PHILADELPHIA – Although the losing result is what hurts Darris Nichols the most, he’s seeing improvement from his Explorers as La Salle turns the page on 2025, and gets into conference play.
After three straight losses, including a 52-point thrashing at the hands of second-ranked Michigan last week, the Explorers led for a large majority of Wednesday’s matinee against 12-1 George Mason. However, their offense cooled off in the second half, and Tony Skinn’s group clawed their way back to win, handing La Salle an 80-75 loss in Nichols’ inaugural Atlantic-10 game.
“We have to make better decisions down the stretch,” Nichols said. “From the four-minute media timeout on, some of the decisions we made weren’t great. Offensively and defensively for the most part, I told the guys in the locker room that we’re getting better.”
The La Salle program is and will continue to be a work in progress as Nichols navigates his first season at the helm at 20th and Olney. At a program that many deem to be a difficult one to win at, Nichols is still laying the foundation for his vision of what the Explorers can be. However, the injury bug has ravaged La Salle in the early portion of the season, and as a result, a laundry list of players have been relegated to the training table rather than the court.
Couple this with a roster that features just one returning player in Eric Acker from a season ago, and it’s only made things more difficult for the Explorers program as a whole.
However, despite all of the off the court stuff, as well as taking their lumps on the hardwood, Nichols sees that his team is in a better spot than when they started their season nearly two months ago.
Turnovers were a thorn in the side of La Salle in the non-conference portion of their season. The Explorers were 342nd in offensive turnover percentage, according to KenPom, entering Wednesday’s game. That can be attributed to the missed time by both graduate student Truth Harris, who missed eight games after an injury in their season opener, and Old Dominion transfer Jaden Johnson, who had missed La Salle’s first 13 games before suiting up for the first time Wednesday.
Johnson dished out five assists and recorded zero turnovers, playing 26 minutes and getting the starting nod in his first game back from injury. For the game, La Salle gave the ball away just four times, not only a season low, but just the second time all year that the Explorers had single digit turnovers. Although George Mason registered zero turnovers of their own, Nichols is more focused on the improvement in the turnover department that his team has made.
“Mason had zero turnovers, and that’s hard to do, but I told our team that I see it as a bigger accomplishment that we only had four turnovers from us,” Nichols said. ”We’ve cleaned up a lot of issues, we’ve just got to make better decisions.”
With Johnson not playing, more responsibilities have been delegated to freshman Ashton Walker, who’s logged 11 starts this year, and been thrown into the fire early. Walker’s done an admirable job for a young player, but Johnson’s impact just being out there on the floor is huge. Nichols recruited Johnson hard while he was at Fork Union Military Academy in Virginia, hoping Johnson would play for him at Radford. After Johnson chose Old Dominion out of high school and started 34 of 35 games for the Monarchs a season ago, Nichols is glad that he’s on his team now, valuing the skills that he possesses at the point guard spot.
“He plays off two feet, gets the ball in the paint, and gets the other team in rotations,” said Nichols. “He’s extremely vocal. The intangible part of being a point guard, he does that. He understands what we want. Especially when we have new guys, and even with him being a new guy, he understands what we want to accomplish.”
Also returning from an injury absence was redshirt junior Jerome Brewer Jr., making his return to action after missing the previous five games.
Brewer Jr. scored a season high 21 points, and made three of his six threes, all coming in the second half. Not only is Brewer an offensive engine that the Explorers missed, but for a team that’s sub 300th in the country in 3-point percentage as a team, his floor spacing is much needed too.
Brewer really carried the Explorers’ offense in the second half. The Camden, N.J., native’s three made threes were the only ones that La Salle had in the second half as a team. Additionally, Brewer scored 17 of his 21 points in the second frame, which was over half of La Salle’s points. He made seven of his team’s 10 field goals in the final 20 minutes. Nichols is happy to have his scoring forward back.
“He can space the floor,” Nichols said. “We can run more three out, two in and get more guys space to get downhill. We’ve had limitations with injuries, but with Brewer back we can play more guards than we’ve had in the past.”
Nichols’ desired play style hasn’t been a secret since he took the La Salle job in March. He wants to relentlessly crash the glass, get to the free-throw line and wear the opponent down playing more guys than the team on the other sideline.
La Salle out rebounded George Mason for the game and won 14-8 on the offensive glass.
Nichols’ target number for free throws attempted in a game is 25. The Explorers got there 27 times and converted on 19 of them.
Lastly, La Salle went 10 deep in their rotation, matching the same number of players that George Mason played. If La Salle didn’t have injuries pile up, Nichols would’ve in all likelihood played more. La Salle had a 31-27 advantage in bench points.
Although it’s not showing up in the win column, the play style that Nichols wants on display was evident on Wednesday, making the Explorers’ first-year head coach feel a little bit better despite not getting the result that he wanted.
You can look at La Salle and see that it’s 4-10. Nichols will be the very first to tell you he hates losing, but there were more encouraging signs in the loss to a George Mason team that nearly won the Atlantic 10 tournament a season ago, and now at 13-1, is off to their best start in school history. La Salle will be underdogs way more times than not this season, but it showed the fight necessary to challenge the teams that figure to be at the top of the Atlantic 10.
“I hate losing, but I feel better about how we played and our spirit,” said Nichols. “I’m more positive right now, but we’ve got a quick turnaround here.”
