As the season approaches every team has questions. This series is going to look at three key ones.
1. How does the late addition of Lamont “Momo” Jones impact team chemistry? – Iona is getting a number of new additions to the roster this season, including Arizona transfer Jones, who was granted a hardship waiver by the NCAA. But Jones isn’t the only player the Gaels add to their roster. Ra’Shad James also will need to find some minutes. Here’s the thing, 76.8 percent of Iona’s offensive possession minutes return, including the two big usage guys – Mike Glover and Scott Machado.
Jones used 22 percent of Arizona’s possessions when he was on the court last season, second on the team behind Derrick Williams. He’s not a ball hog, but he is a guy that needs the ball in his hands to be effective. What will Jones’ role be? Can he and Machado play together in the backcourt? I think that answer to both could quite logically be “Yes.” Jones is a combo type guard that wants to get to the basket, whereas Machado is more your classic pass-first point guard. Those skills should complement each other and when you put Glover on the block and Kyle Smyth on a wing you’ve got the makings of an incredibly dangerous offense.
2. Who helps Glover out in the frontcourt? — At 6’7” Glover is the third tallest player on the Iona roster. The Gaels don’t have much size that can impact a basketball game. The expectation is that junior college transfer Taaj Ridley will take some of the burden off of Glover in the frontcourt. He’ll have to if the Gaels want to beat some tougher opponents like Purdue and possibly Temple in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off.
Jon Rothstein tweeted that he heard the 6’1” James played some minutes at the power forward spot during Iona’s scrimmage against Rutgers. That’s both encouraging and troubling. It means that the Gaels were probably able to control tempo and run against a young Rutgers team, but it also makes me wonder how much Tim Cluess trusts Ridley, Nyandigsi Moikubo, Kristian Duravcevic and Josh Gomez to make an impact this season.
3. What happens when a team slows the Gaels down? – Pace actually had a negative correlation with offensive efficiency overall for Iona last season (-0.20). That’s surprising because Iona was a team that liked to play fast – an adjusted tempo of 69.3 possessions per game, 49th in the nation. The story though is different if you just look at MAAC play. There pace had almost the exact opposite correlation (+0.23). In every loss during league play Iona was held below its average season pace. That includes three particularly slow losses to Siena (64 possessions, 74-67), Fairfield (63 possessions, 75-71) and St. Peter’s (63 possessions, 62-57).
The last one is particularly worrisome. The Stags and Gaels will compete for the conference championship and the advantages Fairfield seems to have are a taller roster (well, Ryan Olander at least) and the ability to slow the tempo of the game down with Sydney Johnson’s version of the Princeton Offense. How Iona prepares for such a scenario could make or break its season.
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