City of Basketball Love

By Jeff Griffith
— 

For the first time in nearly two decades, La Salle women’s basketball is 3-0. 

The last time that feat took place, junior guard Aryss Macktoon — who excelled for the Explorers with 24 points, eight steals, six boards and three assists in an 81-70 win at Lehigh —  wasn’t even in elementary school yet. 

That 2006-07 La Salle team actually started the season 7-0, en route to a 19-11 season. Six of those seven wins came on the road; similarly, this year’s squad has earned two of its three victories away from home, having started the season with a win at Loyola Maryland.

It’s too early to say if the Explorers have that level of success in them — 19 wins is a mark they haven’t matched since. But three double-digit wins, including Tuesday’s at Lehigh, the defending Patriot League champions whose 27-7 record last season speaks for itself, is certainly a very good starting point.

“Lehigh is a tough team,” La Salle head coach Mountain MacGillivray told CoBL by phone after the win. “That team is going to be good… Last year, them winning the Patriot League, I wouldn’t be shocked to see that again this year.

“We were happy to get up there and get the job done,” he added. “We played connected.”

As noted, Macktoon was a force for La Salle (3-0) on all levels. She’s now been the Explorers’ leading scorer in two of three games, averaging 18.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 3.5 steals on the young season. 

Ten of Macktoon’s 24 points — as well as five of sophomore Joan Quinn’s 20 — came in a third quarter that saw La Salle flip the game on its head. After a first half in which Lehigh (1-2) tallied eight threes, La Salle trailed by a point but outscored the Mountain Hawks 28-12 in the third, and ended the frame on a 14-4 run, effectively putting things in the rearview mirror. 

Much of the Explorers’ success was found inside the arc; Macktoon, Quinn and junior Ashleigh Connor (22 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists, 3 steals) combined to shoot 23-of-36 from the field with only six of those attempts — 12 as a team — being three-pointers. The three of them totaled an impressive 66 points, 15 rebounds, nine assists, and 12 steals. 

“That’s a good recipe to win a basketball game,” MacGillivray said of those three players’ efficiency. “And it still took everything to beat them.”

“They bring the maturity, the desire to do well and compete,” he added of his upperclassmen. “They bring the experience to say, ‘Hey, if we can do A, B, and C, we can get it done.’ Those are things that you take for granted when you have it. They grew, and they realized last year what it looks like, and they’ve carried it over.”

La Salle will pay a visit to Temple next, before returning home for a string of four consecutive home games.

Here’s a look at some more results from around the city:

~~~

MBB: Temple crushes La Salle in Big 5 opener

Coverage from this game coming tonight on CoBL

~~~

WBB: Undefeated St. Joe’s picks up Power 5 win

Prior to Tuesday night, St. Joe's junior guard Aleah Snead had been ice cold, making just two of her 15 field goal attempts through two games.

The third quarter of Tuesday’s game against Cincinnati changed the game.

Snead dropped 10 third-quarter points, after scoring just two in the first half, helping spark a dominant frame that led to the Hawks’ 70-65 win over the Bearcats. The Hawks improved to 3-0 — it’s their first time since 2020-21 — earning a victory over the Bearcats on the wings of a similarly strong third quarter.

St. Joe’s (3-0) and Cincinnati (2-1) were locked with one another for most of the first half; neither team led by more than six in the opening two frames, which were relatively low-scoring — Cincinnati led 13-11 after one and 32-31 at the break. 

The Hawks clamped down defensively in the third, though, holding the Bearcats to just 10 points on 3-of-12 shooting from the field; a 9-2 run to open the quarter certainly helped as well.

St. Joe’s also got a strong performance off the bench from freshman guard Emily Knouse; the Archbishop Wood alum contributed 17 points and five boards, drilling five of her nine three-point attempts. On the season, she’s shooting 8-of-19 from beyond the arc, having also scored nine points in St. Joe’s season opener against West Chester. 

~~~

MBB: ‘Nova runs away from Sacred Heart

Villanova took very little time to overcome a sluggish start, dropping more than 50 first-half points en route to a dominant, 94-60 victory over Sacred Heart. 

After nine minutes, the Wildcats trailed the Pioneers (1-2), 17-16. By the five-minute mark, that scoreline was but a distant memory, as Villanova (2-1) ripped off a 24-2 run — which ultimately turned into a 36-9 stretch to end the half — and never looked back. 

For Villanova, the story of the night was the three-ball — specifically, three-point shooting of sophomore guard Bryce Lindsay and senior guard Devin Askew. 

By halftime, the two had connected on twelve-three pointers — the only two Wildcats to make threes in the first half. In total, Lindsay made nine out of 14 three-point attempts — buoying his stat line of 27 points, five rebounds and three assists — while Askew hit seven of his 10 tries and also ended up with 27 points. 

Senior forward Duke Brennan also chipped in a solid outing, notching a double-double with 10 points and 11 boards. Up next, Villanova will host Duquesne (Nov. 15) before its Big 5 opener at La Salle (Nov. 19).

~~~

MBB: Drexel’s comeback bid comes up short at Colgate

Halfway through Drexel’s Tuesday night contest at Colgate, the Dragons looked dead in the water. Eight minutes later, they were in a two-possession ball game. A fiery comeback bid fell short, though, resulting in a 90-83 loss, making it back-to-back defeats for Drexel after a season-opening win over Widener. 

Simply put, Colgate (1-2) could not miss in the first half; the Raiders — who have won five of the last seven Patriot League titles — made 17 of their 22 field goal attempts in the opening 20 to open up a 49-30 lead. During that stretch, Drexel shot just 2-of-7 from the free-throw line, including missing four of its first five. As a whole, the Dragons went 8-of-15 on foul shots. 

That’s when Drexel (1-2) turned things back on. A 14-2 run helped pull the Dragons to within striking distance, but two points was the closest they ever got, on a pair of Martin de LaPorterie free throws that cut the Colgate lead to 60-58. 

One of several standout shooting performances by Big 5 players Tuesday night, junior guard Shane Blakeney shot 7-of-11 from distance, scoring a team-high 24 points to go with three boards, four assists and two steals. Senior guard Eli Beard had 24 points of his own, making four of his seven threes.  

Drexel will host a 2-0 Syracuse side Saturday at Xfinity Mobile Arena. 

~~~ 

WBB: Owls struggle in road test 

Temple faced one of the toughest tests of any Big 5 women’s team to date this season Tuesday night, visiting a West Virginia team that earned a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament last season. Ultimately, it wasn’t particularly close, with the Mountaineers topping Temple by a final tally of 89-61. 

Junior guard Kaylah Turner, for example, had a productive night, tallying 22 points and three boards. Turner, sophomore guard Savannah Curry, and junior guard Tristen Taylor, totaled 45 of Temple’s 61 points, but the main issue was their inefficiency. The three combined to shoot 16 of 39 against a stout West Virginia (3-0) defense. 

Temple (2-1) was also plagued by turnovers, giving up 19 in total, seven of which were committed by junior forward Jaleesa Molina.

The Owls will return home to face La Salle in their Big 5 opener, Nov. 14.

~~~

MBB: Penn stumbles at Providence

Penn showed some life early in its Tuesday night matchup with Providence, but struggled to keep the Friars off the scoreboard in a 106-81 loss. 

The Quakers had senior forward Michael Zanoni scoring early and often; he had Penn’s first eight points en route to a 30-point night, his career-high. His scoring kept the Quakers in it early, until others began to step up. Ethan Roberts (15 points, four rebounds, four assists) for example, connected on a pair of three-pointers, the second of which cut Penn’s deficit to one in the final six minutes before halftime. 

The Friars (2-1), though, swiftly put Penn’s hopes to bed, responding to that triple with a 15-4 run to close the half. Providence kept the Quakers at arm’s length from there, before turning on the after-burners in the final minutes to push their margin of victory into the mid-20s. 

Penn (1-2) shot the ball well from beyond the arc — a 42.9 percent clip — but shot just 35 percent from inside, a difficult rate to overcome when compared to Providence’s 53 percent field-goal shooting mark.

Junior forward TJ Power chipped in 15 points and seven rebounds, while senior guard Cam Thrower added 15 points and four boards off the bench. 

Up next, Penn will host St. Joe’s (Nov. 17).