City of Basketball Love

By David Comer
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DOYLESTOWN -- In Thursday night’s non-league game between Delaware Valley University and Rowan College, Antonio Redding wasn’t the biggest or strongest or quickest player on the court. He was, without question, the best.

The 6-foot, 175-pound senior guard for the Aggies put on an offensive show - scoring in pretty much every way possible en route to a game-high 31 points - in leading his team to a 100-93 victory over the Profs at the James Work Gymnasium on the DelVal campus.

In the first half alone, Redding buried a three-pointer from the top of the key, hit a difficult mid-range jumper on the right wing, swished a turnaround fadeaway from the left baseline, muscled in a basket from the post and converted an old-fashioned three-point play with a strong drive to the basket. He finished the first half with 14 points and showed off his impressive ability to make shots from all over the court. Redding is not someone you want to play H-O-R-S-E against.

When asked his favorite part of basketball, Redding didn’t hesitate.

“Scoring,” he said. “I’m not going to lie. I love scoring.”

He finished the game 10-of-17 from the field, including 2-of-4 from deep, and was 9-of-9 from the foul line. He did all this while playing under control and not forcing shots.

“That’s just always been me,” he said. “One of my high school coaches said I have an old man’s game. That’s just how I play. I’m just trying to do anything my team needs me to do to win.”

The Aggies improved to 3-1 with the victory. Redding is averaging 26.8 points per game early on for a team that is looking to make back-to-back trips to the NCAA tournament.

“He’s a really smart basketball player,” fifth-year DelVal coach Muhamadou Kaba said. “We trust him with the ball and that he’s going to make the right decision.”

Redding has an incredibly soft jump shot; when his shots go through the hoop they look like a feather floating through the net.

“He’s just always in the gym,” Kaba said. “He’s going to put the time in. I think he has incredible balance on his jump shot. He can shoot off the bounce or catch-and-shoot.”

Last year, as a junior, Redding showed off his uncanny shooting ability. He averaged 17.6 points per game and hit 82-of-162 from beyond the arc for a 50.6% mark that led all of Division III. To put that accomplishment into perspective, there were 420 Division III basketball teams last year. Conservatively, if each team has 12 players each, that’s 5,040 Division III college basketball players. And Redding was the best three-point shooter of them all.

“That’s probably my biggest accomplishment in basketball,” Redding said. “I got that on my resume now.”

Redding’s resume begins with a solid high school career at Central Florida Christian Academy in Orlando, Fla. However, he had no college offers, and wound up nearly 1,000 miles away at Lebanon Valley College.

“It’s a long story,” Redding said.

One of his high school coaches knew a coach at Lebanon Valley and one thing led to another and there he was in Pennsylvania. He had never seen snow before. He wasn’t - and still isn’t - used to the cold weather.

He had a solid freshman year at Lebanon Valley. Coincidentally, his first college game was against DelVal, and he scored 10 points in 32 minutes in an OT win and caught the eye of his future coach.

“I thought it would be a good fit at LVC, but it just didn’t work out,” Redding said.

So he entered the transfer portal, and Kaba was one of the first coaches to contact him.

“The thing that stood out to me when he was a freshman was he was poised,” Kaba said. “When you see that from a freshman, that stands out.”

So Redding enrolled at DelVal for his sophomore year - in large part because of Kaba - and had a solid but unspectacular season, averaging 9.1 points in 25.1 minutes per game. But Redding was happy at DelVal and committed to making himself the best player he could become.

“I made the best decision of my life,” he said.

It was during that sophomore year that Redding dedicated himself to the weight room. He said strength and conditioning coach Marc Rodriguez was a major factor in transforming his body into a muscular 175 pounds. And he also worked tirelessly to turn himself into more than just a three-point shooter.

“I’ve really evolved to score at all three levels,” he said. “I worked on my mid-range game and working through contact. … I had to prove to myself and to my coach what I could do.”

He did just that as a junior. He was the MAC Freedom Co-Player of the Year and led the Aggies to a MAC Freedom conference championship and a spot in the NCAA Tournament. 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. He also set the DelVal record for three-pointers in a season with 82.

After such a terrific junior campaign, Redding wanted to see what options were out there for him. At 12:43 PM on March 24, 2025, he posted on his Twitter account the following: “I have officially entered the transfer portal.”

“I understood, but we were worried,” Kaba said. “We were supportive of his decision to do that and see what was out there.”

Redding said that he wanted to see what opportunities were at the Division I and Division II levels. He spoke to several schools.

“There was no good fit, and it had to be the perfect fit for me to leave,” Redding said. “I get to be the man here. I get to play for coach Kaba. He’s the best coach I’ve ever played for.”

Redding is enjoying this season. He is closing in on 1,000 career points; he has 875 during his college career including his time at Lebanon Valley and DelVal.

“I would like to get to 1,000,” he said. “I didn’t get that in high school.”

He would also like the Aggies to capture another league championship and return to the NCAA tournament but this time win a game once they get there and advance to the second round the first time in program history.

Opponents have not surprisingly focused their defense on stopping Redding this season. They guard him for all 94 feet. They bump him. They harass him. They make life as difficult for him as possible. But through it all, Redding stays calm and makes winning basketball plays.

“He makes my job easy,” Kaba said. “I tell him that all the time.”