City of Basketball Love

Dan Newhart (@danny_newhart)
--

It certainly would be unfair to say sophomore La Salle guard Johnnie Shuler waited until the last minute of the game to make an impactful play in Saturday’s 78-76 season-opening win over Towson. 

After all, the 5-foot-11 point guard from Theodore Roosevelt high school in Washington D.C. had played all 39 minutes to that point, the only player on either team to do so. He had also compiled 10 points, five assists and shot 3-of-4 at the charity stripe for a severely undermanned Explorers squad that dressed only seven scholarship players on the day.

Despite the numbers he had already put up, it was with 43 seconds to play in the game when Shuler would make arguably his biggest play of the afternoon.

With the game tied at 73 apiece and just under a minute to play, the ball was in redshirt junior and last season’s leading scorer Jordan Price’s hands. Price pulled up for a jumper off the dribble at the left elbow which fell short, and Towson’s Walter Foster corralled the rebound.

That’s where Shuler comes in.

Foster threw an outlet pass to a streaking redshirt junior and recent Wake Forest transfer Arnaud William Adala Moto. Moto, a second team All-CAA preseason selection caught the pass and almost immediately after, Shuler was able to anticipate where Moto was going to pass the ball next and pick it off.

Shuler raced down the right side of the floor and finished with a smooth up-and-under reverse layup to help La Salle (1-0) regain a 75-73 advantage. 

“I just read his eyes,” Shuler said afterward of the game-clinching play. “They had a man in the corner and I just came to the ball. We just had to make plays at the end, and that’s what Coach G talks about in practice everyday. Make plays, make plays all the time.”

Shuler snatched the rebound off a Towson miss on the next possession and was fouled intentionally. The sophomore nailed two free throws, and knocked down one more before the final buzzer to seal the win.

As a freshman, Shuler never played more than 15 minutes in a game or scored more than nine points, but he certainly looks like he'll be a much bigger piece of the program moving forward.

The win came just one week after La Salle’s somewhat surprising exhibition loss to Division II Philadelphia University, a 79-78 final that ended on a buzzer beater in favor of the Rams.

In both that game and Saturday’s win the Explorers held sizable double digit leads that slowly dwindled down and made for more interesting second halves. Head coach John Gianinni said the exhibition loss to Philly U paid immediate dividends for his young team, which was able to use the loss as fuel and learn from it to come out on the winning end this time around.

“It’s the best thing that ever could have happened to us, absolutely,” Gianinni said the team’s loss to Philly U. “There is no speech that equals the sting of losing and learning from it. There’s no close win that has the sting of losing. To lose a game that doesn’t count is tremendous because it doesn’t count and you can still learn. It’s the best.”

~~~

Solid debut for La Salle big man Sakhniuk
Despite the fact that sophomore forward Yevgen Sakhniuk only saw the court for 15 minutes due to foul trouble in the Explorers’ win, the big man showed flashes of what has the coaching staff excited for his future at 20th & Olney. He finished with 11 points and three rebounds on a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor.

The 6-foot-7 product of GBA Sparta in Ukraine was a factor inside in the first half, scoring nine points on 4-for-4 from the floor in just five minutes. Sakhniuk helped the Explorers open up an 18-9 run in the first half with an array of post moves and finishes inside, and also provided depth for La Salle after redshirt senior Rohan Brown fouled out about midway through the second half.

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t make free throws, but he’s a guy that can really score and pass,” Gianinni said of Sakhniuk. “He needs to work on his defense and just get used to the overall intensity of the college game. Getting a rebound against Towson is a lot different than getting a rebound in club basketball in Prague. They can all shoot and dribble, but they don’t have five NFL-type players trying to dunk every rebound back in, and that’s going to take some getting used to for him."

Dan Newhart (@danny_newhart)
--
 

It certainly would be unfair to say sophomore La Salle guard Johnnie Shuler waited until the last minute of the game to make an impactful play in Saturday’s 78-76 season-opening win over Towson. 

After all, the 5-foot-11 point guard from Theodore Roosevelt high school in Washington D.C. had played all 39 minutes to that point, the only player on either team to do so. He had also compiled 10 points, five assists and shot three-of-four at the charity stripe for a severely undermanned Explorers squad that dressed only seven scholarship players on the day.

Despite the numbers he had already put up, it was with 43 seconds to play in the game when Shuler would make arguably his biggest play of the afternoon.

With the game tied at 73 apiece and just under a minute to play, the ball was in redshirt junior and last season’s leading scorer Jordan Price’s hands. Price pulled up for a jumper off the dribble at the left elbow which fell short, and Towson’s Walter Foster corralled the rebound.

That’s where Shuler comes in.

Foster threw an outlet pass to a streaking redshirt junior and recent Wake Forest transfer Arnaud William Adala Moto. Moto, a second team All-CAA preseason selection caught the pass and almost immediately after, Shuler was able to anticipate where Moto was going to pass the ball next and pick it off.

Shuler raced down the right side of the floor and finished with a smooth up-and-under reverse layup to help La Salle regain a 75-73 advantage. 

“I just read his eyes,” Shuler said afterward of the game-clinching play. “They had a man in the corner and I just came to the ball. We just had to make plays at the end, and that’s what Coach G talks about in practice everyday. Make plays, make plays all the time.”

Shuler snatched the rebound off a Towson miss on the next possession and was fouled intentionally. The sophomore nailed two free throws, and knocked down one more before the final buzzer to seal the win.

The win came just one week after La Salle’s somewhat surprising exhibition loss to Division II Philadelphia University, a 79-78 final that ended on a buzzer beater in favor of the Rams.

In both that game and Saturday’s win the Explorers held sizable double digit leads that slowly dwindled down and made for more interesting second halves. Head coach John Gianinni said the exhibition loss to Philly U paid immediate dividends for his young team, which was able to use the loss as fuel and learn from it to come out on the winning end this time around.

“It’s the best thing that ever could have happened to us, absolutely,” Gianinni said the team’s loss to Philly U. “There is no speech that equals the sting of losing and learning from it. There’s no close win that has the sting of losing. To lose a game that doesn’t count is tremendous because it doesn’t count and you can still learn. It’s the best.”

~~~

Solid debut for La Salle big man Sakhniuk

Despite the fact that sophomore forward Yevgen Sakhniuk only saw the court for 15 minutes due to foul trouble in the Explorers’ 78-76 win over Towson Nov. 13, the big man showed flashes of what has the coaching staff excited for his future at 20th & Olney. He finished with 11 points and three rebounds on a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor.

The 6-foot-7 transfer from GBA Sparta in Ukraine was a factor inside in the first half, scoring nine points on 4-for-4 from the floor in just five minutes. Sakhniuk helped the Explorers open up an 18-9 run in the first half with an array of post moves and finishes inside, and also provided depth for La Salle after redshirt senior Rohan Brown fouled out about midway through the second half.

“I don’t understand why he doesn’t make free throws, but he’s a guy that can really score and pass,” head coach John Gianinni said of Sakhniuk. “He needs to work on his defense and just get used to the overall intensity of the college game. Getting a rebound against Towson is a lot different than getting a rebound in club basketball in Prague. They can all shoot and dribble, but they don’t have 5 NFL type players trying to dunk every rebound back in, and that’s going to take some getting used to for him.