Masiello stresses need for results, but remains excited for next season despite early MAAC exit

Even after quarterfinal loss in MAAC tournament for fourth time in five years, Steve Masiello found positives with Manhattan that keep him optimistic heading into next season. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Finding a way to crack a slight smile while speaking from the heart after his team’s season came to yet another premature close, Steve Masiello proved just why it is that he and his players at Manhattan are a perfect match for one another.

Very few in this business are as intense a competitor as the nine-year head coach in Riverdale, now a seasoned 42 years old but still owner of the same wide-eyed spirit the young men blessed to play for him also possess. Even fewer in the game is the number of coaches who make it a point to impart life lessons while also teaching their passion to a new generation, allowing it to be cultivated anew among a team who truly seems to enjoy learning under its shepherd.

“You want it to keep going, but you have to understand the big picture and understand that there’s a lot of opportunity in the sense of embracing these moments and using this as fuel for your next step,” Masiello said as his Manhattan team saw its season culminate in the quarterfinals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament for the fourth time in the last five years, a 63-49 loss to top seed and regular season champion Siena the final entry in a ledger that will be remembered by the Jaspers less for its 13 wins and 18 losses, but more for the memories made along the way, and the reminders — some harsh and unpleasant — that far too often in this trip around the sun, one needs to traverse the streets of hell before finding a road to heaven. “I think we had times where we played brilliant basketball, and I thought we had times where we didn’t recognize ourselves. At the end of the day, there’s no substitute for experience, and that’s what we got in the last two years.”

“These weren’t the results we wanted, and we understand that, but now it’s time to get the results. Now it’s time to take the experiences, the pain, the buzzer-beating losses, the three, four-minute droughts without scoring, the not talking and having a breakdown — now you stockpile those and you say, ‘This can’t happen again. This is why we lost. You don’t let it happen again, you own it and you change it.’ And that’s the next step for this team.”

Manhattan, having fallen on hard times since its MAAC championship defense in 2015 — since that seminal moment in Albany, the Jaspers are 61-96 over the past five seasons — will look to an experienced core to help lead the path back to glory. Only Tyler Reynolds, who waxed nostalgic Wednesday about missing the bonds with his teammates and the relationships created over his two years in the northwest corner of the Bronx, will graduate among the current rotation, leaving the most experienced group to wear the green and white since 2013-14. That iteration of Jasper basketball, paced of course by George Beamon, Michael Alvarado and Rhamel Brown, returned the program to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade and nearly upset Louisville in the process. The leader of the current outfit, with one more year to go before he moves into the real world, was quick to declare that he and his teammates could do the same twelve months from now.

“I think we can definitely win the MAAC,” Pauly Paulicap proclaimed. “We’ve just got to work hard. Like Coach Mas said, this builds a lot of fuel for us. We’ve just got to channel it this summer and the preseason to make it happen.”

“I think we showed signs of what we’re capable of, and we showed signs that we’re not proud of,” Masiello admitted. “Finding that balance where you’re more on the top has got to be part of it, and with the character we have, how they work and how they approach things on a daily basis, that’s what excites me. Coming in where the majority of the team will be juniors next year and Pauly’s a senior, Bud (Mack) is a senior, you get very excited about that. You want to stay old, and that’s something that we’re going to try to do now.”