Don’t get Darris Nichols wrong. Offense is important. So is getting stops.

But there’s a reason the new La Salle coach has his team playing for a chain each practice that proclaims “Rebound that jawn,” a reference to a distinctly Philadelphia word to refer to an unnamed thing.
In this case, it’s a basketball. And Philly’s basketball reputation has long centered on toughness and grit, two other traits Nichols wants the Explorers to exemplify.

“It’s hard to build an environment and culture of toughness,” Nichols said. “You have to really, really recruit to it and that’s what we felt like we did this year with the roster we’ve assembled.”

La Salle is one of several teams in the league that probably required nametags for the first few days of summer workouts. The coach is new to the neighborhood, too; Nichols played at West Virginia and made coaching stops at Northern Kentucky, Wofford, Louisiana Tech and Florida before spending the last four seasons as Radford’s coach.

After winning 20 games twice in the last three years, he found the possibilities at La Salle --- which opened a refurbished arena last season and is seeking its first NCAA tournament trip since 2013 --- irresistible.

“The A-10 is a really strong league, one of the best leagues in the country,” Nichols said. “I’ve always evaluated people. My college coach used to say your best resources in life are people. When I went through the interview process and interacted with the administration --- [athletic director] Ash Puri, [president] Dan Allen --- everybody I came in contact with, I felt a shared vision of getting the program on the map but also the excitement for building the university.”

The Nichols Era is in its nascent stages. But just as there’s a plan at a department level, there’s one within the basketball program, too. And there’s little doubt it will start with rebounding.

“I just think rebounding travels,” Nichols said. “I think if you rebound at a high level, you’re always going to be in every game. You want to defend, you want to score, but if you look at a lot of games where teams end up losing, it’s a result of not getting a defensive rebound.”
 

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A look at the Explorers

Coach: Darris Nichols, first season at La Salle, 68-63 in four seasons overall.

Last year: Fran Dunphy’s final team at La Salle was 12-10 overall and 4-5 in the Atlantic 10 at the midpoint of league play, but the Explorers endured an eight-game slide before winning their home finale against Saint Joseph’s and a first-round A-10 Championship game over Massachusetts. La Salle finished 14-19 overall and 5-13 in the league.

They’ll miss: La Salle underwent a nearly complete roster reconstruction, and Corey McKeithan (15.9 ppg) was the Explorers’ top scorer. But considering Deuce Jones II (12.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 2.8 apg), the Atlantic 10’s rookie of the year last season, transferred across town to league rival Saint Joseph’s, there’s a chance his loss could sting a bit whenever the teams meet this season.

Impact returners: The only player back from last season is junior guard Eric Acker, who averaged 5.2 points and 1.6 rebounds in 18 games after transferring in from Long Island.
But the guys who are functioning as returnees are the ones who played for Nichols at Radford. Forward Justin Archer (8.6 ppg, 7.9 rpg in 2023-24) played in three games at Georgia State but was at Radford the two years prior.

Fellow grad transfer Truth Harris (8.9 ppg, 2.3 rpg) was a part-time starter for Nichols last season. And Josiah Harris (8.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.1 bpg) is a sixth-year player with two seasons already in Nichols’ system.

“The most important conversations, I think when you’re a coach, is when your players are away from you, the conversations they have with each other,” Nichols said. “Some of these guys who never played for us have teammates they can rely on and say ‘OK, this is probably what coach wants’ or ‘This is the expectation and the standard.’”

Newcomers of note: Jerome Brewer Jr. is a Camden, N.J., native who averaged 13.8 points and 4.7 rebounds at East Texas A&M two seasons ago before redshirting at McNeese last winter. Now the 6-foot-9, 220-pounder is back home and delivering the sort of intangibles Nichols was keen to add.

“He’s kind of like our spirit animal,” Nichols said. “He gets practice going.”

In addition to Brewer and the contingent with Radford ties, La Salle also picked up three double-digit scorers at the Division I level last season: Forward Noah Collier (12.2 ppg, 5.0 rpg at William & Mary), guard Josué Grullon (12.2 ppg at Tennessee-Martin) and guard Jaeden Marshall (10.3 ppg at Niagara).

Reasons to be optimistic: While it’s hard to know what an almost entirely new team is going to look like, it seems like Nichols has options and won’t have a top-heavy team.
And that’s by design.

“I always want my teams to be deep,” Nichols said. “When you have depth, you can hold people accountable. When you look at the NBA and the teams that are good now, they play like 11 guys. The season is 82 games and you have three stars and they can’t make that long season, so you better have depth. I’m kind of taking on the same kind of DNA that a lot of NBA teams are trending toward.”
X factor: Nichols had to wait a year longer than he initially wanted, but he gets to coach Jaden Johnson this season.

Johnson chose Old Dominion over Radford, then started 34 games and averaged 8.6 points and 3.7 assists as a freshman. And while he still has some maturing to do as a player, he has a chance to be a central figure for the Explorers this season.

“When he entered the portal, he was scared to call us because he thought we were mad at him,” Nichols said. “I wasn’t mad at him because people tell us no all the time. We called him and he was excited about it because he always wanted to play in the A-10. He always thought he was an A-10-level player and we did, too. I think the biggest thing he learned this summer was how to be a point guard. I don’t think the point guard is a position; I think it’s a mentality.”

Circle the date: Nichols’ first season at La Salle begins Nov. 5 as Coppin State visits Glaser Arena. The highlight of the nonconference slate is a Nov. 19 visit from Villanova as part of the Explorers’ Big 5 schedule.

Bottom line: Energy will be an asset as La Salle embarks on Nichols’ tenure. It’s hard to fully gauge how all the pieces will fit together, but if the Explorers can generate consistent offense to go with their rugged work on the glass, they could be a lot more than just pesky as the season unfolds.