By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
Steve Zack on his career high: “It means nothing right now. My career is over on a buzzer beater.” Other side of March. #A10MBB
— Ray Curren (@currenrr) March 13, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsReally, it was a season of unmet expectations for the Explorers. Just two years prior they had reached the Sweet 16 behind the play of Ramon Galloway and a host of others. Now, after a down year, senior big men Jerrell Wright and Steve Zack were expected to, if not return La Salle to the tournament, at least have the team competitive in the Atlantic 10. Transfers Jordan Price and Cleon Roberts were joining the team to replace graduates Tyreek Duren and Tyrone Garland on the perimeter, and all the pieces were in place for an effective and balanced roster.
Instead, the Explorers struggled mightily on the offensive end all season, limiting them from putting together any consistent stretch of winning basketball. For a team that should have funneled the offense through its forwards for easy buckets, La Salle shot an extremely inefficient 42% from the field, not helped by its 32.1% mark from behind the arc. Price and Roberts both shot under 40% from the field, but Zack was particularly ineffective for a 6’11” big man at just 44.6%. Though Zack was a very good rebounder on the defensive end (grabbing 9.2 boards per game), I would have liked to see Coach Giannini get more creative with his big man tandem offensively. Their fallback option of having Zack consistently hover around the free throw line with Wright on the block never seemed to be the most inspired set to maximize both players’ abilities.
When it was all said and done, La Salle finished under .500 in conference play and sported just a 17-16 record on the season. Not at all what the team aspired for heading into the year, and certainly not meeting expectations considering none of the Explorers’ top 6 leading scorers even missed so much as a single game.
Still, there were some good things to take away from the season. At 12.1 ppg and 6 rpg, Wright received All-Big 5 second team honors, and finished 8th in school history in rebounding and with the 2nd-best career FG% (56.1%). More importantly for the future of the program, redshirt sophomore Price, in his first season after his transfer, was named to the All-Big 5 first team and All-Atlantic 10 second team. He led the Explorers at 17.2 ppg and was the team’s best 3-point shooter among the regulars at 34%.
Congrats to Jordan Price & Jerrell Wright for being named All-Big 5 today! #LaSalleMBB pic.twitter.com/5sxr0izVLe
— La Salle Athletics (@GoExplorers) March 23, 2015
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La Salle will need even more from Price as the focus of the team shifts fully to the perimeter in 2015-16. Unfortunately, what was ostensibly the strength of the team this past season, the frontcourt, will become the weakest component of the Explorers roster in the upcoming campaign. With Wright and Zack both graduating, La Salle has practically zero experience waiting in the wings to replace them. Redshirt freshman Tony Washington only played a little under 3 minutes per game this season; at 6’10”, he was the only other player on the roster taller than 6’7″ aside from the departing seniors.
Coach Giannini will also be counting on Yevgen Sakhniuk, a 6’7″ 3-star recruit out of the Ukraine. Sakhniuk only had 3 years of eligiblity, so La Salle opted to have that clock start ticking for him as a sophomore this upcoming season. He’s expected to bring a versatile all-around game to the Explorers. The only other potential difference maker on the interior is incoming freshman Rokas Ulvydas. Ulvydas is a 6’11” center originally from Lithuania. Just a 2-star recruit, it’s unlikely he’s a huge difference maker, but the Explorers will need the big body in the rotation.
It would also help if point guard Amar Stukes took a big leap forward in what will be his sophomore season. Jordan Price often worked as the de-facto ball handler last season, but he’s not a true point guard. Stukes stepping up to run the offense would help Price and Roberts get better looks on the wings and do a lot for the team’s efficiency as a whole. The Explorers will also have rising senior Khalid Lewis running the point a bit, but he’s essentially established as a low ceiling alternative at this point of his career. Stukes has to be the guy for La Salle to see any sort of incremental improvement next season.
Nevertheless, 2015 would look to be a step back for the La Salle program, losing 2 of the team’s 3 best players and not much present in the way of immediate reinforcements. However, Explorers fans can look toward the 2016 season, when B.J. Johnson, a transfer from Syracuse, will be eligible to play as a redshirt junior. A 6’7″ wing, Johnson couldn’t carve out the playing time he would have liked with the Orange, but the Lower Merion graduate led his high school to the Pennsylvania state title. The Explorers will anticipate Johnson becoming an impact player similar to how fellow transfer Price made an immediate difference this past season. Johnson will join then-to-be seniors Price and Roberts and a hopefully improved through experience frontcourt for what projects as La Salle’s next best chance to be relevant in 2016.
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