City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Saul Phiri wasn’t planning on making his college decision until after his senior year at Putnam Science Academy (Conn.) was over.

Then he took his official visit to La Salle from Feb. 11-13, and was sold, committing to head coach John Giannini and staff while in town.

“Got to bond with the guys, I liked the atmosphere up there, liked the coaching staff a lot,” he said by phone on Tuesday. “I think me and coach Giannini had a really good relationship, just a good opportunity.”

Phiri is the second commit for La Salle’s incoming 2016 class, along with 7-1 St. Andrew’s School (R.I.) center Cian Sullivan, though the Irish big man is expected to redshirt next season. Also joining the Explorers’ roster next fall are a trio of transfers: B.J. Johnson (Syracuse), Pookie Powell (Memphis) and Demetrius Henry (South Carolina), all of whom had to sit this year out for the NCAA-mandated transfer year.

Johnson and Henry have two years of eligibility remaining, while Powell has three. And with only senior Rohan Brown graduating from this year’s eight-man rotation, the Explorers will go from a team with very little depth--and a 6-19 record--to one with plenty of it next season.

“I think it’s going to be a good situation,” Phiri said. “All of those transfers are good, so we should definitely be able to help the program out and turn it around.”

A native of Harare, Zimbabwe, Phiri moved to upstate New York with his parents when he was just three years old. By middle school, he’d picked up basketball, and started taking it seriously when a friend invited him to join his AAU team, Visionary Basketball Club, in seventh grade.

By his freshman year of high school, the physical 6-foot-4 wing was playing with adidas-sponsored Mass Rivals on the AAU circuit and had turned into a bona-fide Division I prospect.

This season, he’s averaging 12 points, five rebounds and three assists per game for 31-1 Putnam Science, where he’s spending his final year after previously attending Worcester Academy (Mass.). By the time of his decision he’d piled up offers from Duquesne, Fordham, UMass, Delaware, Quinnipiac and more, all of whom loved his combination of size and ability.

“The best way to define Saul, is he’s a scorer,” Mass Rivals 17U coach Vin Pastore said. “He’s an exceptional scorer of the basketball who can score it in multiple ways. He shoots it from very deep, can score from very deep, he’s got a mid-range game, he can score it off the bounce as well. I think that’s a separator for him. There’s a lot of guys that can do a lot of things, but he can really score.”

His skillset and college-ready body should body well in Giannini’s offensive system, as the Explorers’ 13th-year head coach loves to have multiple guards with scoring ability on the court at one time.

By his sophomore season, when current juniors Jordan Price (18.9 ppg) and Cleon Roberts (12.3 ppg) have graduated, Phiri should become a featured player in a backcourt that will also have senior point guards Johnnie Shuler (10.0 ppg) and Amar Stukes (5.2 ppg), plus juniors Powell and 6-5 wing Karl Harris (2.8 ppg).

“To add the fact that he can score the ball, he really knows how to play which means they’ll be able to give him the freedom to go make basketball plays,” Pastore said. “He’s such a threat to score, he’s going to be able to make other people better because of it.”

Phiri got a good idea of what it’ll be like to go to school and play basketball in Philadelphia through several area prospects who are attending prep school with him.

Former Martin Luther King big man Tyere Marshall, a Rider commit who’s doing a prep year at Putnam Science, was particularly helpful.

“They said they like it a lot, it was a good experience, the basketball there is really good,” he said. “Tyere Marshall, he lives not too far away from La Salle, actually, so he told me it was pretty good up there.”