome,” Marrero said. “It’s going to be a completely different atmosphere.”

The Explorers play their first four games in Philly, including a Big 5 contest at Drexel (Nov. 16), before heading down to Daytona Beach (Fl.) for three games in the Boardwalk Battle. The biggest date to circle on the non-league slate is Dec. 14 at North Carolina; Atlantic 10 play starts Dec. 31 at Dayton.

Nobody expects a Sweet 16 run like the one that came in 2013. But a new team means new possibilities, and going into the season a total wild card with no external expectations can have its benefits.

“There’s ups and downs in a season, so I’m waiting to see how we move when we get a game where we aren’t shooting the best, and how do we bounce back from that,” McKeithan said. “That’s going to be big for us, learning to bounce back from things.”

If these Explorers can learn to bounce back quickly, this season of new beginnings could be a surprising one, as well.