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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It doesn’t take a fortune teller to figure out who the stars will be in the Big 5 this year. 

St. Joe’s Tayla Brugler and Laura Ziegler, Drexel’s Amaris Baker, Penn’s Stina Almqvist all should, barring injury, be some of the best players in the region, nearing the end of outstanding runs at their respective schools.

But the difference between being a competitive Division I team and a successful one often hinges upon the emergence of the third, fourth and fifth starters in the lineup, players who might not be considered “stars” but whose play is just as critical. Players like the now-graduated Chloe Welch (St. Joe’s), Brooke Mullin (Drexel), Bella Runyan (Villanova) and others.

After a busy offseason of transfers, it’ll take until the games get going for us to really see how the Big 5 rotations will shape up. But here are the Big 5 players on the women’s side whose potential breakthroughs would be most helpful to their teams: 

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Denae Carter (R-Jr. | Villanova)

Carter arrived back home in Philadelphia last year after two seasons at Mississippi State, the St. Basil grad gaining a good bit of high-major playing experience in two years in Starkville. The 6-0 post figured to back up and potentially play alongside Christina Dalce, the Wildcats’ second-year starter at center. Instead, Carter went down well before the season with a torn ACL, having to sit on the sidelines as her teammates made it to the NIT championship game. In the offseason, Dalce was one of a number of Villanova starters to depart via graduation or the transfer portal, electing to use her final year of eligibility at Maryland. 

That leaves Carter as the most experienced post on the roster. Freshman Rachel Wirts brings good size at 6-3, while 6-1 sophomore Brynn McCurry is more of a wing and 6-1 Vanderbilt transfer Ryanne Allen is a guard. In 47 career games at Mississippi State, Carter averaged 5.0 ppg and 6.1 rpg, her freshman year numbers (6.1 ppg, 8.1 rpg) technically stronger than her sophomore year, though her per-40-minutes stats were almost dead even. If her knee is ready for big action, she’ll certainly have the opportunity to play major minutes in the frontcourt. 

Gabby Casey (Soph. | Saint Joseph’s)

Casey’s inclusion was the easiest one on this list. St. Joe’s top four are obvious: Talya Brugler, Laura Ziegler, Mackenzie Smith and Julia Nystrom will start and play a lot of minutes, the quartet of upperclassmen all back from last year’s starting lineup. But what the Hawks don’t have back is Chloe Welch, who averaged 10.7 ppg and hit 33.9% of her 3-pointers in a grad transfer year from Davidson; Welch stayed with the program as a grad assistant. In her stead, Casey is most likely to step up and take her spot, and the Hawks need her to be ready.

Casey, the Catholic League MVP in her senior year at Lansdale Catholic, averaged 3.8 ppg and 2.5 rpg as a freshman, coming off the bench in all 34 games as a freshman. She hit 42.6% of her shots overall and was 19-of-49 (38.8%) from 3-point range, finishing sixth on the team in scoring and tops amongst all Hawks reserves. She finished in double figures four times, her high-water mark coming with a 16-point, three-assist effort on Nov. 14 against Penn. She won’t need to lead St. Joe’s in scoring or anything like that, but more regular double-digit efforts would be a big help to take pressure off Brugler, Ziegler et. al.

Ashleigh Connor (R-Soph. | La Salle)

Picking an Explorers player that fit the bill for this piece was the most difficult of all six, for multiple reasons. First, Mountain MacGillivray has only two holdovers from last year’s roster, with 13 newcomers joining the program as grad transfers, transfers from all sorts of collegiate levels, and a few true freshmen too. On top of that, MacGillivray’s system and style is to play anywhere from 10 to 12 in his rotation, and there’s no doubt he’ll give most if not all of his roster at least a chance to impress early in the year. So outside of returners Jolene Armendariz (6.2 ppg, 5.9 rpg) and Aryss Macktoon (10.8 ppg in four games before injury), it’s mostly a whole bunch of question marks as to who will be La Salle’s most productive players this season. 

Connor, a 5-11 guard from Western Pennsylvania, was a standout at Mount Lebanon, where she scored 1,776 points between 2018-22. A three time First Team All-State selection, she hit 164 3-pointers, leading her team to the 6A state championship game as a senior, and played her travel ball with the Western PA Bruins on the Under Armour circuit. She spent the last two years at Saint Louis, redshirting her first year and playing sparingly in 18 games as a redshirt freshman in her second, but she was a sought-after recruit with good size at the combo guard spot.

Deja Evans (Soph. | Drexel)

The Dragons return four of their top five scorers from a year ago, but the one thing they don’t have back is a ton of size. Last year, 6-0 wing Chloe Hodges (8.6 ppg, 5.1 rpg) was the team’s leading rebounder, 6-2 forward Hetta Saatman starting 34 games but averaging only 4.9 ppg and 2.3 rpg in 19.6 mpg. Instead, it was the guards leading the way on a balanced group, from Amaris Bakers (11.7 ppg) on down. To that end, the Dragons could really use what Evans brings to the table.

The 6-2 forward and Archbishop Wood grad started all 29 games as a freshman at Albany, averaging 8.1 ppg and 7.1 rpg along with 1.6 bpg. Her biggest knock was making fewer than 40% of her shots (38.8%), but if she can improve her efficiency around the rim, she could be a two-way weapon. Even if she’s not counted on to take as many shots, Evans’ rebounding and rim-protection abilities will be a new wrinkle for this year’s Dragons, who also add 6-2 junior transfer Molly Lavin (7.4 ppg, 5.0 rpg with American U in 2023-24) to the mix.

Ese Ogbevire (Soph. | Penn)

It’s no secret who Penn’s top two will be this year. Stina Almqvist averaged 15.3 ppg and 6.4 rpg in a breakout junior year, and the 6-1 wing/forward will be a major problem in the post for teams yet again. Sophomore point guard Mataya Gayle won Ivy League Rookie of the Year after averaging 14.3 ppg, 3.1 apg and 3.1 rpg, putting herself on track for one heck of a career in West Philly. And though six freshmen join the fray, the reality is that most of Penn’s rotation are back in the mix, only Jordan Obi (14.8 ppg, 7.7 rpg) gone from the top seven scorers. 

While Almqvist and Gayle will be the focal points, they need some help. Outside of those two and Obi, nobody averaged more than now-senior Lizzy Groetsch’s 5.4 ppg, with Ogbevire (4.7 ppg) and sophomore Abby Sharpe (3.1 ppg) right behind. 

Tristen Taylor (Soph. | Temple)

The Owls have six players on the roster who are in at least their fourth years of college basketball, including a couple program stalwarts in senior Tiarra East (13.3 ppg) and fifth-year  Tarriyonna ‘T-Mac’ Gary (9.0 ppg), plus Loyola Marymount transfer Amaya Oliver (9.4 ppg, 5.9 rpg) and Towson transfer Anissa Rivera (7.1 ppg, 4.7 rpg) in the frontcourt. Taylor doesn’t quite have as much seasoning as the veterans, but the Owls are counting on the Duncanville (Tex.) product to set the tone for the next three years following the graduation of Aleah Nelson. 

Like Nelson, Temple needs Taylor to be a table-setter and pressure-handler who can also get a bucket when needed, and the numbers bode well. As a true freshman, the 5-5 Taylor averaged 6.6 ppg and 2.3 apg, with an assist-to-turnover ratio better than two-to-one, coming off the bench in all 32 contests for a squad that went 20-12 (13-5 AAC). She hit an efficient 40.8% of her shots from the floor, including 24-of-58 (41.4%) from 3-point range, and connected on 83.7% from the line. She had flashes a year ago, including a 21-point, seven-rebounding outing against St. Joe’s.