Can Masiello Turn This Manhattan Team Into Winners?

Looks can be deceiving, right? Steve Masiello and the Manhattan basketball team certainly hope so because right now no matter how you slice it, the two-time defending MAAC champions look a long, long way from making it three straight come March.

Manhattan (1-5, 0-2) didn’t play a terrible game Sunday and had a 82.5 eFG% in the first half against Marist. The Jaspers even led by 11 midway through the second half, using the running and jumping defense and pressure that had made them who they are in the Masiello Era to cause turnovers and give them easy opportunities in transition.

But even that wasn’t enough as eventually it was the Red Foxes who left Draddy Gym victorious for just the second time in 15 years (and third in 21 tries ever) with a 75-70 victory, just their second of the young season (2-4).

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Pieces Starting To Fit For St. John’s

NEW YORK, NY – St. John’s proved they are very much still a work in progress with a 63-56 win over St. Francis Brooklyn Sunday afternoon in the first game of the Holiday Festival doubleheader which marked head coach Chris Mullin’s return to Madison Square Garden.
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Yale 72, Vermont 54: Bulldogs Shut It Down Again

(photo courtesy: Steph Crandall)

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – We’ve reached the point in the season where we have enough useful data to attempt to make sense of your favorite team, but not quite a full profile of who they will be going forward.

One of the top methods we use – especially in mid-major land – to compare conference teams that will eventually meet up is the transitive property. If A beat B and then B topped C, then A will certainly win against C, right? In a vacuum, maybe. But early-season games are not a vacuum, you have injuries, coaches fiddling with rotations and sets to see what and who will work, and the equalizer that is home-court advantage.

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Fairfield 74, Rider 70: No Gilbert, No Problem For Stags

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. – There are lies, damned lies, and statistics as Mr. Twain once told us, of course, and, yes, there are times where the numbers (even advanced ones) only give an obstructed view of what is really transpiring.

However, for the disappointing 2015-16 Rider basketball team, it doesn’t take an advanced degree in hyperbolic topology to figure out what the biggest problem is.

Last season, the Broncs were picked seventh in the preseason MAAC poll, and finished alone in second at 15-5. With a break (or one less injury to senior center Matt Lopez), Rider might have been even better and perhaps wouldn’t have been upset by Saint Peter’s in the MAAC quarterfinals.

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