Here at Big Apple Buckets we can’t wait for the season to begin. If you don’t believe me just check out my calendar. The two big preview magazines in college basketball are Lindy’s and Athlon. Of course you should also get Basketball Prospectus 2013 at some point, but we’ll discuss that in more depth later. While I recommend you buy all three, here’s some facts to whet your whistle with Lindy’s.
Continue reading “Previewing the preview magazines: Lindy’s”
Big Apple Buckets had the chance to catch up with Iona head coach Tim Cluess on the future of Iowa State transfer Tavon Sledge as well as building a challenging non-conference schedule.
The MAAC is preparing for a wild 2012-13 season. After sending two teams to the NCAA tournament last season the conference is in flux.
Continue reading “Returning Possession Minutes and the MAAC”
It appeared that Iona’s chances at an NCAA tournament bid were over in Springfield a week before Selection Sunday. Following a 85-75 loss to fourth-seeded Fairfield in the MAAC tournament semifinals, Cluess took to the podium and said his team was as good as any for an at-large bid.
By finishing 21-13 (12-6 in the MAAC) and reaching the postseason in 2011-12 Manhattan and head coach Steve Masiello surprised almost everyone. Now comes the hard part, dealing with increased expectations. Most of the core of that team returns, making people in Riverdale hopeful for even more this season.
Continue reading “Masiello and Manhattan preparing for year 2”
Siena played only six players for most of last season, however the resilient Saints were still able to beat third-seeded Manhattan in overtime in the MAAC quarterfinals before falling to eventual conference champion Loyola (MD).
Continue reading “Siena’s Buonaguro excited about deep roster”
Commissioner Rich Ensor and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference became the latest in a multitude of conferences impacted by realignment in late August when Loyola (MD) announced its move to the Patriot League at the start of the 2013-14 school year.
Continue reading “MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor on the state of the conference”
Big Apple Buckets had a chance to catch up with Niagara Head Coach Joe Mihalich and talk about how he expects some of his players develop, his expectations for the season and who he thinks has the most talent in the MAAC coming into this season.
Big Apple Buckets: You return almost everyone who made starts from last season. How do you think you will set your rotation?
Joe Mihalich: The returns are all back. We’re excited about some freshmen but I always like to be, a little in fairness to the freshman, not put pressure on them you know. I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘this kid Tahjere McCall is going to be a surprise and we think T.J. Cline is also good’, I don’t want to do that. I just want to give them a chance to just be freshmen and you know kind of surprise people as oppose to you know. Frank Layden once told me, ‘it’s better to surprise them than disappoint them’ and I thought that was pretty good advice. I’d rather see our freshmen surprise people than me pump them up too much and then they’re going to disappoint somebody.
Big Apple Buckets: We all got to see Juan’ya Green burst onto the scene last season, winning MAAC Rookie of the Year, what do you look forward to seeing improve in his game this season?
Joe Mihalich: Well he’s a hungry guy. You know the great ones, the great ones are never satisfied and you know like what he did last year the accomplishments and so on and so forth. He’s as healthy as he can be in that regard, he’s just not satisfied. He wants to get better, he wants to be a better shooter and that’s why he’s a special player because he’s never satisfied.
He, like a lot of guys on our team, I think they want to become a little more consistent shooting the ball and I know he wants to limit some of his turnovers more.
Big Apple Buckets: Antoine Mason had a great first year as well, what do you see of as the keys for him to develop into a top player in the MAAC?
Joe Mihalich: I mean not to get caught up in numbers, you do look at the numbers a bit and I think all our players would do that too I mean he’s a hungry guy as well and he’s a tough tough kid. And he’s a fearless, fearless guy. We’re hoping that he can, just like all the other guys, do a better job with his shooting percentages and be a little more consistent shooting the ball.
We need somebody to step forward and say they’re going to be a lock down defender, I think if Antoine Mason ever decided to be that guy, he can be a lock down defender.
Big Apple Buckets: Where do you think your areas of improvement need to come from this season?
Joe Mihalich: Frontcourt. Both offensively and defensively, frontcourt has got to be better. Got to rebound more, got to defend more. Frontcourt.
Big Apple Buckets: What are you looking forward to when you get your first fall practice with this team?
Joe Mihalich: In general you just can’t wait to get on the floor with these guys, we’re just excited. … Of course if you’re not excited at this time of the year you shouldn’t be doing what we do but we just cant wait to get together with them and start getting to work.
Big Apple Buckets: What are the three keys to this season, the three things that will be the difference for your team to have a successful season?
Joe Mihalich: Rebound better, defend better and I would say shoot better. Let’s go ahead and say shoot better.
Big Apple Buckets: Where will you set expectations for this season?
Joe Mihalich: I’m going to sound like every other coach in the country and say we don’t care about everybody elses expectations it’s more about our expectations. Our expectations are that we can be one of the better teams in the league. But our league, you know, our league … Almost every member of our league can feel that they can win it all this year and they should because there’s going to be a lot of teams that are good.
Big Apple Buckets: Who would you peg right now as the team to beat?
Joe Mihalich: I’m going to say Loyola (MD) and Manhattan because everybody’s saying that but Canisius has the most talent in the whole league. They got more talent than anybody else, Canisius.
They had three kids sitting out last year, one kid started at Kansas State [Freddy Asprilla], one kid started at Central Florida [Issac Sosa] and the other kid was a NAIA 6’10” shot blocking player [Jordan Heath]. They got an all-conference kid coming back in Harold Washington and Baron’s son [Billy Baron, Rhode Island transfer] got the waiver. That’s a pretty good five right there isn’t it?
Big Apple Buckets had a chance to catch up with Marist Head Coach Chuck Martin and talk about how he expects some of his players develop as well as his expectations for the coming season.
Big Apple Buckets: What parts of Adam Kemp’s game do you think he needs to improve at to help this team take that next step?
Chuck Martin: I think he’s got to rebound the ball a little bit better. Not that he did a poor job, he averaged close to 8 rebounds a night and he’s the second returning rebounder in the MAAC. So it’s not like he was awful but for him to become an elite player and for us to get to the top of the league he’s got to rebound, he’s got to go get 10 rebounds a night which he’s capable of doing. He’s at 7.8, close to 8 a night so he’s got to figure out a way to get two more rebounds. If he can do that, I think that his offense has come a long way but I think that if he can rebound the ball a little bit better and establish himself in the low post more consistently, I think he’s a heck of a talent. I think all the coaches in the league would agree, that they would love to have him. He has developed into one of the best centers if not top two in the MAAC.
Big Apple Buckets: Isaiah Morton was impressive in his first season stepping into the starting lineup, where do you see him improving as a sophomore?
Chuck Martin: He was tremendous, man. To ask a freshman to come in and start from day one is tough enough let alone come in and start at that position, the point guard position. Everything was new to him, offensive sets, spacing philosophy, defensive schemes so every day when he got on the court was a learning experience. I think that the game will slow down for him more as a sophomore. He’ll be familiar with our offense and with our defensive schemes but he is very, very, very talented.
He’s great in transition, he understands he has to get better with his decision making and he has to get better defensively. Those are the two areas where he’s got to improve: decision making and defense. But he’s a tremendous talent, he’s really really good.
Big Apple Buckets: As your tenure at Marist has continued, we have seen your team push the ball more in transition, do you anticipate playing even more transition basketball this season?
Chuck Martin: Absolutely. We get bigger, longer, more athletic kids. We’re going to push harder, we’re going to run harder. But the one thing that I like is on the nights where we couldn’t run we became a better half court offensive team which was really exciting for me. You want to get out in transition but if you can’t for whatever reason if it’s one of those nights, can you play half court basketball and we were able to do that. It was fun to watch our guys grow in the month of February and really execute in the half court as well.
Big Apple Buckets: People in the MAAC took notice when Marist went 6-3 in February and won a game in the MAAC Tournament after struggling in January, what do you think was the key to that turnaround?
Chuck Martin: I just think they were young, they were freshman. I think people remember the 7 out of 9 wins last year, they remember the month of January where we lost 8 in a row but they forgot about the six wins in December. We were .500 in December. We have not lost a game in the month of December at home. So we did some good things before February, the month of December was good to us, especially at home. January was not as good and February was tremendous. And I just think when you start two freshmen and two sophomores you just ran into a wall. You just ran into a wall in January and it took them three to four weeks to make the adjustment of college basketball which they did in February and really took off.
I think we were pretty good in December, I thought the schedule became a little bit tougher in league play because people know you they know your tendencies, they know what you want to run. Our young guys did not understand how to make adjustments when other teams made adjustments quick enough or fast enough so it took us three weeks to educate these guys on this is what happens know. People know you’re a driver, they’re going to play in the lane. People know you’re a shooter, they’re going to close you out hard and now you’ve got to make an adjustment to their adjustment, and it took us a little bit longer than we wanted to get these guys to learn that but thank God that they did, they learned it at the end of January and then took off in February.
Big Apple Buckets: What are you looking forward to most when you get to have your first official fall practice?
Chuck Martin: I think I’m most excited about what this team is going to look like defensively, that first official practice. What we’re going to look like defensively and how we’ll be able to generate offense through our defense. That’s the one thing that really excites me. When we have our first practice, having all 13 scholarship players on the floor and physically looking at how much bigger, stronger and quicker we’ve gotten in recruiting. And really seeing we’re going to be a really good defensive team and we’re going to turn our defense into offense that’s what I’m looking forward to.
Big Apple Buckets: What are the three keys to this season, the three things that will be the difference for your team to have a successful season?
Chuck Martin: I think we have to eliminate distractions, I think that’s one of the most important things in any really good program at any level in any league. The teams that eliminate distractions are the teams that are most focused on the task at hand and those distractions can be academic issues, off the court issues, in the locker room: I think distractions is number one. You have to have energy every day, you have to bring unbelievable energy and enthusiasm to your team. I think understanding our roles, guys buying into their roles, really buying into their roles and understanding who they are. I’ll give you another one the last thing is really have no fear; have no fear of the challenge ahead of us have no fear of opposing teams and then just going out there and let it all hang it out on the court and see what happens.
Tim Cluess thinks he’s got another talented team at Iona this season, or at least that’s what today’s reveal of the Gaels’ non-conference schedule appears to reveal. While Iona is only guaranteed to play three major conference opponents, there are opportunities galore to score big wins against marquee mid-majors. There’s also no real let down on the schedule.
Continue reading “Iona releases challenging non-conference schedule”
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