La Salle had one its best seasons under Mountain MacGillivray, but consistency will be hard to sustain
The Explorers’ 19 wins marked the most by the women's team since MacGillivray was hired in 2018. However, with La Salle's best two players in the portal, it’s difficult to “to ride this momentum.”
This season, the Big 5 — both men and women — saw a resurgence after floundering in recent years. Between the 12 programs, six participated in postseason tournaments. The last women’s team eliminated? La Salle.
After accepting their first Women’s NIT bid in 34 years, the Explorers (19-14, 10-8 Atlantic 10) made it to the 48-team tournament’s Super 16 round, where they fell, 74-63, to Army, which closed out an unexpected campaign. In the previous two seasons, the Explorers had finished a combined 18-45.
“We had a team this year that all the players in the gym every day were really committed to each other, and that was a lot of fun to coach, a lot of fun for them to play,” coach Mountain MacGillivray said.
» READ MORE: La Salle’s season ends with a 74-63 loss to Army in the WNIT
The Explorers’ winning record in conference play did not come easily, either. This season, the A-10 saw five teams — including St. Joseph’s — log 20 or more wins. And for the second straight year, the conference had two teams make the NCAA Tournament. This year, Rhode Island and Richmond received bids.
“This is a really, really good basketball league,” MacGillivray said. “If UConn wasn’t in the Big East, I’d take [the A10] over the Big East. Unfortunately, UConn is in the Big East. That does change things.”
The Explorers’ 19 wins marked the most by the team since MacGillivray was hired in 2018. Under the Philadelphia native, La Salle has finished above .500 three times. Against Binghamton in the second round of the WNIT, MacGillivray earned his 100th win as a head coach — a milestone he is not writing home about.
“I’ve been coaching for 30 years, I was Barry Kirsch’s assistant at Archbishop Carroll for 13 years. We won — I don’t know how many games — but did I not win those games?” said MacGillivray, jokingly. “And then I was the assistant at Vermont, and we went to the NCAA Tournament and lost to Tulane in the first round. Did I not get those wins? It’s a team game all the way through. To me, talking about a head coach’s wins only shows one thing in my mind, that the head coach kept his job.”
Finding ‘tomorrow’s starting pitcher’
Even after a season that MacGillivray referred to as “refreshing,” winning could not stave off the reality of the current college basketball landscape.
As of Thursday morning, the women’s transfer portal has seen more than 1,300 Division I entries — the majority presumably looking for a larger payday. La Salle is no exception. The mid-major program’s best two players have entered the portal: guards Aryss Macktoon and Ashleigh Connor. Macktoon, a redshirt junior, notched 15 points, 7.6 rebounds and 2 assists per game this season. For a La Salle offense that finished seventh in the A-10 in total offense, Macktoon was a go-to player. In the Explorer’s WNIT victory against Binghamton, she scored a team-high 22 points. The 5-foot-11 guard also averaged 3.2 steals and was named the conference’s defensive player of the year.
Meanwhile, Connor averaged a team-high 15.8 points and 3.9 assists. Alongside Macktoon, she was named to the A-10’s all-conference second team. La Salle was the redshirt junior’s second collegiate stop after spending two years at St. Louis.
“Simple fact is if a kid’s going to get 50 grand to go play somewhere else, it’s going to be hard to compete with that,” MacGillivray said. “Can’t really tell you how much the carryover is going to be. I’d love to just sit here … like, ‘Oh man, we’re going to ride this momentum into the next season, and we’re going to be the top team in the Atlantic 10.’ I can’t say that.”
MacGillivray has found some comfort in the names that have not entered the portal. Namely, he mentioned sophomore guard Joan Quinn, who averaged 11.2 points alongside redshirt freshman guard Lauren Patnode and freshman forward Amiya Moses. He described this core as “a great starting place.”
MacGillivray plans to be active in the portal to remain competitive in the A-10.
“You’re only as good as tomorrow’s starting pitcher, we’re only going to be as good as our roster is next year,” he said.