City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
—

The start of the 2025-26 Division III men’s basketball season is upon us, and there is no shortage of high-level players, top-notch coaches and quality teams in the Philadelphia area. Catching an entertaining game in a hot gym on a chilly winter night may be the best bargain around - many schools don’t charge admission and those that do charge a reasonable one. What you will see will impress you on many levels. 

Here are eight questions that will be answered in the next few months in the local Division III basketball scene.

~~~

1. Can Swarthmore College continue its winning ways after the departure of long-time coach Landry Kosmalski?

Kosmalski transformed Swarthmore into one of the top Division III programs in the country in his 13 years with the Garnet where he went 241-102 (.703). Among the highlights during his time there were seven straight NCAA Tournament appearances, four Sweet 16s, three Elite Eights, two Final Fours and a national runner-up finish in 2018-19. He very likely would’ve won a national title the year COVID shut down the world.

After all of that success, it was no surprise Kosmalski was coveted at the Division I level. He left Swarthmore after last season to take a job as a Division I assistant coach at Campbell University.

Swarthmore could not have asked for a better replacement. Shane Loeffler played at the school for Kosmalski and then joined the coaching staff at the start of the 2017-18 season. He most recently had the title of associate head coach.

Loeffler has a terrific building block in sophomore guard Zander Jimenez.  The 6-foot-3 guard from Hercules, Calif., which is in the San Francisco Bay Area, earned Rookie of the Year Honors in the Centennial Conference after averaging 15.5 points and 5.5 rebounds per game as a freshman. Jimenez also earned second-team All-Centennial Conference honors and was the lone freshman to receive first-team, second-team or honorable mention recognition in the Centennial Conference. He also was named the D3hoops.com Region 5 Rookie of the Year.

If you get to a Swarthmore game, get there early. Assuming Loeffler does not change the team’s pre-game routine, watching the Garnet warm up is highly entertaining.

~~~

2. Will Sean Westerlund be able to take another program to the NCAA tournament — this time at Penn State-Abington?

Westerlund did a masterful job in his four seasons at Bryn Athyn, taking the Lions from single-digit wins in his first season to a 20-9 record and the school’s first and only appearance in the NCAA Tournament in his fourth and last season.

Less than a month after the thrill of leading the program to its first-ever UEC championship and that NCAA Tournament appearance last March, Westerlund experienced the agony of Bryn Athyn announcing that it would be discontinuing its athletic program.

Thus, Westerlund, after building a winning program at Bryn Athyn, was forced to find a new job and, not surprisingly, he did. He is in his first season at Penn State Abington and will be tasked with another rebuilding job. The Lions went 3-22 last season and 8-17 the season before that. 

Westerlund has brought with him three players from Bryn Athyn, including K’Mari Smith, a 6-foot-2 junior guard out of West Chester Henderson who will be counted on to help lead the turnaround.

~~~

3. What will the post-Trevor Wall era bring at Ursinus?

Things at Ursinus will look different this season without Wall, as the fearless 6-foot-3 guard out of St. Joseph’s Prep with an uncanny ability to finish around the basket, has graduated. Wall finished his career fourth all-time in program history with 1,752 points and led the Centennial Conference in scoring the last two seasons. 

Long-time coach Kevin Small will have two returning starters to build around.

Senior Nick Nocito, a 5-foot-11 guard, led the Centennial Conference with 5.6 assists per game last season. Nocito also averaged 12.0 points per game, including a career-high 39 points against FDU-Florham, and will be counted on to contribute more scoring this season.

The Bears also return senior Mohamed Toure, a wiry 6-foot-6 guard from Washington D.C. who can score from anywhere on the court . Toure averaged 13.7 points per game last season and reached double figures in 22 of 27 games. He also averaged 5.4 rebounds per game.

~~~

4. Can DelVal make it back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament?

DelVal put together an impressive run to cap off its 2024-25 season when they captured the MAC Freedom conference championship and earned a berth in the NCAA Tournament, where they lost to eventual Final Four participant Wesleyan (CT).

The Aggies were 8-11 on February 1 but won 7 of 9, including a thriller over Stevens in the league title game. Last season’s top player, Antonio Redding, returns for his senior season after a breakthrough junior campaign.

The 6-foot guard from Orlando averaged 17.6 points per game and was one of the nation’s best three-point shooters at any level. He hit 82-of-162 from beyond the arc for 50.6%, which led all of Division III, and he set a program record for three-pointers in a season. He also came within three points of the program’s single-game scoring record, dropping 47 in a win over Stevens and hitting eight treys along the way.

~~~

5. Will Arcadia live up to the preseason hype?

Arcadia is the preseason pick to win the MAC Freedom title, and with good reason. The Knights, who finished 12-14 in 2024-25, return two top performers from that team and should be bolstered by the addition of two key contributors who sat out last season.

The returnees are 6-foot-5 senior guard/forward Joshua Okocha, an honorable mention All-MAC Freedom selection last season after averaging 13.3 and 5.8 rebounds per game, and 5-foot-10 sophomore guard Jamison Lynam, grandson of Jimmy, who was the MAC Freedom Rookie of the Year after averaging 13.5 points, 3.4 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game.

The Knights also welcome back graduate student Nas Johnson, a 6-foot guard who was a first-team All-MAC Freedom selection after the 2023-24 season, and 5-foot-10 senior guard Darius Isaac, a starter for most of the 2023-24 campaign.

~~~

6.  Will Darnell ‘Speedy’ Artis continue the winning tradition at Gwynedd Mercy?

Artis returns to his alma mater after traveling the world for nearly a decade while playing for the Harlem Globetrotters. Artis, a four-year starter and four-year captain for the Griffins, will replace the highly successful John Baron, who built GMU into one of the premier Division III programs in the region.

Artis, who is GMU’s career assist leader and the only player in Griffins history with at least 400 career assists and 1,300 career points, will have a solid point guard to build the team around.

D.J. Johnson, a 6-foot guard from Norristown, returns for his senior season. Johnson, the Atlantic East Conference Rookie of the Year as a freshman, has played in 80 career games and provides a steady presence in the backcourt.

~~~

7. How will Kyle Stramara fare in his first season at Immaculata?

Stramara will be in his first season with the Mighty Macs after serving on the Eastern coaching staff since 2019 and as the school’s associate head coach since 2022. Stramara will replace Jayson Hyman, who left after nine seasons to become the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Compliance and Internal Operations at Rider.

Immaculata finished 8-17 last season, and its roster features 10 new players, many of whom are transfers, including former Coatesville star Marquis Peoples and former Collegium Charter standout Duce Jackson.

~~~

8. Can Neumann repeat as Atlantic East Conference champs and return to the NCAA Tournament?

Neumann finished last season with a 20-8 record, an AEC conference title and an impressive showing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, where the Knights lost, 76-60, to eventual national champion Trinity (CT) in a game that was tied in the second half. 

Jim Rullo, now in his 13th season at Neumann, returns several key pieces from that team. Leading the way will be Donte Dupriest, a 6-foot-4 senior forward from Philadelphia, who played in only 16 games this season but made the most of it. After joining the team in late December, Dupriest was nothing short of dominant. He averaged 18.1 ppg and 14.4 rpg (which would have ranked him second nationally if he had played enough games to qualify) and was named the AEC Player of the Year. 

Also returning for Neumann will be 6-foot guard D.J. Earl, who earned second-team All-AEC honors after averaging 17.4 points per game last season. Earl scored 30 points in a win over Marymount in the AEC tournament championship game and followed that up with a game-high 25 points in the NCAA tournament. 

Rullo, who picked up his 200th career win at Neumann last season, also brings back senior guard Bryan Etienne, who averaged 10.1 points per game a year ago. Neumann will also add to the roster guard CJ Miles from Northampton County Community College, guard Julian Phillips from Phelps (and Central Bucks West), high-scoring guard Iziiah Johnson from Mercer County Community College and versatile big man Aaron Lewis of Lanham Christian School in Maryland.

~~~