MAAC Connections Mentioned In Sports Illustrated

A national magazine has gone MAAC-centric this week.

Three prominent mentions of conference-related happenings appeared in this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, the one with Doug McDermott on the cover.

- The lengthy piece about McDermott, the scoring sensation from Creighton, includes a graph about his status among college basketball's all-time career scoring leaders. McDermott recently went over the 3,000-point mark for his career and, entering play in the Big East Tournament, ranked seventh all time for total points at the college level.

The chart includes two players above McDermott who did their college scoring in the MAAC.

Keydren Clark of Saint Peter's is currently sixth all time in career scoring with 3,058 points while Lionel Simmons of La Salle, which was in the league until the early 1990's, is third with 3,217 total points.

The MAAC is the only conference to have two players with more than 3,000 career points of the eight that have reached that milestone.

The others: Pete Maravich of LSU (3,667), Freeman Williams (Portland State) 3,249), Alphonso Ford (Missouri Valley) 3,165), Harry Kelly (Texas Southern (3,066) and Hersey Hawkins (Bradley (3,008).

- Desi Washington, the standout junior guard of Saint Peter's, got a mention in SI's "Scorecard" segment under the heading "Breakout Performer."

Said the magazine: "The Saint Peter's junior guard took down Fairfield with a buzzer beater for the third time this season, this one in the MAAC tournament."

What the magazine didn't say was that all three of Washington's last-second shots to beat the Stags came from nearly the exact spot on the court, the right side and at least 20 feet out. The most recent one, in the MAAC tournament, was at least 27 feet out with two defenders in his face.

- In a lengthy feature about NCAA Tournament upsets, the magazine recognizes the top upsets turned in by seeding position.

The No. 8 seed recognized is the 1985 Villanova team that upset Georgetown in that season's championship contest.

Said the magazine: "The 1910 Wildcats just barely made the newly expanded field and senior forward Ed Pinckney and Villanova were given virtually no chance against defending champion Georgetown. But, thanks to lights-out shooting (78.6%, still a title-game record) and a matchup zone that confounded Hoyas center Patrick Ewing, the Wildcats became the lowest seed to win a title."

Not mentioned was that Villanova's top assistant coach was Mitch Buonaguro, who did the scout and prepared the Wildcats' game play for the upset victory.

Buonaguro went on to be the head coach at two MAAC programs, Fairfield in the late 1980's, and Siena for three seasons beginning in 2010).

Also on that Villanova staff as assistants were Marty Marbach, who later became the head coach at Canisius; and Steve Lappas, who spent several seasons as a head coach at Manhattan.