City of Basketball Love

 By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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When Luke Bevilacqua arrives at Lafayette next year, he’ll have a head start with a couple of his teammates.

He’s already familiar with Mark Butler, who he played with two summers ago for Philly Pride’s 17U squad, the former Penn Charter point guard and current George School senior big man getting a chance to develop some on-court chemistry for an offseason. He goes back even further with fellow Leopards commit Shareef Jackson — all the way to sixth grade. 

That’s when the two teamed up together playing on Team Jacko, coached by Shareef’s father, former NBA big man Marc Jackson. Bevilacqua was already about 6-foot-4, Jackson a few inches shorter, the two developing into a punishing frontcourt duo on the middle school circuit.

“I knew me and Reef could always play well together just because of our high IQ in general, we always knew where we were going to be at on the court,” Bevilacqua said. “Seeing him flourish at Roman Catholic and through his high school career [...] it gets me really excited knowing that we’ll be able to step on a college floor together and hopefully bring our program some success.”

The connection with Jackson wasn’t a major reason Bevilacqua picked Lafayette, he said — “but, of course, playing with my boy would be a little persuading.”

A 6-foot-11 center from Vineland (N.J.), Bevilacqua became the latest member of Lafayette’s 2025 recruiting class when he announced his commitment at the end of last week. The George School senior, who missed most of his junior year due to injury, is a significant pickup for Leopards head coach Mike McGarvey, a high-major talent who could be a Patriot League Rookie of the Year type if healthy. 

“I feel like Coach McGarvey really believed in me,” Bevilacqua told CoBL by phone Monday. “He was one of the coaches that actually sat me down, was real with me, and I had genuine conversations and that was very important to me. He’s known [George School] coach Ben [Luber] for a little bit so that was also important to me, since I trust coach Ben wholeheartedly. (McGarvey) believing in me solidified things and it felt more real to me.”

As a sophomore at George School, where he transferred to from Neumann-Goretti, Bevilacqua started for the Cougars as they won the Friends’ Schools League championship in 2023, teaming up with Kachi Nzeh (Penn State) in an imposing frontcourt to get the program’s first title. 

Bevilacqua’s health is a reason he ended up being available for the Patriot League program after picking up offers from the likes of St. John’s, Penn State, Xavier, Iowa and more during the 2023 offseason. But during the fall of his junior year, back pain forced Bevilacqua to the sidelines, beginning a frustrating year.

“Originally it was a stress reaction,” he said. “It was my muscles overreacting to something and because it’s the lower back, it takes a lot of blood flow and things like that, so it just took a while, so that’s why I was out the majority of my junior year.”

Bevilacqua was able to return for some of the 2024 summer, playing with Team Durant in the 2024 Peach Jam and earning an invite to the NCAA Academy camp in South Carolina at the end of July. But further complications put him back on the bench during the fall, forced into more of a coaching role during a number of preseason shootouts in September and October. 

Those injury uncertainties caused a few of the schools which had been on Bevilacqua to drop off, though he said the likes of Harvard and Penn State stuck around, well aware of what he could bring to the court when healthy. McGarvey, who had been involved in Bevilacqua’s recruitment but never in the forefront due to all the high-majors, officially offered a scholarship on November 2, when Bevilacqua took his first trip up to Easton (Pa.).

“The campus kind of reminded me of a bigger George School, honestly,” he said. “It was beautiful in the Lehigh Valley.”

Jackson and Bevilacquare are two of four players currently committed to Lafayette for its coming 2025 class. McGarvey also received pledges from a pair of guards, Perkiomen School post-grad Beckett Currie (Camas, Wash.) and American Fork (Utah) shooting guard Ashton Wallace. 

They’ll be joining a group that’s 1-2 this season after beating Penn on Tuesday night, coming off an 11-21 (10-8 Patriot League) season in McGarvey’s first full year as head coach. The Leopards have only made one NCAA Tournament in the last 25 years, winning the Patriot League tournament in 2015 but running into Villanova in the first round of March Madness. 

Playing for an underdog was another factor that appealed to Bevilacqua.

“I think I always live with a chip on my shoulder,” he said. “I think even when I was blessed to be in that recruitment standpoint, I think I always had it, because I think I could always get better, I could always improve, and knowing that people are always going to have their opinions. 

“I live with that chip on my shoulder because I wasn’t ever growing up as the hype guy, the five-star recruit, this that and the third. I think knowing that, I was always kind of burdened with a chip on my shoulder. Of course, I think that always stays there. But the main focus is just to continue to get better every day.”

As for Bevilacqua’s back, he has yet to return to the court for his senior year — but he’s hopeful that he’ll get at least some of the season in.

“I’m working my way back,” he said. “I’m doing a lot better now and I’m back to workouts and things like that, so it’s just taking things slow and steady.”