City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Jackie Hartzell has had plenty of success in her coaching career. At USciences, she was the Division II National Coach of the Year in 2018 and made five NCAA Tournaments; at Arcadia, she instantly turned the Knights into a contender, setting the program record for wins in her second year. 

In 11 years as a college coach, she’s won 74.2% of her games (239-83). That’s why she’s earned her first Division I job, as she was named Rider University’s head women’s basketball coach on Thursday afternoon. 

Now keep this in mind: despite all that winning, this will be Hartzell’s first time as a full-time basketball coach. For the last 20 years, the Delaware Valley University grad has worked for the Defense Logistics Agency, basketball her nights-and-weekends gig. 

“It’s going to be weird to just coach,” she admitted. “But I’m, obviously, really excited about that.”

It’s certainly been a whirlwind few days for Hartzell, who got the call on Tuesday from Rider AD Don Harnum that he wanted to meet with her on-campus as he was nearing a decision. Knowing what that likely meant, Hartzell said her drive over was “a little emotional,” and her instincts were correct as Harnum offered her the job that afternoon.

Accepting was a no-brainer. In addition to being in basketball full-time, Hartzell lives in Newtown, less than a 20-minute drive from Rider’s campus. 

There’s no doubt Hartzell earned an opportunity at the D-I level. 

She ran a powerhouse at USciences, the Devils winning more than 76% of their games in her tenure, with three CACC championships and a run to the Sweet 16 in 2018. It’s a run that surely would have continued if it weren’t for Sciences closing and merging with Saint Joseph’s; in the program’s final season, it went 24-5 (15-3 CACC), winning the league title and an NCAA first-round game. 

Arcadia immediately snapped Hartzell up to turn around a program that was 7-17 the year before and hadn’t been over .500 in a full season since 1997-98. They went 15-12 her first year and then 22-5 the second, followed by a 17-9 campaign this past season. 

That ability to turn around a program should pay off at Rider. The Broncs are 44-103 (.299) over the last five seasons, including a seven-win campaign in 2024-25, the last of Lynn Milligan’s 18 years in Lawrenceville (N.J.).

Hartzell’s certainly got to jump in with both feet. The transfer portal is wide open; she said several members of last year’s team are in the portal, and putting together her 2025-26 roster is an instant top priority.

“I did meet with the team today but I need to meet with players individually and get a better feel for who is still thinking about staying, who’s definitely leaving,” she said during a Thursday night phone call. “Trying to figure out how many we have on the roster and how many we need to get to fill a roster, so that’s probably Step One along with filling my coaching staff.”

One member of her staff is a no-brainer. Hartzell and Jim Ricci have shared a bench for 14 years — two when Hartzell was his assistant at Archbishop Wood, eight years when Ricci was her top assistant at USciences, and the last two when he joined her back at Arcadia. Outside of one year as a volunteer assistant at Penn, this will also be Ricci’s first full-time job in basketball. 

The rest will be sorted out soon.

“I’ve had quite a few people reach out, so I’m going to meet with some people next week, and we’ll meet with the current assistants as well,” Hartzell said. “I have a lot of people in mind and people who have reached out, but I just want to make sure that we hire the people who are the best fit.”

Hartzell and her staff, despite their part-time status, had been known as active recruiters out in the Philadelphia area, often at various events and showcases and landing a number of quality local prospects at both USciences and Arcadia. 

While she can’t discuss specific players, Hartzell said there’s no doubt they’re going to have to rapidly adjust their recruiting targets before the first live recruiting period just two weeks away. The individuals on that list might change, but Hartzell knows what she’s looking for — it’s worked so far, after all.

“I think it’s a couple things,” she said. It’s finding players that fit our style of play and the way that we want to play, but I also think even more important is finding players who want to win and are going to put winning first. We’ll definitely be looking at that, and also good kids. 

“When I told the Arcadia team this morning that I was leaving, when I was actually able to speak, I said to them that I said we were so lucky at USciences to have the greatest kids, and Jim and I would talk about that all the time, that we’d have such great kids, and we’d never get that anywhere else. And then we got to Arcadia and we’re like ‘oh my god, we have such great kids here, too.’

“I can only hope that we can get such great kids at Rider, also, because that’s part of what makes it so enjoyable.”