City of Basketball Love

By David Comer (@dhcomer-cobl)
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COLLEGEVILLE — Bobbi Morgan was sitting on the beach in September of 2021 when Ursinus College called and asked if she was interested in coaching the women’s basketball team.

“I said, ‘No. I’m not interested,’” Morgan recalled. “But, long story, it worked out.”

Morgan, whose daughter Reilly was an Ursinus student and standout lacrosse player at the time, knew she wouldn’t have much time to prepare for the upcoming season with the first game less than two months away. One of the first people she talked to was former coach, Margaret White, to ask about the players she was inheriting.

White told Morgan about the roster and mentioned an unknown player who she did not recruit.

“‘Well, there’s this girl that contacted me - and I don’t know much about her - but she looked good on film, but she was not recruited,’” Morgan remembered being told at the time.

That player was Chinwe Irondi. And on Wednesday night at Helfferich Hall on the Ursinus campus, the 6-foot senior forward continued her storied career with the Bears, as she scored 21 points to help lead Ursinus to an 80-52 victory over Haverford College in the Centennial Conference opener for both teams.

With those 21 points, Irondi passed Trina Derstine to move into fourth place on the Bears’ all-time scoring list with 1,470 points. Irondi is within reach of surpassing all-time leading scorer Ellen Cosgrove’s 1,878 points. Irondi is also sixth all-time in school history with 836 rebounds. She has been a first-team all-Centennial Conference pick each of her first three years and is on her way to becoming the first player in program history to receive that honor four times.

Not bad for a player who was not recruited to play for the Bears.

“I wasn’t recruited; I just came here,” said Irondi, who is from Waldorf, Md., a town of about 81,000 located approximately 25 miles from Washington, D.C., and who emailed the former coach after arriving on campus to introduce herself. “I loved Ursinus. I came here strictly for the academics, and then I asked if I could play on the team and come and try out and practice and things like that.”

Irondi did more than just play on the team her freshman year. She starred on it. She averaged 15.2 points and 9.9 rebounds per game, won the Centennial Conference Rookie of the Year and earned first-team all-league honors.

“I always joke with her that we both sort of showed up here unexpectedly,” Morgan said. “We really did.”

The Bears, picked fourth in the Centennial Conference preseason poll, improved to 7-2 overall and 1-0 in league play with a dominating performance on both ends of the court Wednesday night. Offensively, Ursinus used its passing, cutting and unselfishness to finish with 25 assists on 32 field goals. The Bears also shot 54.0% from the field, including 64.3% (9-of-14) from deep, and put on a clinic turning backdoor cuts and bounce passes into layups.

Irondi shot 10-of-13 from the field to finish with 21 points in just 21 minutes; she did not play in the fourth quarter. She was impressive running the floor, often beating the other team down the court, and was effective in the post with her quick release and ability to finish with either her left or right hand.

“Chinwe is an incredible leader,” Morgan said. “She just has a quiet presence and poise.  She walks into a room and commands your respect. She’s an incredible athlete. She’s got a motor. She can jump out of the building. She’s just really grown as a player.”

And the Bears have grown as a team since Morgan arrived after a successful 13-year stint at Haverford, where her teams won three Centennial Conference championships, played in four NCAA tournaments and made a pair of NCAA regional finals appearances. She left the Fords as the winningest coach in program history with 195 career victories.

Morgan, now in her fourth season at Ursinus, has watched her team improve each year. They went 5-20 that first season.

“We had no real experience,” Morgan said. “It was rough. But the kids were great. They’ve worked hard every year. … That’s the best part when you start at a new program. You start at whatever baseline you have,, and we’re going to try to get better every year and every game.  These guys have been great.  They work hard.  We have fun.”

Ursinus improved to 9-16 in her second season and 15-12 last year when the Bears reached the semifinals of the Centennial Conference tournament where they lost to 12th-ranked Johns Hopkins. This season, Ursinus is off to its best start in Morgan’s tenure at the school.

“I think we’ve been working hard,” Irondi said. “We spent a long time in the preseason working on the little details, so I think finally seeing it all come together is something we really wanted.  And games like this are a good reflection of how hard we worked.”

The Bears built a 43-25 halftime lead against the Fords (3-4, 0-1) that grew to as much as 70-35 in the fourth quarter as 14 different players got in the game for Ursinus. Audrey Jakway had 17 points and Caroline Orza added 14 to lead Haverford.

“Let’s face it,” Morgan said. “Things went our way. We made some shots. We made some great passes. We’re really lucky. We have great chemistry.”

The Bears received significant contributions from several players. Colleen Blackman, a sophomore guard from New Fairfield, Conn., scored 14 points and shot 4-of-5 from long range. Madison Smith, a junior forward from Friends Central, added 10 points. 

But it was Ava Possenti, a junior guard from Garnet Valley, who had perhaps the biggest impact on the game, as she finished with a career-high 21 points and five steals.

“She’s by far the best defender I’ve ever coached in my entire career,” Morgan said. “I’ve never seen anyone like her. She’s a freak of nature. She gets steals. She does not foul. She’s phenomenal. And offensively, she just had a great game. She’s a really instinctive player.”

Morgan has enjoyed seeing her team grow each year and Irondi turn into a potential Centennial Conference player of the year.

“She’s had a phenomenal career,” Morgan said. “I feel like you end up somewhere for a reason.  She came here for good academics, and she wanted to play basketball.  Basketball is something she does; it is not who she is.  This is a place where she can have that balance. We’ve had a blast.”

Looking ahead, Irondi, an economics and finance major, plans to attend grad school and seek a career in developmental economics — which is defined online as a branch of economics whose goal is to better the fiscal, economic, and social conditions of developing countries. But first, Irondi has her senior season to finish. She is averaging a career-best 19.7 points per game along with 9.0 rebounds. She doesn’t think about the possibility of becoming the program’s all-time leading scorer; she just wants to help her team.

She arrived on campus as an unknown basketball player and will leave as one of the best to ever play for Ursinus - not bad for someone who said she just wanted to try to play for the team “if they would have me.”

“I think in all aspects of my life I just try to do the best I can - put my head down and work as hard as I can, so I really didn’t have expectations,” Irondi said. “I’m just kind of grateful for whatever I can do, so I wasn’t really expecting anything. I just hoped my hard work would pay off, and it did.”