La Salle’s new hoops GM prefers an analog approach to navigating the new world of college recruiting

Safet Kastrat sits at his desk in the La Salle men’s basketball office on the top floor of the TruMark Financial Center. In front of him is a spiral-bound notebook with a neatly handwritten list of players La Salle is targeting in the transfer portal. Kastrat says he hasn’t had the time to get a computer onto his desk yet.

“A lot of it is on pen and paper,” Kastrat said.

It’s an old-school approach for someone who understands the complexities of college basketball recruiting in the era of the NCAA’s transfer portal. Kastrat, 27, is La Salle’s first general manager, tasked with rebuilding the Explorers for new coach Darris Nichols — and serving as an assistant coach.

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Forward Mac Etienne and guard Eric Acker are the only holdovers from La Salle’s team this offseason. Newcomers will fill the remaining spots on the 2025-26 roster. Nichols brought over a few players from his old post at Radford, including forward Josiah Harris, guard Truth Harris, and incoming freshman guard Ashton Walker.

For the rest, La Salle will scour the portal. It’s difficult for Kastrat, as the Explorers have the smallest NIL budget in the Atlantic 10. To have the resources they need, Kastrat plans to get creative with fundraising and player recruitment.

In addition to talent evaluation, Kastrat is responsible for doing a “deep dive” into the backgrounds of players La Salle targets at the high school, junior college, and college levels. On his morning commute to La Salle’s campus from his Mercer County, N.J., home, Kastrat works the phones.

“I call players on my way in,” Kastrat said. “I call families on my way in. I call AAU coaches, high school coaches. I call everyone needed to gain intel on a prospective player. [Everyone] that’s important in that person’s life.”

Kastrat has a good record of evaluating talent. He was the lead recruiter on guard Deuce Jones, who is from the same neighborhood as Kastrat in Trenton, N.J. Jones, who won A-10 Rookie of the Year with the Explorers last season, is now in the transfer portal. He is expected to land at a major program for hefty NIL compensation. Kastrat knows some of the talent he evaluates will play themselves into a new opportunity, like Jones has.

“[Jones is] getting recruited all over the country now,” Kastrat said. “For me, that’s the motivation.”

Kastrat might not be as well-connected as former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski, now the GM at A-10 rival St. Bonaventure. But almost a decade in coaching at different levels has allowed Kastrat to build a network of players, coaches, and, most importantly, agents.

Still in his 20s, Kastrat got an early start on coaching. He landed his first job while a student at Mercer County Community College, and later, Jonathan Stone later brought the 18-year-old onto his coaching staff at Princeton’s Hun School.

He’s since made stops at Rider, where he earned his degree while a special assistant to head coach Kevin Baggett. He became the director of player development for Nichols at Radford and moved to La Salle as a video coordinator and director of recruiting for Fran Dunphy. He remained on staff for the Explorers until last season, stepping away for “strictly financial” reasons.

Kastrat feels that his experience growing up in Trenton let him develop the skills to feel comfortable in any setting. He can convince businesspeople in boardrooms to buy into La Salle and can convince players in living rooms to do the same.

“It’s nice to be able to walk into a boardroom and be able to talk with executives,” Kastrat said. “That’s part of my job. It’s great to go recruiting and drive to Camden, Trenton, Newark, and have to go sit in someone’s home in a project housing building, sit down and talk with them.”

Another tool Kastrat has is a knack for maintaining relationships. When he left Radford for La Salle, Kastrat and Nichols “spoke every single day.” When La Salle missed out on Etienne, a former top-50 recruit, in his first portal trip, Kastrat could have abandoned his relationship with Etienne.

Instead, Kastrat maintained a relationship that dates back eight years to when he met Etienne at the Jim Couch National Training Showcase in the Bronx. It paid off for the Explorers, who landed Etienne in the portal after a one-year stint at DePaul.

“I’ve known [Kastrat] since I was a lot younger,” Etienne said. “I had a lot of trust in him.”

Etienne is not the only player who owes a second (or third) opportunity to Kastrat. He led La Salle’s charge to land guard Corey McKeithan in the transfer portal after four seasons at Rider. McKeithan was a medical redshirt as a freshman with the Broncs in 2019-20, Kastrat’s last year on staff. McKeithan scored more points in his graduate season at La Salle (526) than in three healthy seasons at Rider (448).

“I feel so fulfilled because his parents thank me,” Kastrat said. “You know, ‘Thank you for making this happen. The kid is so happy.’ He doubled his average [from] a much lower-level league. You see that, and it makes your heart melt.”

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Kastrat’s knack for keeping in touch is rooted in care for the people he meets through basketball. He says that his introduction to the game of basketball as a middle schooler in Trenton saved his life and brought him away from the “wrong crowds.” Now, he looks to give back by supporting players who come from neighborhoods like his.

“I just want to help people,” Kastrat said. “I feel like in this role, being an assistant coach and a general manager, I feel like I can really, really, really impact a lot of people, especially here. And we also have to win games, too.”

It’s an open secret that managing La Salle in the money-driven college athletics landscape is a challenge. It was a challenge before the introduction of NIL collectives and new transfer rules. In 30 seasons of A-10 basketball, the Explorers have never won the conference’s regular season title or its tournament.

Athletic director Ashwin Puri and president Daniel Allen are making a bet that Nichols can compete on a budget. Nichols led the Highlanders to two 20-win seasons in four seasons at Radford, including a second-place conference finish in 2022-23.

“All his teams were tough,” Kastrat said. “They played hard. They had a chip on their shoulder.”

The style that Nichols’ Radford teams adopted was a reflection of Radford’s position as one of the lowest-budget programs in the Big South. Kastrat compared Radford’s situation in the Big South to La Salle’s in the A-10, where “the top-heavy teams had millions, and [Nichols] had pennies.”

Despite the limited sum in La Salle’s NIL budget, there is belief from the team’s new staff that it can compete for an A-10 title. Kastrat’s role in turning La Salle around centers on bringing players to campus and getting the best out of them.

All he and Nichols’ staff ask for is support.

“La Salle will be successful, and we’re going to turn this thing around,” Kastrat said. “This isn’t the old La Salle that people categorize us with. We’re going to win. … We’re not going to sit here and cry because we’re one of the worst-resourced teams in the league. We’re going to get more money. We’re going to fundraise. We’re going to get people behind us, but we need the support. We can’t do this alone.”