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’s time for some hoops.

The 2024-25 college basketball season tips off today — Mon., Nov. 4. It’s the beginning of a five-month-and-change season which will see 350 upcoming seasons full of promise and hope intercepted by reality. Some programs will find success, others will fall short of their goals. In the Big 5, at least a couple programs will be disappointed with anything less than a March Madness appearance; for others, a season over .500 would be a positive finish.

Here are the biggest questions I have about the city’s Division I squads this upcoming season:

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How far can Saint Joseph’s go?

There’s a clear, bona fide No. 1 on any imaginary Big 5 preseason rankings. St. Joe’s women won 28 games last year and return four starters, with expectations as high as they’ve ever been for Cindy Griffin’s program. Talya Brugler has a chance to put her stamp down as perhaps the best woman to ever put on a Hawks uniform, and the senior forward has plenty of help from classmates Mackenzie Smith and Julia Nystrom plus junior forward Laura Ziegler. 

Barring something shocking, a 20-win season should be the floor for the Hawks, who were picked to finish second in the Atlantic 10 in the league’s preseason poll, just behind Richmond. The league’s good enough to send a couple teams to the NCAA Tournament but that would require St. Joe’s to find a way to beat some combination of Syracuse, Utah, and Villanova along with a strong showing against the rest of the non-con and league alike; even that 28-6 record last year wasn’t good enough for an at-large selection. 

The Hawks haven’t been dancing since 2014, but it’s the only thing missing from this senior class’s terrific resumes. Just how good this team will be depends on the growth from its sophomores, and if its role players step up in key moments. But a few postseason wins of some form are certainly possible. 

Who leads the way for Villanova? 

The last few years, the Wildcats have had literally one of the best scorers in the country leading the way in first Maddy Siegrist and then Lucy Olsen, the pair combining to lead Villanova to the most wins in program history (30) two years back, then Olsen taking over as the country’s third-leading scorer a year ago. With one season of eligibility remaining, Olsen hit the transfer portal and landed at Iowa, where she’s the main plug filling the hole left by Caitlin Clark. 

With Olsen — as well as several other Wildcats — hitting the road, Denise Dillon’s going to have to rely on a mostly-new group, including several impact transfers and a few deeper parts of the rotation a year ago. What’s not clear is if Villanova will end up with a leading scorer, or if it’s going to be a truly balanced effort led by the likes of fifth-year senior Maddie Burke, sophomore Maddie Webber, or perhaps grad transfer Bronaugh Power-Cassidy (Holy Cross), who’s been a major part of two straight NCAA Tournament squads. It’s almost certain that nobody on Villanova will approach the production of Siegrist or Olsen, but they need someone who can demand the ball late in the shot clock and get them a bucket. 

Which sophomore(s) make(s) the leap?

This could very well be the Year of the Sophomore, as literally every single one of the Big 5 women’s teams has a second-year player who could emerge as a major force after flashing some level of potential as a collegiate rookie.

Drexel has Rustin grad Laine McGurk, the Dragons’ top-scoring reserve a year ago (6.4 ppg) despite playing only 13 minutes per game. La Salle has Aryss Macktoon, who only played in four games a year ago, but one of them was a 17-point outburst against Coppin State as she averaged 10.8 ppg. Penn point guard Mataya Gayle was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year after putting up 14.3 ppg, 3.1 apg and 3.1 rpg. Gabby Casey should slide into a starting role for St. Joe’s after averaging 3.8 ppg and 2.5 rpg as a freshman out of Lansdale Catholic. Temple’s Tristen Taylor shot 41.4% from 3-point range, averaging 6.6 ppg and 2.3 apg in her debut season. And Maddie Webber averaged 7.7 ppg and 2.7 rpg, fourth on ‘Nova in scoring, while starting 11 of her 29 appearances. 

Those aren’t the only second-year local players whose careers should advance, but they’re the most notable of the group. It’s a 2027 class worth monitoring, as at least a couple of them could be bona fide stars by the years’ end, if not much sooner. 

WIll Penn be a factor in the Ivy League? 

In Mike McLaughlin’s first season at Penn (2009-10), the Quakers won just two games. Four years later, they won the first of three Ivy League titles in a four-year span, part of a run of seven straight 20-win seasons, all of which featured double-digit wins in the Ancient Eight. But with Princeton becoming a top-25 program and Columbia making a surge up the league under Megan Griffith, the Quakers have been in the middle of the pack the last three seasons, finishing 15-13 (7-7) a year ago, and were picked to finish fourth this year, just ahead of Brown.

Penn does have a big hole to fill in the graduation of Jordan Obi, the team’s second-leading scorer (14.8 ppg) and leading rebounder (7.7 rpg). But just about the entire rotation is back, including a stellar frontcourt piece in Stina Almqvist (15.3 ppg, 6.4 rpg) and Gayle, who could be one of the best guards in the Ivy League. What they need is for a reliable third scorer to step up, whether that’s senior Lizzy Groetsch or sophomores Ese Ogbevire or Abby Sharpe, both of whom got a fair bit of experience a year ago. It also could be one of the freshmen, like Plano (Tex.) guard Ashna Tambe, Atlanta (Ga.) wing Brooke Suttle, Camas (Wash.) wing Reagan Jamison or Manasquan (N.J.) forward Katie Collins.

What the heck will La Salle look like?

From last year to this one, Mountain MacGillivray has flipped over almost his entire roster, something that’s happened for the second year in a row. The Explorers’ head coach returns grad student Jolene Armendarz and sophomore Aryss Macktoon, both in their second years at La Salle — and nobody else. The other 11 women on the roster are all brand new; five are freshmen, one redshirt sophomore, six juniors and one other graduate transfer (Fairfield’s Mackenzie Daleba). 

One thing is known: MacGillivray will play the majority if not entirety of his roster early in the season, the seventh-year head coach going with hockey-style rotation swaps early and often in games as he tries to use depth and tempo to his group’s advantage. Eventually that might settle down somewhat if a clear top group emerges, but until they get at least a handful of games underway, that’s likely to be his system. Keep an eye out for Saint Louis transfer Ashleigh Connor and a couple local products, Perkiomen School’s Lauren Patnode and Cardinal O’Hara’s Joan Quinn, both freshmen.

Who becomes the city’s biggest surprise?

Of all six teams in the Big 5, only one — St. Joe’s — will ride into this season with a ton of confidence. The five others all have various reasons for optimism, but all have quite a few questions to answer and rotations to settle into first. 

That being said, one of those five is almost certain to open some eyes sooner than usual. It could be Villanova, whose four upperclassman/grad transfers bring an instant helping of experience and versatility all over the court. It could be Temple, which only needed two years under Diane Richardson to get to 20 wins and has a deep, athletic roster. Or perhaps Drexel, which has a bunch of pieces to replace from last year’s CAA champions, but also has key players back in place. 

The best part — we (finally) won’t have to wait much longer to find out.