Iona's CIT Run Should Pay Off in 2011-12

It's not too often that a conference team is still playing basketball at the end of March, but the Iona men stretched their season out to the final possible day before a disappointing ending, a 76-69 setback against Santa Clara in the championship game of the CIT post-season event.

It was the second late-season disapppointment for the Gaels, who were also upset by Saint Peter's in the championship game of the MAAC's post-season tournament earlier in the month.

"We felt like we let the school and our fans down when we didn't win the MAAC," Iona's junior point guard Scott Machado told the New York Daily News before Wednesday night's CIT Championship game against Santa Clara. "The CIT gave us an opportunity to make up for that and for our seniors to hang a championship banner before they left."

Instead, Santa Clara controlled the boards, holding a 50-33 rebounding edge, to win the game played at Iona's Hynes Center.

The Gaels might be disappointed now, but the benefits will likely pay off a year from now. Not many teams nationally got to play four extra games after their respective regular-season and/or conference's post-season tournament was over, but Iona got, basically, an extra month of basketball games and practices during its CIT run.

The "disappointment" of this year ... if a 25-12 final record can be even remotely viewed as a disappointment ... should fuel some renewed goals a year from now. And, the Gaels return their top five scorers from this season and nine of the 11 players who scored points this season.

Among those are 6-7 junior forward Mike Glover and 6-1 junior point guard Scott Machado, the league's top one-two punch this past season. Sean Armond (14 points in the CIT championship game) is only a sophomore and looks to be ready to move to the starting lineup.

Swingman Kyle Smyth, out with a shoulder injury for the entire CIT event, will be back next year, too, along with 5-11 junior guard Jermel Jenkins. Smyth, Armand and Jenkins are all long-range shooting weapons and give the team court balance to go with Glover's dynamic inside game.

Iona certainly should be every bit as good, if not better, next season.

And, here's a sneak preview ... your blogging hoopscribe perceives the Gaels as the early favorite to win next season's regular-season title.

For sure, this year's regular-season champion Fairfield will also be a major factor in 2011-12. But, the Stags lost head coach Ed Cooley to Providence and will also be adjusting to transfers who will get significant court minutes next season.

Iona has the type of stability, both from a returning cast of players and a returning head coach, that bodes well for its chances in 2011-12.

Two Conference Teams Still in Post Season

And then there were two ....

As in two conference teams still actice in late March in post-season play even as major-league baseball season approaches.

Those would be the Iona men and the Manhattan women. Women first, mostly because the Lady Jaspers are on the court later today (Sunday, 2 p.m.) when they play host Wright State at the Ohio-Nutter Center, an 11,019-seat facility, in the quarterfinals of the Women's Basketball Invitationall tournament.

The game is available for viewing via streaming video over the internet, free of charge. Fans can connect through www.suraiders.com and following the prompts.

Manhattan is 23-9 so far this season. Wright State is 20-12. Manhattan beat Sacred Heart in its first-round game Thursday, while Wright State knocked off Buffalo earlier this week.

The winner of today's game faces either UAB or Elon in the WBI semifinals. If Manhttan wins it would hit the road again to travel for a next-round contest.

Meanwhile the Iona men are now 25-11 this season after earning an 83-80 victory over East Tennessee State (24-12) in a semifinal-round contest of the College Insider.com Post Season Tournament played Saturday night.

The Gaels got big games from 6-foot-7 junior forward Michael Glover (33 points, 10 rebounds), junior point guard Scott Machado (8 points, 11 assists against 3 turnovers) and freshman off-guard Sean Armond (20 points, 6-of-11 shooting on 3-pointers).

The game was played on the home court of E. Tennessee State in Johnson, City, Tenn.

The victory propels the Gaels to the event's championship game when it will host Santa Clara Wednesday at the Hynes Center in New Rochelle, N.Y. Tip off time is 8 p.m. and the game will be televised on the Fox College Sports network.

Fairfield Coach Cooley Off To Providence

It looks like Ed Cooley, who elevated Fairfield's program to new heights in his five seasons at that school, is moving on to Providence College of the Big East.

And, so begins another coaching search within the conference. Both Manhattan and Fairfield are now looking for new coaches. If your blogging hoopscribe had to recommend someone, the first name would be Paul Hewitt, a personal favorite.

Here's a report, filed by Providence Journal reporter Kevin McNamara, this afternoon about Cooley's move:

PROVIDENCE - Providence College has reached an agreement in principle to hire Fairfield coach Ed Cooley as its next basketball coach, according to people involved in the negotiations.

Cooley and his representatives met with PC officials on Monday when they apparently reached agreement on a deal, the terms of which are currently unavailable.

Cooley was at Fairfield on Tuesday morning where he met with his school president and then later spoke with his team.

Cooley will be switching from a program on top of its conference to one trying to gain a foothold in the deepest league in the country. The Friars finished 15-17 this past season but just 4-14 for the second straight year in the ultra-competitive Big East. PC fired coach Keno Davis after just three seasons on the job.

Marist Nearly Rocks Women's Hoop World

My local cable outlet in the Albany, N.Y., area did not carry last night's Marist-Duke women's NCAA tournament game, but your blogging hoopscribe listened in to the radio broadcast and did get a view via a few televised "cut-ins."

The thought here, based on all of that, is Marist showed once again that it should be considered among the better teams not only at the mid-major level but at any level; that a team can be more the sum of its individual parts.

Marist threw a big-time scare into a Duke team ranked in the top five or six nationally all season, holding an 11-point lead midway through the second half before the Blue Devils could rally for a 71-66 victory to earn a berth in the event's Sweet 16 round.

The Red Foxes played with one of the women's game's best teams despite the loss of MAAC Player of the Year senior guard Erica Allenspach, who suffered a severe ankle sprain after 13 minutes of the first half and never returned.

There are many points to be made, and Marist coach Brian Giorgis, who is very nearly as good a spokesman for his program as he is a coach (and, that's saying plenty), made them well.

- "To be able to play with the teams we did this year ... we played with everyone and beat most of them," said Giorgis, in Monday's post-game press conference. "To go in (to Duke) and outplay that team for 38 minutes before we ran out of gas ... We're not Baylor or UConn, but we showed people that we're a damned good basketball team and we almost pulled it out tonight."

- "If you told me that we'd lose Erica Allenspach after she played just 13 minutes and scored just two points ... most people would have thought we'd have gotten blown out by 35 points. If this (Marist) team is not a top 25 team, then I don't know what is."

- "Erica is everything to us. When she went down we were ahead by six and, then, at halftime we were still up by five. I told the kids that she carried us to here and now it's their turn to carry her. And, then, we opened up an 11-point lead. It was incredible to see these kids grow up today before we got worn down at the end and their athleticism took over."

- "We're Hickory (High School), guys. You watch 'Hoosiers' and we're Hickory. Erica Allenspach is Jimmy Chitwood, and she went down."

- "This was one of the best performances our kids have had in any game. To overcome the adversity of losing the straw that stirs our drink and not only stay in the game but extend the lead. We just ran out of gas. But I've never been more proud of a team To take a top 5 team in the country and give them all kinds of fits on their home court with players playing out of position ...

- "Some of us went to a chapel for mass the day before our game, and the priest talked about a mountain top moment. We wanted this to be our mountain top moment. We're a tough little team that almost rocked the women's basketball world. We showed them that we're a tough little team, a tough little team."

If anything, the game provided a glimpse of what could be Marist's future, and it certainly remains very bright.

Marist loses Allenspach, point guard Elise Caron (6 points, 5 assists against Duke) and reserve center Maria Laterza (4 points, 2 rebounds in 10 minutes vs. Duke). The six returning players who appeared in Monday's game scored 55 of the team's points. Junior guard Corielle Yard had 25 points and 12 rebounds and surely stamped herself as a major candidate for Player of the Year in the conference next season.

And, the program also adds the services of 6-1 forward Kristina Danella, who averaged more than 11 points per game as a sophomore at UMass of the Atlantic 10 Conference in the 2009-10 season.

"After the game I told the players to remember this feeling," said Giorgis.

Said Yarde: "I'm excited for next year."

As well the entire Marist team should be.

But, not before it takes some time to reflect on its just-concluded season when it had a mountain top moment and very nearly rocked the women's basketball world.

Fairfield Men Fall, Interest High in Cooley

Thoughts while waiting for the Marist women's game against Duke, at the Blue Devils' Cameron Indoor Stadium home court, later tonight (Monday)...

The Fairfield men's team had its record-setting season come to an end with a 72-68 setback to Kent State in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament.

Not even playing on its Arena at Harbor Yard homecourt facility could keep the Stags' season going.

Fairfield's standout sophomore guard Derek Needham had 18 first-half points on 7-0f-11 shooting, but only scored two more (1-of-8 shooting) after the intermission to finish with a game-high 20 points.

The Stags were still tied at 52-52 with 10:51 left, but Kent State scored the next four points and Fairfield trailed the remainder of the way.

A very disappointing crowd of 3,954 turned out for the contest. Just a thought here, but Fairfield basketball, based both on the turnout for an NIT contest as well as attendance figures for its two MAAC tournament games at the Bridgeport, Conn., arena, isn't exactly a big draw in Bridgeport. Those relatively small turnouts for post-season games should just about end any sentiment over whether the conference tournament should ever return to Bridgeport. Of course, I don't make those decisions, and the league doesn't consult me. So that's just the opinion of your blogging hoopscribe.

Anyway, Fairfield returns an extremely strong nucleus of players for next year and will most definitely be the preseason pick as conference favorites. Keep an eye on this blog. In the next few weeks we will begin the annual team-by-team analysis. Those reports will look back at each team's season and look ahead to future prospects for each program. We'll give that under-the-microscope treatment to every men's and women's teams, as we do after each season.

But, the biggest piece that might not be returning to the Fairfield bench is fifth-year head coach Ed Cooley, who elevated the program to new heights.

Cooley has already been granted permission to talk to Providence of the Big East about its coaching vacancy, and is expected to talk to administrators there later this week, according to published reports. It might be an attractive job for the Fairfield coach, who grew up in Providence.

But, there are also reports that North Carolina State of the Atlantic Coast Conference might be reaching out to Cooley and it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that Georgia Tech, also of the ACC, will take a look at the Fairfield coach.

Why not? Cooley took a program that had not won a conference regular-season title since 1995-96 and tied the program record for victories last season (24) and, then, broke it this year with the Stags' 25-8 record and its first regular-season crown in 15 years.

Those seasons were the only time in Fairfield history that its men's team won at least 20 games in back-to-back seasons.

About the only blemish on Cooley's Fairfield resume is that his teams failed to win a conference tournament title to earn the league's automatic berth to the NCAA event.

But Cooley has done more than enough otherwise to be recognized as one of the top mid-major level coaches nationally, and is more than deserving of the attention from higher-level programs.

Marist Women Advance; Peacock Men Fall

After the first round of NCAA tournament play there is one conference team still alive.

And, to no one's surprise, it's the Marist women's basketball team.

The Red Foxes, a No. 10 seed in its 16-team bracket, handled 7th-seeded Iowa State with relative ease Saturday morning and into the early afternoon with a 74-64 victory over the Cyclones.

The game was close early with Iowa State holding a 16-15 lead at one point before Marist went on a 25-4 run to take a 40-20 lead late in the first half.

The Cyclones battled back to within six points late in the game, but could come no closer.

The victory was a nation's best 27 consecutive victory for Marist.

The Red Foxes have the unenviable task of facing No. 2-seeded Duke in the Blue Devils' home Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C., it the next round on Monday night.

Kate Oliver, a 6-foot-4 sophomore center, led scorers for Marist with 16 points, but all five Marist starters scored in double figures and the team recorded assists on 21 of its 24 field goals made in the game, the perfect indication of the winners' teamwork.

In the other NCAA tournament game involving a conference team, Saint Peter's failed to produce much of an offense against a physical Purdue team as the Boilermakers, a No. 3 seed in a 16-team bracket, earned a 65-43 victory in a game played Friday night in Chicago.

Saint Peter's ran into an opponent that played the same style of bruising defense, only Purdue does so with bigger, faster and stronger athletes.

The Peacocks were making the school's first NCAA Tournament appearance since 1995.

"We just went too fast,'' St. Peter's guard Nick Leon was quoted as saying afterwards. "They sped us up, and we didn't grab the momentum that we wanted to grab at the beginning of the game. That kept us from playing different basketball, the basketball that St. Peter's plays.

"We played defense, and we played hard, but they made some tough shots, and we missed shots. That's what happens sometimes. You don't plan to miss shots. We didn't give up. We played to the end.''

St. Peter's coach John Dunne pointed to Purdue's team defensive concept and Johnson's interior presence at the defensive end as the core of the Peacocks' offensive woes. They made only 5-of-21 shots from 3-point range and got to the free throw line only six times, making four.
"Their ball pressure is so good,'' Dunne said. "When you get by it and have a guy like Johnson waiting for you, it makes you a little more antsy. You end up thinking about him instead of just playing. We just didn't make disciplined plays.''

THOUGHTS FROM THIS BLOGGING HOOPSCRIBE:

- Is it any surprise that Marist won a tournament game, and in impressive fashion, against a higher-rated team?

The victory was Marist's fourth in the national tournament, all coming since the Red Foxes won twice in the 2006-07 tournament. In the MAAC's 30-year history only one other women's team from the league, the 1988-89 La Salle team, has ever won an NCAA tournament game.

- By now Brian Giorgis' ability to coach isn't a secret in conference circles, but the Marist coach's reputation has to be stretching to national boundaries.

It's one thing to get to the NCAA tournament in seven of the past eight season, but quite another to win games there against teams from higher-level conferences. Marist's current team has few, if any, players recruited by higher-level programs.

And when the program wins four tournament games over a five-year span with a changing cast of players ... well, the one constant is the head coach.

- Even though the Saint Peter's men suffered a lopsided setback, its first trip to the national tournament in 16 years not only created a renewed sense of school spirit a the Jersey City, N.J., college but spoke volumes about a group of players as gritty as their community and a head coach (John Dunne) who found ways to succeed where others have failed.

And, Dunne has done it with class. Here's my favorite example.

After his team won the MAAC Tournament in Bridgeport, Conn., Dunne was asked how he dealt with the handicaps of lesser facilities located in the heart of an urban environment and if, indeed, he had one of the toughest jobs in college basketball.

"I don't buy into that `toughest job' thing," said Dunne. "At the end of the day sometimes you ... it's the people within the building, not the building that make the difference. I care about these guys. I'd go to war for these guys. We might have our differences but we stick together. These guys have always persevered and it just comes down to people. You don't have to have the nicest house on the block. I think our guys like Saint Peter's. I think we have great people."

Great people, and a great head coach. And, the likelihood is that some larger school looking for a new basketball coach has already noticed.

Purdue Injuries Could Help Saint Peter's

Your blogging hoopscribe anxiously awaits tonight's 7:20 p.m. start of Saint Peter's first-round NCAA tournament game against Purdue, nationally televised on TNT.

The recliner is in place. The 42-inch TV screen is checked and operational. The popcorn is set to go into the microwave.

And, just maybe, Saint Peter's is ready to pull off one of the biggest upsets of this year's tournament.

How big? Since 1994 Purdue is 12-0 in first-round NCAA tournament games. And, this is basically the same Purdue team that handled Siena, arguably the best team to come through the MAAC in more than a decade, in last year's first-round contest.

For sure the current Saint Peter's team is no Siena of recent vintage.

But, that might not be such a bad thing.

The Saints were much more of a finesse team a year ago than the current Peacocks' squad. And, remember, Siena wasn't overmatched against Purdue, getting to within three points with 1:07 remaining before eventually losing, 72-64. But, remember, that Siena team played that game without its primary long-range shooting threat Clarence Jackson (ankle injury).

Who knows what might have happened had Siena been at full strength.

Saint Peter's, by all accounts, is at full strength. And, the Peacocks play a decidedly different style than the Saints.

Saint Peter's employs a bruising defensive intensity style that would seem, at leat to this observer, to be a better match for a similarly physical Purdue squad.

Here's one other reason to hope, if you're a Saint Peter's fan: Purdue has only eight players who appear in at least 10 minutes per game. One of them will definitely miss tonight's game, and the status of two others is questionable.

Certain to miss tonight's game is 6-foot-5 guard Kelsey Barlow, suspended for disciplary reasons. He is Purdue's 5th-leading scorer (5.0 points per game).

Two other guards are questionable with injuries. 6-3 guar Ryne Smith, the team's fourth-leading scoer (6.0 ppg.) is recovering from a minor concussion suffered in practice this past Sunday but claims, in a published report, that he plans to play tonight; and 6-2 guard John Hart (his 4.0 ppg. average is 8th best on the team), suffered a foot injury in a recent practice and published reports indicate tht he has about a 50-50 chance of seeing action tonight.

It all would seem to add up to the Peacocks having a better chance of pulling an upset tonight than most would believe.