City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Darris Nichols has his work cut out for him, that’s for sure.

The new La Salle men’s head coach, formally introduced in a press conference Monday morning, jumps right in to lead a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2014-15, inheriting a roster that’s almost entirely in the transfer portal, in an era where it’s become harder and harder to win at any place that isn’t flooded with NIL money — which the Explorers, certainly, are not.

Working hard is something the 38-year-old former West Virginia University standout is used to, after an abrupt end to his playing career has led to a coaching career that’s seen him come up through the ranks as an assistant coach into what’s now his second head coaching job.

More importantly, in what’s become a new world of college basketball, he’s hoping he’s learned quickly what works and what doesn’t.

“I think you’ve got to be flexible,” he told CoBL by phone on Monday afternoon. “College athletics changed really, really fast over the last four years, and for you to survive you’ve just got to be flexible.”

In a city that’s tended to hire coaches from within its circles for Big 5 positions, Nichols is the rare outlier, without a tie to Philadelphia to his name. That’s quite a departure from his predecessor, Fran Dunphy, who’s more associated with Big 5 hoops than perhaps anybody in the city’s history, spending 33 years coaching at three different city institutions.

“If you’re a true relationship builder, it doesn’t matter,” Nichols said. “All the contacts I’ve made over the years, regardless of what city it is, it’s been authentic. Same thing with the guys in Philadelphia, I know enough of the guys and I have respect for them and they have respect for me too, to go into any gym in a city and know it’s authentic.”

Nichols comes to La Salle after spending four years as the head coach at Radford University, located in his hometown of Radford, Virginia. He was 68-63 (.519) in his time there, winning 20 games twice, finishing in second place in the Big South in 2022-23 with a 21-15 (12-6) record.

Over the span of his coaching career, he’s been an assistant at Northern Kentucky (2011-13), Wofford (2013-14), Louisiana Tech (2014-15) and Florida (2015-21), with whom he went to four NCAA Tournaments under head coach Michael White.

It helps that Nichols will still have Dunphy around after Dunphy retired following three years at his alma mater. A 1970 La Salle alum, Dunphy is serving as a special assistant to the school’s president, and Nichols said the two speak on the phone multiple times each week.

Nichols declined to talk about his staff, save for one piece: his brother, Shane Nichols, will also make the move from Radford and will be one of the Explorers’ assistants after serving in the same role as Radford.

“It’s the City of Brotherly Love, right?” Nichols cracked.

On Wednesday, the program announced the return of former assistant coach Safet Kastrat as an assistant coach and the team’s general manager.

As for the portal, which now dominates the college basketball landscape upon the conclusion of each season, Nichols and his staff have to move quickly. According to Verbal Commits, just about every member of the 2024-25 roster was in the portal, including Andres Marrero, Demetrius Lilley, Tunde Valhnberg Fasasi, Ryan Zan, and more. 

The most notable name was freshman Deuce Jones, who won the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year award, averaging 12.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg and 2.8 apg in 33 appearances (20 starts) as a freshman. 

“It’s a priority, but I’m real with it, I don’t think he’s coming back,” Nichols said. “I’ll be honest. But I think the thing is, in this day and age in the portal, it’s better to know who you really have than to lose somebody late in the game when guys have already made decisions in the portal. So we’ve been successful at Radford by identifying guys early and knowing who’s leaving early.”

Nichols couldn’t discuss them, but former Radford commit Ashton Walker from Catholic (Va.) switched his commitment over to La Salle; two other Radford players, senior guard Truth Harris and senior forward Josiah Harris, also committed to La Salle this week. Those are the only first in what’s sure to be quite a few more additions over the coming weeks, and it’ll be interesting to see if he can keep any of Dunphy’s former players around too. 

None of this is unexpected. Nichols is just doing what many low- and mid-major coaches will be doing almost annually these days, putting together a roster from scratch every spring and seeing how competitive they can be by the following fall. At schools that don’t have significant NIL investment — a number growing year over year as the gap widens between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ — portal transactions are a new way of life.

“I think with the portal, you never know,” Nichols said. “You can look at teams that are really good any year, and the next year they’re okay. There’s so much turnover, it’s hard to build consistency, but you’ve got to evaluate, and evaluate the right type of guys that can fit you.”

“Everybody’s doing the same thing right now, the portal opened up today and everybody’s making calls and trying to see who they can get,” he added. “College basketball, you have to sign bigger classes, we have to bring in a lot of guys. That’s number one — I’m more focused on the portal than finding somewhere to live right now, so I’ll figure that out later.”