Siena’s special season rolls on with win in MAAC tournament opener

Manny Camper drives inside for two of his 15 points as Siena advanced to MAAC tournament semifinals. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Carmen Maciariello had expectations befitting of Siena’s standing as the top seed in this week's Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, stating the Saints’ run to this point was special, but not complete.

After Wednesday, two more obstacles stand between the regular season champion and the vision its rookie head coach had for his group just six weeks ago.

Behind a combined 24 points, 17 rebounds and 13 assists from junior forward Manny Camper and newly crowned MAAC Player of the Year Jalen Pickett, Siena reached the MAAC’s final four for the fourth time in five years, with a gritty 63-49 victory over Manhattan booking the Saints into the semifinals at Boardwalk Hall.

“Our guys compete every night,” Maciariello reiterated as Siena won its 10th consecutive game since a February 2 loss to second-seeded Saint Peter’s, who could still meet the Saints in Saturday’s championship game provided Siena gets past either Monmouth or Quinnipiac on Friday. “I love their effort, and I think even though we make some mistakes and have some plays where we don’t execute, I thought for the most part, we did a good job. It’s one win, and we get a chance to get a day of rest and watch a great Monmouth team and great Quinnipiac team play.”

“The whole team should be up here. When it’s all said and done, it’s just so enjoyable to see these guys have success, especially for what Manny and Sammy (Friday) had went through when they were here a couple of years ago.”

Siena (20-10) needed to work in the opening minutes, as Manhattan (13-18) showed the same defensive intensity that carried the Jaspers to an opening-round win over Fairfield 24 hours prior, forcing Pickett to miss seven of his first nine field goal attempts as Camper and Friday picked up the slack while Elijah Burns was hampered by foul trouble. A 14-2 run midway through the first half was all the Saints would need to pull away, turning a 10-all tie into a more comfortable 24-12 advantage. Manhattan would get no closer than within seven points the rest of the way, as the top seed found a way to win a game dictated by the opposing team’s terms, and do so in an unconventional way.

“I told the guys that in tournament settings, the first one’s always the toughest one,” said Maciariello. “You’ve got to get the monkey off your back, you’ve got to get used to the floor, get used to the rims, get used to the surroundings. We’ll take this thing one day at a time and we’ll work on some things ourselves, some execution that we can improve from our last two games with these two teams. We want to be able to come to work every day and just get better.”