City of Basketball Love

By Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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With the Big 5 taking a couple days off for the Thanksgiving holiday, this seemed like as good a time as any to do an early-season Big 5 Power Rankings, now that we’ve gotten enough of a sample size of the city’s six Division I programs to figure out who’s off to a great start and who has some work to do.

Here are the men’s rankings: 

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6) La Salle Explorers
Record: 3-3 (0-2 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. Monmouth (W, 73-60), @ Temple (L, 90-63), vs. Penn State (L, 83-69), vs. Villanova (L, 70-55), vs. Lancaster Bible (W, 75-46)
Standout Star: Jaeden Marshall (Sr. | G)

The early days of Darris Nichols’ tenure at La Salle have seen the former Radford boss tinkering with his lineup numerous times; 10 different players have started at least one game and six have gotten at least three starts as he continues to mix-and-match lineups and rotations to find what’s working and what isn’t on a roster that was compiled from all over the country. Through six games, they have the exact same KenPom ranking (229) that they had at the end of last season, with a slightly improved offense and a slightly worse defense compared to the end of Fran Dunphy’s tenure. 

Marshall, a 6-foot-4 transfer from Niagara, is leading a fairly balanced attack with 12.5 ppg, one of two double-figure scorers on the team along with freshman guard Ashton Walker (10.5 ppg, team-high 4.3 apg); six others average between 5.2 and 9.7 ppg. Nichols and his staff hang their hat on the glass, and the Explorers are a top-100 offensive rebounding team, according to KenPom, but are 213th on the defensive glass, while turning the ball over on more than 20% of their possessions, which is 283rd nationally. 

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5) Drexel Dragons
Record: 4-4 (0-2 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. Syracuse (L, 80-50), vs. NJIT (W, 75-43), vs. Penn (L, 84-68), vs. Old Dominion (W, 75-71), @ Morgan State (W, 71-66)
Standout Star: Shane Blakeney (Jr. | SF)

The Drexel men are starting to pick up some wins, having taken three of their last four overall after three straight losses earlier in the year; the Big 5 wasn’t a good showing for Zach Spiker’s Dragons, but otherwise they have some things to like moving forward, especially considering that just about every player on the team is in a different role — or with a new program entirely — compared to the year before. That includes Blakeney, a 6-5 wing guard who’s putting up career-best numbers thus far of 12.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg and 2.5 apg, doing that while hitting 36.6% of his 3-pointers. 

Also playing well for Drexel of late has been sophomore guard Josh Reed, the Archbishop Wood product averaging 10.2 ppg on the season — one of four in double figures — after scoring 21 points against Penn and 18 against Old Dominion. As a team, the Dragons aren’t bad from beyond the arc (33.5%) but have been awful inside it, making just 43.7% of their 2-point attempts against Division I opponents, which ranks 335th nationally and is dragging their entire offense down with it.

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4) Saint Joseph’s Hawks
Record: 3-3 (1-1 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. Drexel (W, 76-65), @ Virginia Tech (L, 94-59), @ Penn (L, 83-74), @ UNLV (L, 99-85), vs. Rutgers-Camden (W, 100-61)
Standout Star: Deuce Jones II (Soph. | G)

It’s hard to know how to gauge the Hawks this season. On top of the roster featuring a good number of new pieces, it also underwent that fall coaching change to Steve Donahue, who has an entirely different type of roster from the ones he had the last nine years at Penn. There’s talent there, but it hasn’t all been clicking quite just yet — Jones is averaging a team-high 17.0 ppg but is just 7-of-24 (29.2%) from deep, part of a trend on a team that’s making just 26.8% of its 3-pointers all season long. 

Part of the issue is that this Hawks roster has 13 players who could be viable members of the rotation, and Donahue has used all of them in at least four games, though only eight players have played in all six contests. Perhaps the most consistent performer has been freshman wing Austin Williford, who’s averaging 5.8 ppg and 5.0 rpg with 14 assists to six turnovers as he’s contributed similarly in every game. 

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3) Penn Quakers
Record: 3-2 (2-0 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. Rowan (W, 119-72), @ American (L, 84-78), @ Providence (L, 106-81), vs. Saint Joseph’s (W, 83-74), @ Drexel (W, 84-68)
Standout Star: Ethan Roberts (Sr. | SF)

The Quakers bounced back nicely from losses to American and Providence on the road to capture their two Big 5 games, looking better and better as they beat the Hawks and Dragons in the span of four nights. Getting a Big 5 championship in the first year of the Fran McCaffery era would be a nice way to generate a little momentum, especially if they do well this weekend in the Cathedral Classic against Merrimack, La Salle and Hofstra. Beyond that, only four more non-league games remain until the Ivy League opens Jan. 5 at Princeton. 

Roberts is currently the No. 3 scorer in all over Division I hoops at 24.6 ppg, behind only Kansas State’s PJ Haggerty (28.0) and Utah’s Terrence Brown (25.2); the 6-5 wing is getting it done in all sorts of ways on .473/.444/.820 splits and he’s coming off consecutive games with 30-plus points. More importantly, they’re getting better and better play from T.J. Power (14.4 ppg, 8.4 rpg), with seniors Michael Zanoni (13.2 ppg) and Cam Thrower (9.8 ppg) playing the best ball of their career. If they can get a little more consistent paint scoring, they could be really dangerous offensively.

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2) Temple Owls
Record: 4-2 (1-0 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. La Salle (W, 90-63), vs. Boston College (L, 76-61), vs. Hofstra (W, 81-76), neutral vs. UC San Diego (L, 91-76), neutral vs. Princeton (W, 79-75)
Standout Star: Derrian Ford (Sr. | G) 

Adam Fisher has an almost entirely new roost of Owls under his watch, but so far they’re playing pretty good ball, about 40 spots higher on KenPom than they were at the end of last season (173 to 139) thanks in large part to a versatile, fairly efficient offensive attack. Four different Owls are in double figures: Ford (17.5 ppg), sophomore Aiden Tobisaon (16.0 ppg), junior Gavin Griffiths (11.8 ppg, 5.0 rpg) and senior Jordan Mason (11.0 ppg), with four others chipping in reliably in the rotation. 

Making John Chaney proud, the Owls are one of the best teams in the country at turning the ball over, doing so only eight times per contest, and they’re shooting .471/.371/.708 as a team while also out-rebounding their opponents by 3.3 boards per game. Those are all good signs, but they need to do something like beat Villanova and play for a Big 5 title game to show that they’re really taking a step forward. (Though, is it really a step forward if it’s entirely new players?). It’s possible the Owls make a run in the American, as well. 

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1) Villanova Wildcats
Record: 5-1 (1-0 Big 5)
Recent Results: vs. Queens (N.C.) (W, 94-74), vs. Sacred Heart (W, 94-60), vs. Duquesne (W, 87-77), @ La Salle (W, 70-55), vs. Old Dominion (W, 89-75)
Standout Star: Bryce Lindsay (R-Soph. | G)

The Kevin Willard era at Villanova has gotten off to a decent start; the Wildcats acquitted themselves well in a five-point loss to No. 8 Brigham Young in the season opener and have won their five games since, all against low- to mid-major opponents, with their toughest test since the opener coming up in Temple on Monday, a game that’ll decide who meets the Penn men in the Big 5 Classic title game on Dec. 6. After that, it’s into the deep end with a trip to Michigan (Dec. 9), a visit from Pittsburgh (Dec. 13), a trip to Wisconsin (Dec. 19 in Milwaukee) and then right into Big East play starting Dec. 23 at Seton Hall.

Though their competition level hasn’t been super-high, the Wildcats are playing quite well. They’re out-rebounding their opponents by 10 boards per game (39-29), have a 1.6 assist-to-turnover ratio and are currently ranked No. 40 on KenPom, not bad for a group that’s still getting used to playing with each other and through injuries. Lindsay, a James Madison transfer, is averaging 19.0 ppg and shooting 47.8% from 3-point range; freshman point guard Acaden Lewis (13.5 ppg, 5.2 apg), redshirt freshman Matt Hodge (12.5 ppg, 3.8 rpg), and grad student Duke Brennan (10.2 ppg, 14.4 ppg) have been especially strong but they’re getting quality contributions from at least eight or nine deep.

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