City of Basketball Love

Andrew Robinson (@ADRobinson3)
––

PHILADELPHIA >> It’s been a few years since it’s felt like this on 20th and Olney.

After a couple tumultuous seasons, the La Salle women’s basketball program is off to its best start in six years thanks to a roster that blends returners and newcomers with plenty of energy. It’s early and while the Explorers don’t see themselves anywhere near a finished product, they’ve also shown signs they can find ways to win.

La Salle had three players in double figures as the Explorers rode a strong second half to a 72-61 win over visiting American University at John E Glaser Arena.

“It feels a little bit like 2019, there’s some pieces there that while we’re still young and still growing, they’re pretty talented,” La Salle coach Mountain MacGillivray said. “We have an opportunity to keep getting better and better. You have to keep growing because the schedule’s going to get harder, the Atlantic 10 is going to be tough but they are putting themselves in position every day by being great teammates to each other, supporting one another and working hard.

“We’ll see if we can reap the benefits of that.”

Saturday’s win improved the Explorers to 5-1 overall on the season. It’s their best start to a campaign since they also went 5-1 to open the 2019-20 season, although that season ended with a 13-17 record, there’s a different feeling to this start. An offseason with some stability in the core of the roster amplified with some new pieces coming in have given La Salle a solid foundation to lay the groundwork for this strong start.

Making the start even better, in MacGillivray’s estimation, is that there’s still plenty of work to do and progress to make. They may be winning, but the Explorers also haven’t hit their stride offensively yet and the coaching staff sees even more out there that this group can improve on.

“There’s a maturity about them that they’re embracing that we’re not a finished product,” MacGillivray said. “They’re growing every night out there. Some nights the ball goes in and some nights it doesn’t but we’ve been really consistent in competing for loose balls and rebounds and we haven’t let missing a few shots impact us.”

So far, La Salle is out-scoring opponents 74.2 ppg to 64.7 ppg and that’s while shooting just 43 percent overall and 28.8 percent from three-point range offensively. Defensively, the Explorers have been pretty stout so far as they’ve held opponents to 40.8 percent shooting and 27.5 percent on threes while winning the turnover margin by an average of 3.8 turnovers per game.

Saturday’s win exemplified some of the team’s story so far. La Salle started very slow offensively but its defense, rebounding and overall effort didn’t give American any opportunity to take advantage.

Eventually, the offense came as La Salle opened up a 20-point lead in the fourth quarter and the three-point shooting heated up to a 10-of-25 (40 percent) effort on the afternoon.

“I didn’t love the way we started but I’m really pleased with our second half effort,” MacGillivray said. “I thought we were a little disjointed in the first half. It doesn’t always happen but it’s nice when you talk to a team about a game plan and an expectation that we were going to be able to throw the ball inside and throw it back out and we were going to have to knock down a few shots.”

While La Salle finished the 2024-25 season with a 10-23 record, the Explorers did have a few moments and in the bigger picture, seemed to establish a core they could build on. All three of last year’s leading scorers in Ashleigh Connor, Joan Quinn and Aryss Macktoon returned, part of an eight-player holdover after the roster had seen a lot of shuffling the prior two offseasons.

Of course, today’s era of college basketball is all about player movement and La Salle isn’t immune to it with eight newcomers between freshmen and transfers this year. The Explorers’ additions from the portal have paid early dividends from redshirt freshman Kiara Williams giving them that interior option to senior guard Ivona Miljanic, who had her best game of the season on Saturday with 16 points.

“It was basically just my teammates finding me open,” Miljanic said. “They were collapsing down in the paint so we need to be ready to shoot. I was ready for this, I wasn’t shooting good in the first five games so I’m proud of myself but also my teammates.”

Connor, Quinn and Macktoon are right where they left off last year as the top three scorers on the team, but all have upped their per game averages while contributing in other ways too. They also made history in the Explorers’ 81-70 win over Lehigh on Nov. 11 when they became the first trio in program history to all score at least 20 points in the same game.

Quinn, a sophomore and second-year starter, led La Salle on Saturday with the Cardinal O’Hara and Comets product going for a team-high 20 points plus two steals. Connor, a redshirt junior who began her career at Saint Louis before transferring to La Salle last year and leading the Explorers in most offensive categories, added 13 points, three rebounds, four assists and three steals despite battling foul trouble in the first half and is again leading the team at 18.2 ppg.

Macktoon, a junior who is the team’s second leading scorer at 16.5 ppg, had an off day offensively against American but her teammates picked her up while she contributed to a robust offensive rebounding effort.

Williams, who was also limited to just 15 minutes due to foul trouble, still chipped in eight points, five boards and three assists. It was Miljanic, who hails from Serbia and came to La Salle via D-II Young Harris (Ga.) after two seasons at Northwestern State, who picked up the scoring and shooting with a 5-of-10 afternoon with all of her shots coming behind the arc.

“We have so many drivers but we also have shooters,” Miljanic said. “When they collapse, we just share the ball. If they don’t (collapse), then we have an open drive or can pass it inside.”

The Explorers also got good minutes Saturday from Lauren Patnode, a redshirt freshman and Perkiomen School product, Amiya Moses and Sania Jenkins as they combined for five of the team’s six blocks.

La Salle will get a nice test of its early season growth when it hosts Villanova on Tuesday night before hosting VCU on Dec. 3 in its A-10 opener. Connor beat VCU on a buzzer-beating layup in the first round of the A-10 Tournament last year, La Salle’s first A-10 postseason win since 2021.

So while the Explorers may be off to their best start since 2019, it’s not really a surprise to them. They just want to make sure this isn’t the peak of their efforts.

“In the summer maybe because we had new players come in but preseason I wouldn’t say it was different,” Miljanic said. “We’re growing from game to game but I think we can still grow a lot.”

~~~

KILLION’S HOMECOMING

Philadelphia will always be home for first-year Eagles head coach Kelly Killion.

Saturday was a homecoming of sorts but in reality, it was more of a homecoming week for Killion. On Wednesday, her alma mater Holy Family honored Killion for her selection into the CACC Hall of Fame and a few days later, a large group of friends and family were back at John E. Glaser Arena to see her at work.

While she’s embarking on a new path, Killion was grateful for the chance to come home so early in her head coaching career.

“This is home for me,” Killion said. “It’s really about our kids and the experience for them to play some of the best basketball, Philly basketball is where it’s at, so it’s nice for them to see that competitive nature and feel that energy.”

Prior to taking over at American in April, Killion had spent 11 years on Mike McLaughlin’s staff at Penn, serving as associate head coach and recruiting coordinator in the last three. She also had stops at William & Mary and Sacred Heart before reuniting with McLaughlin, who had coached her at Holy Family, on the Quakers’ bench.

The Eagles practiced at Penn on Saturday, so really Killion had three homecomings this week.

Wednesday night was a special one for Killion, a 2008 graduate from Holy Family and one of the most decorated players in Tigers history. She was already a member of HFU’s Hall of Fame and in the CACC Hall of Fame as part of the 2007-08 Tigers team but her individual accolades more than warranted a solo induction.

Killion was a four-time All-CACC selection, was twice the CACC Player of the Year, part of three CACC title teams and went to four NCAA Tournaments in her career while also graduating in the top 10 all time for scoring, No. 1 in three-pointers made and second in career assists. While her American team had a road game at LIU the next night, the AU players made the trip up to Northeast Philly and sat together in the stands to watch Killion’s induction ceremony.

“We preach family in our program and that’s what family is,” Killion said. “You show up for each other. They insisted on being there and that’s what you do for family, you show up.”

Killion is taking over an American program that went just 1-29 a year ago. So far, she is 1-4 with the Eagles and got her first head coaching victory in the season opener against Delaware State on Nov. 8.

A bright spot so far has been the play of sophomore guard Molly Driscoll, who was excellent on Saturday with a career-high 29 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Driscoll, a standout at Allentown Central Catholic and with Penn Fever, is averaging 18.6 ppg so far and was named as a team captain prior to the season.

“The kid is one of a kind,” Killion said. “She’s very talented but she’s a better leader and better person on top of that and I think a lot of people should know that. I’m sure it was nice for her to get back a little closer to home too, she was tremendous for us and we have to give her some help.”

American will be back in Philadelphia one more time this season when it takes on Drexel on Dec. 3. 

“Our kids are competing so hard, I think we’re right there to start winning a few more of these,” Killion said. “Once we learn how to win, I think I’m afraid for some of our opponents moving forward because they’re doing such a good job of competing on every possession. Our push for our kids right now is win the day and that could be something as small as be the first to the floor, take a charge, anything to help us piece together winning ways.”