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CoBL's 2025-26 Big 5 Preseason Primer (Men)

09/22/2025, 11:45pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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(Ed. Note: This article is part of our 2025-26 season coverage, which will run for the six weeks preceding the first official games of the year on Nov. 4. To access all of our high school and college preview content for this season, click here.)

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The countdown to the 2025-26 Division I basketball season is officially on.

Tuesday, September 23 marks the six-week mark until the start of the college basketball season, and has become our annual time to officially kick off our preseason coverage. We used to do that with a Big 5 all-preseason team, but due to the transfer portal era and constantly-changing landscape, we instead use this as a time to give an overview of where all six of the city’s Division I teams stand as the preseason grind begins.

It’s been an offseason of change in the Big 5. Four of the city’s six men’s Division I programs are under new leadership, two hiring coaches without any prior ties to Philadelphia and one bringing about a coach whose local ties were interrupted by a 30-year career spent elsewhere; on top of that, St. Joe’s underwent a surprise coaching change midway through September, the Hawks still feeling the reverberations of that decision even as practices begin in earnest. And the rosters are vastly different: Drexel and Penn’s groups stayed together, but graduation and the transfer portal forced La Salle, Temple and Villanova to completely rebuild while St. Joe’s lost a big-time trio.

Without a clear best team in the city entering the year and the entire Big 5 in need of a big-time spark, it’s going to be interesting to see if any group in the city finds something special and starts stringing together wins.

Here’s a look at each of the six:

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Drexel Dragons

Coach: Zach Spiker, 10th season (131-145, .475)
Last Year: 18-15 (9-9 Coastal Athletic)

Graduated
N/A

Transferred Out
Yame Butler (Butler), Jason Drake (Indiana), Cole Hargrove (Providence), Kobe Magee (Florida State)

New Additions
Eli Beard (Sr. | G | Mary Hardin-Baylor College), Martin de LaPorterie (Jr. | F | Yavapai CC), Moses Hipps (R-Fr. | SG | Boise State), Dillon Tingler (Soph. | SG | Eastern Michigan)

Garfield Turner is one of many returning players for Drexel. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Skinny

It’s been a decade of the Spiker era at 34th and Market, which has produced winning records in each of the last five seasons — both overall and in CAA play — after four losing ones to start his tenure. The Dragons are certainly feeling the effects of the new transfer portal era of college hoops, losing their top four players from last year in terms of both points and minutes in Butler, Drake, Hargrove and Magee, whose respective destinations show the reality of where high-major schools are recruiting from these days.

The good news for Spiker and his staff is that they do have a good bit of roster continuity beyond that, with four players — Blakeney, Panov, Vanderhorst and Garcia Adsten — who averaged double-digit minutes while playing at least 22 games last year. On top of that are a host of youngsters who’ve yet to make major contributions but have flashed real potential, led by local products Simmons Jr. (La Salle College HS) and Reed (Archbishop Wood).

All four of Spiker’s newcomers also came by way of the transfer portal this offseason, including the 7-foot-1 French big man de LaPorterie and a familiar name in Hipps, who played a couple years at Archbishop Carroll before his family moved to Georgia ahead of his junior year of high school. Once again, there’s a good bit of length and size on the roster, but it’ll be a matter of how this group develops over the course of the season.

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La Salle Explorers

Coach: Darris Nichols, 1st season (0-0, .---)
Last Year: 14-19 (5-13 Atlantic 10)

Graduated/Turned Pro
Mac Etienne, Milos Kovacevic, Corey McKeithan, Daeshon Shepherd, Jahlil White

Transferred Out
Deuce Jones II (Saint Joseph’s), Demetrius Lilley (Binghamton), Andres Marrero (Merrimack), Lucas Mercandino (unknown), Jorge Sanchez-Ramos (unknown), Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi (William & Mary), Ryan Zan (Fairfield)

Stayed
Eric Acker (Jr. | G)

New Additions
Justin Archer (Gr. | F | Georgia State), Bowyn Beatty (Jr. | C | Sacramento State), Jerome Brewer Jr. (R-Jr. | SF | McNeese State), Noah Collier (Gr. | SF | William & Mary), Edwin Daniel (Jr. | F | Connors State), Rob Docker (R-Soph. | G | Texas A&M), Josue Grullon (Sr. | G | UT Martin), Josiah Harris (Gr. | F | Radford), Truth Harris (Gr. | G | Radford), Nas Hart (Fr. | SF | College Achieve, N.J.), Jaden Johnson (Soph. | G | Old Dominion), Jaeden Marshall (Gr. | SG | Niagara), Damon Strand (Sr. | G | Albany), Ashton Walker (Fr. | G | Catholic HS, Va.)

The Skinny

La Salle went from a Big 5 legend in Fran Dunphy, who finally called it a career — for real this time — after three seasons at his alma mater, the final of 33 years and more than 1,000 games on the bench leading Penn, Temple and La Salle. Nichols, a 39-year-old from Radford (Va.) and West Virginia alum, has spent the last four years as head coach at Radford after assistant stops at WVU, Northern Kentucky, Wofford, Louisiana Tech, and then six years at Florida before taking the Radford job.

Nichols and his staff, which includes younger brother Shane Nichols and Philly native Colin Curtin, brought in an almost entirely-new roster save for Acker, who averaged 5.2 ppg in 18 appearances last year after sitting out the fall semester. They do have quite a bit of D-I experience on the roster: Collier, a Westtown grad, brings 92 games (49 starts) under his belt after averaging 12.2 ppg and 5.0 rpg last season; the Harris brothers both started for Nichols last season at Radford; Brewer, a Camden (N.J.) grad, averaged 13.8 ppg and 4.7 rpg for Texas A&M-Commerce two seasons ago.

It’s a roster that’s come together from all over the country, with a staff that’s going to have to learn a new league in a new environment. The good news is that expectations are low; the bad news is that La Salle has to basically start from zero in a landscape where increasingly the “haves” are pulling away from the “have-nots.” There’s really no way to know what these Explorers are going to look like until they finally take the court in November against a real opponent, and it’ll take a good deal longer than that to figure if this new regime will be a successful one.

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Penn Quakers

Coach: Fran McCaffery, 1st season (0-0, .---)
Last Year: 8-19 (4-10 Ivy League)

Graduated/Turned Pro
George Smith, Nick Spinoso

Transferred Out
Sam Brown (Davidson)

New Additions
Ryan Altman (Fr. | SF | Rivers School, Mass.), Jay Jones (Fr. | G | Cushing Academy, Mass.), Payton Kamin (Fr. | F | Worcester Academy, Mass.), William Kruse (Fr. | F | Norway), Lucas Lueth (Soph. | F | Kirkwood CC), T.J. Power (Jr. | F | Virginia), Dalton Scantlebury (Fr. | C | Lane Tech, Ill.)

Senior wing Ethan Roberts returns for Penn. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Skinny

The days of Penn as a men’s basketball powerhouse are nearly two decades in the past, but the Quakers’ front office has brought in one of its own to try and get the program back on track. McCaffery, an ‘82 Penn grad, has taken four different programs to the NCAA Tournament in Lehigh, UNC-Greensboro, Siena and Iowa, getting the Hawkeyes there seven times during a 15-year run that ended this spring.

Due to the nature of the Ivy League, McCaffery won’t be able to run around the roster as quickly as most coaches are able to these days, but he’s already managed to bring in some talent. Power, a 6-9 forward and former four-star recruit, could be a big-time player in the Ivy League, and they return last year’s leading scorer in Roberts (16.8 ppg, 5.6 rpg), though there’s no doubt the loss of Brown (13.9 ppg) will hurt.

It’s been a slow, steady decline for the Quakers since a 24-win season in 2017-18 that ended with an Ivy League championship, with the program only winning eight games last year in the final of nine seasons under Steve Donahue. It’ll be interesting to see what McCaffery is able to do with this first group, which only has a couple established Division I standouts but has a fair bit of potential due to positional versatility and some intriguing newcomers.

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Saint Joseph’s Hawks

Coach: Steve Donahue, 1st season (0-0, .---)
Last Year: 22-13 (11-7 Atlantic 10)

Graduated/Turned Pro
Rasheer Fleming, Erik Reynolds II

Transferred Out
Xzayvier Brown (Oklahoma), Shawn Simmons II (UMass-Lowell)

New Additions
Al Amadou (R-Soph. | F | Marquette), Jaiden Glover-Toscano (Soph. | G | St. John’s), Deuce Jones II (Soph. | G | La Salle), Jaden Smith (Soph. | C | Fordham), Owen Verna (Fr. | SG | Mater Dei, Cali.), Austin Williford (Fr. | G | St. Anne’s-Belfield, Va.)

Derek Simpson is the top returning scorer for St. Joe's. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

The Skinny

St. Joe’s already had a lot to replace in the program’s all-time leading scorer in Reynolds II, one of the best underclassmen around in Brown and a rapidly improving big man in Fleming, who got picked in the NBA draft with a year of eligibility remaining. Then Lange left suddenly in mid-September, taking a job on the Knicks’ staff, and though the roster he recruited is sticking around, that creates an even bigger question mark on Hawk Hill. Donahue, Penn’s former coach, at least has a couple decades of head coaching experience, but this is still a new situation for him.

Their leading returning scorer this year is Simpson (8.7 ppg), the Rutgers transfer who started 22 of the 35 games a year ago, with Finkley (7.1 ppg, .396 3PT%) and Haskins (5.7 ppg, 3.3 rpg) behind him. It’ll be interesting to see what they get out of Solano, a 7-footer who flashed some real potential in six early-season appearances before sitting out most of the year for undisclosed personal reasons.

What will be most interesting to track with this team is who takes over as the program’s lead guard and go-to scorer. Perhaps the most likely candidate is Deuce Jones II, the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year last season at La Salle, who averaged 12.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg and 2.8 apg; Glover-Toscano, a Patrick School (N.J.) product, could also bring some excitement to the backcourt, and Amadou (SCH Academy) returns back home a more polished product and playmaking forward. Donahue has pieces he never had to work with at Penn, but what he can do with them remains to be seen.

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Temple Owls

Coach: Adam Fisher, 3rd season (33-35, .485)
Last Year: 17-15 (9-9 American Athletic)

Graduated/Turned Pro
Shane Dezonie, Lynn Greer III, Jamal Mashburn Jr., Matteo Picarelli, Steve Settle III

Transferred Out
Dillon Battie (Wichita State), Quante Berry (Memphis), Jameel Brown (Delaware), Elijah Gray (Wisconsin), Holden Pierre-Louis (Cleveland State), Zion Stanford (Villanova)

Stayed
Babatunde Durodola (Soph. | F), Mohamed Keita (Sr. | C), Aiden Tobiason (Soph. | SG)

New Additions
Ayuba Bryant (Fr. | F | Belgium), Olin Chamberlain Jr. (Fr. | G | St. Joe’s Prep), Jamai Felt (R-Soph. | F | Bowling Green), Derrian Ford (Sr. | G | Arkansas State), Masiah Gilyard (Sr. | G | Manhattan), Gavin Griffiths (Jr. | G | Nebraska), C.J. Hines (Sr. | Alabama State), Spencer Mahoney (R-Soph. | F | California), Jordan Mason (Sr. | G | Illinois-Chicago), AJ Smith (Sr. | G | Charleston), Cam Wallace (Fr. | G | Westtown School)

The Skinny

Point to whatever factors you want — lack of NIL fundraising, a mediocre conference with zero geographic rivals, a too-large arena and apathetic fanbase, etc. — but Temple’s been stuck in a rut, and this offseason doesn’t inspire much faith that too much is going to change at North Broad. The Owls only improved their win total by one from the year before, then saw basically the entire rotation either turn pro or hit the transfer portal.

That left Fisher and his staff to rebuild the roster almost from scratch, and they brought in a pretty good bit of veteran experience to go along with what they’re hoping are some quality young pieces. Tobiason, a late-blooming prospect out of St. Elizabeth (Del.), could be a potential breakout candidate after averaging 8.2 ppg and hitting 46.2% of his 3-pointers over the final 10 games of his sophomore year, while the 6-4 Wallace developed into one of the area’s top 2025 prospects during his time at Great Valley and Westtown.

What Fisher and his staff brought in are a good group of experienced guards, from Smith (11.3 ppg) to Mason (9.6 ppg, 3.3 apg), Hines (14.1 ppg, 2.4 apg), Gilyard (11.2 ppg, 7.3 rpg) and Ford (8.0 ppg, 3.4 rpg). But there’s no established post presence on the roster; nobody taller than 6-5 on the roster has averaged more than 6.0 ppg in any season as a Division I basketball player, with the 6-9 Felt (5.7 ppg, 6.3 rpg) and 6-8 Durodola (4.7 ppg, 4.2 rpg) the most productive pair a year ago.

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Villanova Wildcats

Coach: Kevin Willard, 1st season (0-0, .---)
Last Year: 21-15 (11-9 Big East)

Graduated/Turned Pro
Enoch Boakye, Jhamir Brickus, Eric Dixon, Jordan Longino, Wooga Poplar

Transferred Out
Nnanna Njoku (Delaware), Jordann Dumont (Virginia Commonwealth), Aleksandar Gavalyugov (Santa Clara), Josiah Moseley (Texas Tech), Kris Parker (Central Florida)

Stayed
Matthew Hodge (R-Fr. | F), Tyler Perkins (Jr. | G)

New Additions
Devin Askew (Gr. | G | Long Beach State), Duke Brennan (Sr. | F | Grand Canyon), Malcolm Flaggs (R-Soph. | G | Grand Canyon), Tafara Gapare (Sr. | F | Maryland), Chris Jeffrey (Fr. | G | Mt. Zion Prep, Md.), Acaden Lewis (Fr. | G | Sidwell Friends, Md.), Bryce Lindsay (R-Soph. | G | James Madison), Nico Onyekwere (Fr. | C | Long Island Lutheran, N.Y.), Malachi Palmer (Soph. | G | Maryland), Braden Pierce (R-Soph. | C | Maryland), Zion Stanford (Jr. | SF | Temple)

The Skinny

Williard comes to Villanova following stints at Iona (2007-10), Seton Hall (2010-22) and Maryland (2022-25), having taken the Pirates and Terrapins to seven of the last nine NCAA tournaments, a number that certainly would have been eight out of 10 if not for the COVID-cancelled 2020 March Madness. So there’s no doubt that the expectations around Villanova will be that he’ll get them back there — and quickly — after three straight misses under former head coach Kyle Neptune.

The ‘Cats were always going to have a new look this year due to graduation, with the team’s four leading scorers and all five of its full-time starters out of eligibility; that group was led by Dixon, Villanova’s all-time leader in scoring (2,314 points) and games played (162), the former Abington standout leading the nation in scoring (23.3 ppg) a year ago. Of the two players who otherwise stayed, Perkins averaged 6.3 ppg as the team’s sixth man and Hodge sat out the year due to overseas eligibility issues; he’s fully cleared for this year.

Willard’s first roster includes plenty of talent assembled from all over, including a familiar face in Stanford, who isn’t the only player on the roster who averaged double figures at his previous stop; Askew (18.9 ppg) is coming off a big year at LBSU, the 6-10 Brennan averaged 10.4 ppg and 9.2 rpg at GCU, and Lindsay is a former Texas A&M recruit who averaged 13.4 ppg and 2.8 rpg at James Madison a year ago. Will they be in the top 25? Go .500? We’ll just have to wait and see.