Barons and Wins Bringing Everyone Together at Canisius

When Jim Baron became the next head coach at Canisius in April he was inheriting a team with plenty of talent sitting out. He has brought that group together and the Golden Griffins are off to a 6-1 start, the school’s best since the 1973-74 season.

Baron said working with a group that included eight new players, four transfers, two freshmen and two sophomores has led to intense practices.

“The practices have been pretty competitive,” Baron said. “We’re working each day to get better but it’s still early. We’ve got a long way to go to just build chemistry and build consistency.”

Building that chemistry has been aided by the six-win start, already beating last year’s win total of five.

Senior Harold Washington, last season a second-team All-MAAC player and last year’s returning scorer, said Baron came in with a defense first attitude.

“The first thing coach Baron came in and preached to us was how important defense was,” Washington said. “He told us we could score all the points in the world, it didn’t mean anything if we didn’t start off with trying to stop people and get stops. I think the mentality changed once he came in.”

For a team that ranked near the bottom in every defensive category in finishing 1-17 in the MAAC last season, not only was there a mentality change but a thorough change to the roster. Eight new players entered the mix for playing time. Freddy Asprilla, Issac Sosa and Jordan Heath joined the team after sitting out the 2011-12 season due to transfer requirements and Baron’s son, Billy, became part of the mix in April then received a waiver from the NCAA to play right away.

“I knew I was coming in to a veteran team who wanted to win very badly,” Billy Baron said. “That was a big part in me coming here along with my father being the coach here. But seeing the guys, knowing in the back of my mind there’s a chance to get some W’s and have a good season and have a good experience, that was big.”

“I saw a great situation and a great opportunity at Canisius and so I took it.”

The opportunity for Billy was to assume the point guard spot right away and work with a versatile team that included shooters like Washington and Sosa to go with athletic big men like Heath and Asprilla.

“I saw Harold’s ability, I saw a guy like Jordan who doesn’t come around very often. A guy with that size, that length with that coordination and being able to shoot the ball from the outside and alter the game in many ways,” Billy Baron said. “Issac can shoot the crap out the ball and Freddy’s starting to come along a little bit but aside from that it’s the same thing.”

“Everybody’s very hungry to win, that’s the type of guys I want to be around. I want to win but I want people around me to want to win even more than I do. Everyone’s learned from their past, everyone with the same goal we can accomplish a lot and hopefully we can accomplish the goals we set out for our team this year.”

Washington said he remembered when Billy came in that the younger Baron’s willingness to win and bring the team together helped them accept him into the fold right away.

“We didn’t have time to waste with little petty issues,” Washington said. “We had to introduce Billy with open arms because we were a losing team and we wanted to win now.”

“I felt like our biggest thing was accepting everybody and making everybody feel welcome so we can gain team camaraderie and a sense of knowing that everybody has each others’ back.”

The Griffs have grown quickly, winning six of their first seven games, and broke a 13-game conference losing streak by starting 2-0 in the MAAC. Canisius won consecutive road games in the MAAC for the first time since the 2006-07 season by registering wins at Fairfield and Marist. In their win over the Red Foxes, the Golden Griffins set a school record with 17 three pointers made, six of them coming from Washington.

“Sunday was like every other day in practice,” Billy Baron said. “I didn’t even realize we hit 17 three’s. I didn’t realize that because I’ve seen that every day in practice. I know we’re definitely capable of doing that.”

Billy Baron said he’s had to work on setting up his teammates and finding them in the right spots.

“For instance last game Harold’s got it going, you got to keep going to him and as a point guard that’s something I’ve got to do,” Baron said. “Something I’ve got to do is continue to feed the hot hand or even know if someone needs a shot get someone open, set up a play to get someone open, get them going too.”

“That’s big because if we want to win this league, accomplish some of these things, we need everyone on the same page. We need everyone rolling. It’s got to be everyone who’s got to have confidence and be aggressive and score.”

Washington said that when he was practicing last year with a group that included players sitting out for the season like Asprilla, Heath and Sosa he knew that this Canisius was going to be more competitive this season.

“Some days in practice they would pretty much bury us,” Washington said. “They’re coming out playing making shots, making plays that I felt they could and things that we needed last year and we’re getting them out of them this year. Freddy [Asprilla] hasn’t really got going yet but once he does that will be another addition to what I saw last year.”

While Washington have both adjusted to new parts around them on the same team, Washington says playing with Billy Baron running point has forced him to make an adjustment compared to past guards he’s played with.

“Billy is a very good point guard,” Washington said. “Coming in, during the summer, we didn’t have a good feel for each other but now I know that with Billy I have to keep moving, he’ll find you.”

“Last year I kind of stood still a little bit when I didn’t have the ball but now I’m learning to play, move without the ball. It wasn’t too much of an adjustment but it was a few small things that I had to get used to doing.”

Not only did Canisius score a season-high 94 points in their win Sunday at Marist, but they also pulled down a season-high 51 rebounds and including 21 offensive boards. The current three-game win streak for the Griffs, following a road loss to Stony Brook on Thanksgiving weekend, showed how well Canisius could adjust.

“I think the big adjustment since that game honestly been our big men,” Billy Baron said. “Especially Chris Manhertz who has been on the boards like crazy since that game.”

Manhertz, one of the four returning players from last year’s team along with Washington, averaged 7 points and 7 rebounds per game in 2011-12. In the last three games, all Canisius wins, Manhertz has pulled down double-digit rebounds, including a career-high 18 rebounds against Marist.

“”Everyone’s confidence is starting to elevate which is big so if we continue to make shots and crash the boards and eliminate second chances I think we’ll be alright,” Billy Baron said.

Off to a 2-0 start in the first time in his career, Washington said he is confident about how the MAAC season will play out.

“I think that the season isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon and as long as we can continue to build everyday on the success that we’ve had in the past I think we can be pretty good in the conference,” Washington said. “We can make a strong finish that continues into the postseason but that all depends on how hard we work and how hard we want it.”

“We can do it but we’ve just got to make sure we put in the work, there’ can’t be no excuses, I feel very strongly about our possibilities in conference.”

“We can’t hit our peak now, we have to hit our peak in March,” Billy Baron said. “I think we’re on our way there. Any team throughout the season there’s going to be adversity and as long as we keep making improvements, which I think we’ve already done in these first seven games, I think we learned a lot from that Stony Brook loss on the road. As long as we keep making these improvements and coming together I think the sky’s the limit for us.”

Ryan Restivo covers the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.