Last night Manhattan did something it hadn’t done since 2006, win a postseason game. The Jaspers beat Albany 89-79 behind 34 points and 10 rebounds from George Beamon. Continue reading “Manhattan moves onto 2nd round in CIT”
Category: MAAC
Season At A Glance — Iona
This is the seventh of what will eventually be capsules for each of the NYC teams when I’m sure their season has concluded.
Team: Iona
Record: 25-8 (15-3 in the MAAC)
Season High: Winning at Denver
Season Low: Blowing an 18-point lead at Siena (though I’d guess the NCAA loss to BYU hurts more)
Really Good At: Making shots — Iona had the fourth best effective field goal percentage in the nation during the regular season at 56.7%. The Gaels could knock down twos (55.7%, a lot in transition) or threes (39.3%) with the best of the them.
Struggled With: Defensive consistency – For a team with so much talent, Iona struggled quite a bit defensively. The Gaels often gave up easy shots on the opposite end. Against the shorter three-guard lineup Iona often employed rebounds were tough to get.
Key Losses:
- Mike Glover (18.5 PPG, 9.0 RPG, 64.4% FG%, All-MAAC First Team)
- Scott Machado (13.6 PPG, 9.9 APG, 5.0 RPG, 1.6 SPG, MAAC Player of the Year)
- Jermel Jenkins (5.2 PPG, 90.0% FT%)
- Randy Dezouvre (5.0 PPG, 2.8 RPG)
Key Returnees:
- Momo Jones, Jr., G (16.0 PPG, 3.0 APG, All-MAAC Second Team)
- Taaj Ridley, Jr., F (6.9 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 51.4% FG%)
- Sean Armand, So., G (128.7 Offensive Rating – 9th in the country, 46.7% 3PT%)
- Ra’Shad James, Jr., G (3.0 PPG, 1.5 RPG)
- Kyle Smith, Jr., G (5.7 PPG, 93.8% FT%)
Outlook: Different. As Glover and Machado graduate this will become Jones’ team. He’ll still have a host of talented complementary players around him. Armand is a lights out shooter and Smyth can also launch the rock. With Dezouvre and Ridley graduating there might be some changes up front. I’d expect Josh Gomez to see some more playing time next season. It might not quite be the run-and-gun style of this season because the team will be quite a bit younger. Iona never quite reached the level people thought the Gaels might in 2011-12. Those expectations will be gone next season and could free the team to be even more successful while in a dog fight in the MAAC. Iona won’t be the class of the league like it was in 2011-12, when it outscored opponents by 0.21 points per possession, but it should be right there.
Q&A about Albany with UnrankedAE
Manhattan and Albany play tonight at 7 p.m. at SEFCU Arena in Albany in the first round of the CIT. The Jaspers have had the biggest turnaround in Division I and are 20-12. Albany is 19-14. Both teams lost earlier than they wanted in their conference tournament. I asked the guys at UnrankedAE (Matt) and WCDB (Jay) for some more info on the Great Danes.
Iona gives up 25-point lead in stunning loss to BYU
To watch Iona’s NCAA tournament game was to understand the Gaels’ entire season. The dramatic highs and confusing valleys all coalesced into one timeless moment that unfortunately ended in a 78-72 loss to BYU.
Continue reading “Iona gives up 25-point lead in stunning loss to BYU”
Q&A with Brett of Vanquish the Foe
Iona and BYU will play against each other tonight in Dayton for the right to take on Marquette. The Gaels and Cougars were two of the last teams into the tournament, but now its just survive and advance. To learn more about BYU I exchanged questions with Brett from BYU’s SBNation blog Vanquish the Foe.
Why Iona reminds me of VCU
Last season, after losing in the CAA Tournament, VCU got shuffled off the First Four in Dayton. The Rams barely made the field and fans were lashing out about how Shaka Smart’s team managed to get into the field over some more deserving candidates. Then the games started and the critics shut up. VCU rattled off five straight victories before falling to Butler in the Final Four.
MAAC Tourney Predictions
The computer’s MAAC tourney predictions all revolve around one team: Iona. The Gaels dominate everything you’ll in the simulation results. Basically, if you slip past them, whatever round you come across the MAAC’s most talented team, you’ve got a shot at winning a title. That’s especially true for a team like Fairfield. According to the sim results the semifinal between the Gaels and Stags is the gateway to the title. Almost 60% of the time Fairfield got past Iona, Sydney Johnson’s team won the league title.
End of season tempo-free MAAC
Regular season MAAC play has come to its inevitable conclusion. The final day offered a few surprises as Rider beat Fairfield at home, Loyola (MD) pulled out a squeaker over Manhattan and Marist went off on Niagara. All of those results have been included in this final edition of the tempo-free MAAC and will also impact the projected tournament results that I will unveil on Tuesday afternoon. It’s been quite the ride. For some more reading on the MAAC, checkout out this Q&A Siena Saints Blog did with MAAC commissioner Rich Ensor.
It wasn’t easy, but Iona takes the MAAC
Last night Iona had to work to get over the final hump, but with one game remaining the Gaels now have a two-game lead over a the three-way tie for second place. Honestly, that’s how it should be. Fairfield, Loyola (MD) and Manhattan are good basketball teams, but Iona is the class of the league this season. They’ve finally proved it too. The win over the Stags was the fifth straight for the Gaels.
Still, I think Iona would rather not see the Greyhounds in Springfield, MA next week. It’s all about the match ups. From the beginning of the season the Gaels have struggled with teams that rebound well (see every loss this season). Loyola rebounds really well. Iona would certainly benefit if the Greyhounds were knocked off before a rematch. Of course it’s quite possible that Loyola could be facing Iona in the semifinals. The Manhattan-Loyola game on Sunday looms huge over the MAAC standings.
Lost in the hype over Iona defeating Fairfield last night was the fact that another record fell at Manhattan, and the Jaspers now have 20 wins. Rhamel Brown set the single-season record for blocks in a season at Manhattan, breaking Arturo Dubois’ 2005-06 mark of 74 with his second block of the game. Brown finished with three in 19 minutes after getting the start. He has the highest block rate in the country. Yes, it’s higher than Jeff Withey, Anthony Davis or Fab Melo. In fact, Brown’s block rate is higher than all but seven teams in the entire NCAA.
Sunday should be a lot of fun.
Beat the Machine contest
Starting next week I’m going to be running 10,000 sims for each of the conference tournaments. As the brackets are decided I’ll be running simulations for the six conferences that this blog covers that have tournaments (oh Ivy League). This is fun because it requires me to program a whole bunch of options into my tournament simulator. You’ve got everything from straight neutral site events (MAAC), to all on home court (NEC), to single host (Great West), to a mix of both (America East). Plus there need to be slight home adjustments for the CAA schools playing their tournament in Richmond, VA. That’s a lot of variables and it’ll certainly make things interesting, but I know what’s up.
But doing all this work with no reward isn’t any fun. Thus I’d like to propose a contest. Let’s play “Beat the Machine”. Here are the rules:
- For each simulated conference tournament the computer will get a decimal of the winner. For instance, if Iona wins 67% of the simulated MAAC tournaments and wins the real life tournament the computer gets 0.67 points.
- I’ll also simulate a team’s chances of getting to the final. The computer will get the decimal value for those teams as well. Iona was 89% to make the final the computer adds 0.89 points. Manhattan was a 30% chance. The computer gets 0.30.
- Humans either get 1 point (predicting the winner / finalists) or 0 points (miss). Thus you can earn up to 3 points per conference.
Thus the maximum number of points for either side would be 18. My guess is that a number of humans will be able to guess the finalists, but it should still make things exciting for the short term. What do you think? Too easy? Want to play? Contact me via the form or leave a comment on this post. You want prizes? Let’s see how many people sign up and then maybe I’ll think of something fun.
NYC Buckets Archive 