City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Andrés Marrero has been around Fran Dunphy long enough, the La Salle redshirt junior knows when to listen to his coach — and when not to. 

Case in point: when asked about his relationship with his coach, Marrero was all set to answer, Dunphy chimed in.

“Don’t start,” the Big 5 Hall of Famer deadpanned. 

Marrero knew not to listen. 

“He’s more than a coach to me,” the Caracas, Venezuela native said. “He’s a mentor to me — now he’s my professor, because I take a class with him. But it’s been incredible. I think, I will say, I’m the player and the man that I am today because of the relationship that I have with Fran Dunphy.”

In Dunphy’s 33-year run as a Big 5 head coach, there have been certain players that Dunphy has had a tight bond with, who’ve been able to understand his style and mannerisms better than others, and who play a large role in ensuring the team plays up to his standards. Call them Dunphy Guys. 

It’s a critical role on any Fran Dunphy-coached team, and Marrero is next in line. 

“I’m 100% a Dunphy Guy,” he agreed. 

With Marrero playing his biggest role yet in four years at 20th and Olney, La Salle has looked strong in early returns this season, the Explorers hoping to prove they’re far better than a team that was picked to finish dead last in the Atlantic 10. He had 18 points on Saturday afternoon as La Salle stomped Lafayette 81-60, the final margin only that close because the Explorer walk-ons gave up a late Leopards run after the gap reached 32 points in the second half.

Leading four teammates in double figures, Marrero knocked down four 3-pointers on nine attempts, adding three rebounds, two assists and two steals to his stat total in just his eighth career start. 

That he’s even starting for La Salle (2-0) in the transfer portal era after going through a coaching change and a real wake-up call is a testament to just why he’s formed such a tight bond with a head coach more than three times his age.

A 6-5 guard out of Upper Room Christian (N.Y.), Marrero arrived in Philadelphia for the 2021-22 season, the last of Ashley Howard’s four years at 20th and Olney. Despite Howard’s removal as the program’s head coach the following summer, Marrero stuck it out when the Explorers hired Dunphy, who was four years removed from his 13-year run at Temple (2006-19).

Though Marrero had work to do to get to where Dunphy wanted him to be in order to see the court, the coach could tell Marrero was one of his type of guys “immediately,” he said. 

“Because I was hard on him early, saying ‘this is not going to work, the way it’s looking right now, you’ve got to work your butt off,’” Dunphy added. “And he took everything that I said and actually believed it. Which is a nice thing for a coach to have happen to him.”

While Dunphy recognized that facet of Marrero’s personality quickly, it took the player a little longer to feel like he’d earned Dunphy’s trust and respect.

“It took a while,” Marrero admitted. “I had to get better on defense, there’s a bunch of things that I had to do. But honestly, it’s been great. Since he got here, he taught me the things I had to work on, what he wanted from me, and I just went to work.”

As a redshirt freshman, Marrero played in 27 games with five starts, averaging 2.8 points in 10.6 minutes per contest. His minutes doubled a year ago, still in a reserve role, as he averaged 7.9 ppg and hit 39.4% (52-of-132) of his 3-pointers.

Now in his fourth year in North Philadelphia, Marrero has become one of La Salle’s unquestioned leaders, behind only senior Daeshon Shepherd in terms of games played in an Explorers uniform. He’s also taking Dunphy’s Thursday night course, Management Theory and Practice, a course Dunphy has taught at both Penn and Temple before bringing it to La Salle.

Dunphy said Marrero’s constantly raising his hand and getting involved in the classroom, and those lessons are paying off in the locker room. Multiple sources within the program have commented on Marrero’s leadership and his presence on the roster, serving as a sounding board between his teammates and the staff.

“I just feel like they can go to him and get an honest answer,” Dunphy said. “”Coach is fussing at me for this, what do you think?’ Well, he’s going to tell them, ‘listen to what he tells you, and everything will work out okay if you keep plugging away.’”

There’s certainly a parallel to be drawn a decade and a half back to Dunphy’s former stop, where he had a similar relationship with another standout South American guard of his: Juan Fernandez. 

In four years at Temple (2008-12), Fernandez started 91 games, coming off the bench in 23 appearances as a freshman but then making himself an invaluable member of the Owls as a sophomore, junior and senior. 

The 6-foot-4 guard from Argentina, a two-time all-Atlantic 10 selection and the 2010 A-10 Tournament MVP, was part of four straight NCAA Tournament teams, during a run of six straight March Madnesses the Owls made under Dunphy between from 2008-13.

Fernandez and Marrero are different types of players, for sure — Fernandez a smooth point guard, Marreo a strong-bodied off guard, though both are strong outside shooters. But it’s their mentality and approach to the game — and most importantly, their relationship with their coach — that makes them both Dunphy Guys.

“We always say to kids that we coached over the years, I’m not really going to be your best friend while you’re here, I’m going to be way too demanding on you, so that relationship will grow after you get out of here,” Dunphy said. “Except for guys like Juan and Andres.

“They are so mature, get every piece to that, they have no problem being fussed at, or being coached, which is a wonderful thing. The one factor that those two guys have, that maybe some of the others didn’t necessarily have [...] these guys came into college with this way about them that was just fun to be around.”

When it comes to leadership on this Explorers team, Marrero certainly isn’t on an island. Dunphy brought in a number of veterans with plenty of experience, including Jahlil White (Temple), Corey McKeithan (Rider) and Demetrius Lilley (Penn State). 

White had a 16-point, 13-rebound outing against Lafayette, McKeithan contributed 14 points and five assists while Shepherd had 14 of his own, including a couple high-flying slams. Lilley was strong on the glass with 13 rebounds of his own along with seven points. 

As a group, the Explorers racked up 17 assists on 27 buckets, played energetic defense and seemed to enjoy playing together, a critical factor in the transfer portal era, where chemistry is harder and harder to come by early in the year. 

“I think our chemistry is really good,” Marrero said. “We’re with each other every day, we just want to compete, we like each other, we like playing with each other. We have a good thing going on right now in the locker room, I think it’s good.”

Beating American and Lafayette handily to open the season is one thing, but the schedule takes a tougher turn through the rest of the month. The rest of the month includes games at home against Cornell (Nov. 12), a Big 5 game at Drexel (Nov. 16), a trio of games in Daytona Beach (Nov. 21-23) and then the second Big 5 game, at home against Temple (Nov. 30).

It won’t take long to figure out if the Explorers have just looked good in two games, or if this is a group that really can make noise in the A-10.