City of Basketball Love

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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Philly hoops are represented throughout the country on Division I programs from coast to coast.

Each year, well over 100 Philly-area ballplayers are spread around Division I rosters, from East Coast to West Coast, North to South, low-major to high-major and everywhere in between. Each fall, CoBL rounds up all of those local prospects to update you on how their careers are going and what’s expected of them in the year to come.

We’ve split the area’s D-I alumnae into a three-part list, with all the representation being too big to run at once. Here’s Part 1 of our 2025-26 CoBL alumnae roundup, featuring 20 players who are on scholarship on a Division I roster this season.

(If we’re missing someone, let us know: cityofbasketballlove@gmail.com)

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2025-26 Women's Alumniae Roundup: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 

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Haylie Adamski (Fr. | Lafayette)
The centerpiece of the Garnet Valley program the last four years, Adamski arrives in the Lehigh Valley having accomplished some pretty impressive things in a Jaguars uniform. GV’s all-time leading scorer (1,858 points), the 6-foot-tall Adamski averaged 17.7 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 2.5 apg and 2.8 spg as a senior as the Jaguars won the Central League championship and made it to both the District 1 6A championship game and PIAA 6A semifinals. 

Lainey Allen (Sr. | Maryland-Eastern Shore)
A four-year contributor for UMES, the former Plymouth Whitemarsh standout has been a valuable part of the Hawks’ rotation her whole year, serving as both a starter and a reserve over the course of her career. In 85 career games (46 starts), the 6-2 post has averaged 4.6 ppg and 4.4 rpg, including 4.1 ppg and 3.3 rpg as a junior. 

Ryanne Allen (Sr. | Villanova)
After two years at Vanderbilt, Allen came back to the Philadelphia area, the former Archbishop Wood standout reuniting with former Vikings teammate Kaitlyn Orihel on the Wildcats’ roster. Though she missed the first few games of the season due to injury, Allen ultimately played in 27 games for ‘Nova, averaging 4.8 ppg and 2.3 rpg in around 15 minutes per contest. Her season high was 17 points against Boston College in the opening round of the WBIT. 

Amaris Baker (Gr. | Drexel)
The focal point of Drexel’s offensive attack is back for a third and final season in a Dragon uniform. The 5-8 point guard and Cardinal O’Hara alum averaged 17.0 ppg last season, up six per game from her sophomore year; she has 990 points at the Division I level, though only 83 of those came in her freshman year at Kennesaw State (before one at Harcum College), so she’ll surpass both the career 1,000-point mark and the 1,000-points at Drexel marks fairly close to one another early in the season.

Kendall Bennett (Jr. | Binghamton)
Bennett has already played in 60 games in her first two years at Binghamton, playing 30 off the bench as a freshman and then making her first eight career starts in the same number of games as a sophomore. The 6-2 post from Germantown Academy averaged 6.3 ppg and 5.4 rpg while hitting 58.8% of her shots, collecting her first collegiate double-double with an 11-point, 16-rebound effort against NJIT in February.

Nal’la Bennett (Fr. | Stony Brook)
One of the top shooters in the Philadelphia area during her years at Friends’ Central, the 5-8 Bennett now heads up to Long Island to play at Stony Brook, one of the new-ish members of the Coastal Athletic Association. As a senior at FCS, Bennett averaged 14.6 ppg and 3.0 apg as the Phoenix made it to the FCS and PAISAA championship games, losing to national powerhouse Westtown in both. 

Kelsey Bess (Jr. | Canisius)
Bess missed most of her junior and senior years at Penn Charter due to knee injuries, so she went to Harcum College in an attempt to rejuvenate her career. And she did just that, averaging 11.3 ppg last year despite only playing about 21.6 mpg, earning NJCAA Division All-Region 19 honors and a handful of scholarships along the way. The 5-11 wing/forward picked Canisius, which last year went 10-21 (9-11 MAAC) but returns most of its rotation from a year ago.

Kaylinn Bethea (Fr. | Saint Joseph’s)
Going to be quite a few names on this list on the Hawks’ roster, including several SJU freshmen. Bethea comes to Hawk Hill by way of Penn Charter, where the 5-9 guard scored more than 1,000 points during the course of her four years on School House Lane. A speedy, athletic ball-handler, Bethea should pair well with rising sophomore Rhian Stokes to give opponents fits in the backcourt.

Quinn Boettinger (Fr. | Navy)
The pride of Perkiomen Valley, the Vikings’ star center and centerpiece to their 2024-25 state championship squad, heads down to Annapolis off the back of a storybook high school career. The skilled 6-3 post averaged 15.6 ppg and 6.5 rpg as a senior, finishing her high school career with 1,751 points and 790 rebounds as she dominated the Pioneer Athletic Conference out of the post for four years. Navy has good size up front with multiple veteran 6-3 and 6-4 forwards, so Boettinger has her work cut out for her in the preseason to earn minutes as a college rookie.

Bri Bowen (Sr. | Quinnipiac)
After starting her collegiate career at Delaware, Bowen is going into her third year as a member of the Bobcats’ squad. A 5-10 guard out of Archbishop Wood, she’s played in 55 games with three starts in two years at QU, though she went from averaging 13.8 mpg as a sophomore to 4.4 mpg as a junior in 24 appearances. 

Amber Bullard (Jr. | Mount St. Mary’s)
A product of The Christian Academy, Bullard spent her first year of college at La Salle, where she wasn’t quite able to break into the top part of the rotation with the Explorers. The 6-2 forward spent last year at Harcum College, where she led all of the NJCAA in field-goal percentage (67.1%), averaging 14.8 ppg and 8.0 rpg, which she turned into another Division I opportunity at MSM. 

Denae Carter (R-Sr. | Villanova)
Another local product who left the area for a couple years before returning to Philadelphia, Carter’s first season at Villanova was her best collegiate one yet. The former St. Basil’s standout, previously at Mississippi State (5.0 ppg, 6.1 rpg in 47 games), was Villanova’s full-time starter up front, averaging 8.6 ppg and 6.5 rpg while making 45.3% of her shots. A 6-1 forward, Carter got into double figures 16 times, with one double-double and a season high of 16 points which she accomplished twice.

Gabby Casey (Jr. | Saint Joseph’s)
Casey moved into the starting lineup full-time as a sophomore at St. Joe’s, the 5-9 guard and former Lansdale Catholic standout serving as a solid third or fourth option alongside a powerhouse group of seniors. Starting in 33 of 34 games, Casey averaged 7.7 ppg, 4.4 rpg and 2.2 apg, all about double what she averaged the year before, and did it while hitting 40.2% of her shots and 35.5% from 3-point range. She’ll be in a much more featured role as a junior. 

Isabella Casey (Soph. | Bucknell)
A 5-9 wing out of Germantown Academy, Casey appeared in 23 games as a freshman at Bucknell, averaging 1.3 ppg and 0.8 rpg. She got as many as 24 minutes in one game, scoring seven points against Holy Cross, part of a string of January games that saw her as one of the team’s top reserves. 

Alena Cofield (Fr. | Rider)
Cofield’s collegiate plans changed significantly this offseason. Originally, the Neshaminy product was set to head to Arcadia — but when Jackie Hartzell made the move from D-III to D-I, taking the Rider job, she brought Cofield along with her. An athletic, physical guard at 5-3, Cofield averaged a double-double for much of her senior year, while also being Neshaminy’s leading scorer and ball-handler. 

Savannah Curry (Soph. | Temple)
Curry played in 31 games off the bench as an Owls’ freshman, the 5-11 wing out of the Westtown School averaging 2.2 ppg and 1.5 rpg along the way. After only seeing some spot minutes early on, she began regularly seeing double-digit minutes as the season went on, though her season high in scoring (12 points) came back in November against Georgetown. Known as a strong outside shooter in high school, she was 7-of-22 (31.8%) from deep last year.

Maggie Doogan (Sr. | Richmond)
What a career Doogan is putting together at Richmond. The former O’Hara standout became the Spiders’ first Atlantic 10 Player of the Year last season, averaging 17.0 ppg, 7.1 rpg and 3.8 apg on .555/.406/.785 splits, then helped her squad advance into the second round of the NCAA Tournament. A 6-2 forward whose WNBA stock keeps on rising, Doogan is already 10th in Richmond history in scoring (1,422 points) and is on pace to finish in the top three in program history.

Caroline Dotsey (Jr. | Butler)
After a quiet freshman year at Maine (0.7 ppg, 0.8 rpg in 20 appearances), Dotsey really came on strong as a sophomore. The 6-2 forward from Haverford High averaged 9.7 ppg and 2.9 rpg, earning Sixth Player of the Year honors in the America East. It’s not hard to pick out her standout game: a 30-point outburst against New Hampshire in January, when she went 11-of-20 from the floor. Now she’ll be facing a whole new challenge in the Big East. 

Rian Dotsey (Fr. | Saint Joseph’s)
The younger Dotsey sibling, having concluded her own strong run at Haverford High, now begins her own collegiate career on the Main Line. A 6-2 wing forward, Dotsey helped the Fords to back-to-back Central League titles — one with her sister, one without — for the first time in program history, then led her team to the PIAA 6A quarterfinals as a senior. Athletic and versatile, Dotsey can score inside and out and can play multiple positions on the court.

Carryn Easley (Fr. | Fordham)
A 5-5 point guard from Neumann-Goretti, Easily’s coming off Catholic League and PIAA Class 3A state championships with the Saints, capping off a career that saw her average 14.4 ppg, 3.9 rpg and 5.1 apg, winning Catholic League MVP honors as well. The talented combo guard, known as ‘Clutch,’ is a terrific ball-handler, scorer and defender and is ready to show she has what it takes to hang in the Atlantic 10.