Iona comes up short against Ohio in home opener

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Four new faces and a new acting head coach christened a newly-renovated arena Wednesday night as Iona returned to familiar confines for its first home game of the season.

After playing catch-up most of the night and ultimately pulling to within one point late in the second half, the Gaels were unable to complete the comeback, falling short in an 81-72 loss to Ohio University at the remodeled Hynes Athletics Center.

“Not good enough,” said E.J. Crawford — whose 21 points were tops for the Gaels (0-2) in the losing effort — of Iona’s execution. “We’ve got to understand, every game, somebody’s coming to beat us. We’ve got to bring it 100 percent, no letups, no anything. We’ve just got to get better and get back in the lab.”

“We just didn’t give enough,” a brutally honest Tajuan Agee succinctly surmised. “I didn’t give enough, I was bad today. Just together as a unit, we just didn’t play enough and we just couldn’t get it done.”

Playing under the direction of associate head coach Tra Arnold for the second straight game while Tim Cluess continues to tend to a health matter that has kept him off the bench to start the season, Iona had difficulty finding its way offensively through most of the first half, allowing Ohio (3-0) to set the tone from beyond the arc by connecting on seven of twelve three-point field goal attempts. The Gaels did show glimmers of hope — namely from Dylan Van Eyck and Mo Thiam — off the bench, but could not close the gap.

“We just didn’t make the plays to win the game,” Arnold assessed. “We competed, but we just didn’t finish. We didn’t get a rebound when we needed to, and we got lost in certain things. We’ve been in two close games now.”

After Ohio opened up a 60-47 lead with ten minutes remaining in regulation, Iona slowly chipped away at its deficit, drawing within one point less than six minutes later. The Bobcats answered with a dunk, then turned an offensive foul charged to Agee — his fourth — into a three-pointer at the other end, followed by a transition basket that swelled the lead back to eight points and essentially iced the outcome for the visitors.

“Their guys made a couple of plays that our guys didn’t,” Arnold reflected. “That’s the recipe for where we’re at right now. We had our lapses, too. We’ve got to get better defensively and offensively.”

Rather than use the excuse of not having his championship-winning coach as a crutch, Agee offered blunt reality when addressing what went wrong.

“There’s no excuse,” the senior forward brusquely interjected, dismissing a perceived easy way out. “Coach Arnold’s putting us in position to be in games. We’ve just got to close the games out. Not having Coach Cluess is a struggle, but we’re not missing a beat as far as coaching.”

“We just can’t get it done. One thing about this team is that we don’t give up, it’s just that last hump. We get to the top of the hill and then we just fall right back down. We’ve got to keep getting better, and hopefully we can get over that hump and get our first W.”