At 5-1 for first time in Steve Masiello’s tenure, Manhattan’s knack of finding ways to win early will serve Jaspers well throughout season. (Photo by Manhattan College Athletics)
By Jaden Daly (@DalyDoseOfHoops)
If you can survive when you’re supposed to go down, Manhattan's coach postulated, you’re going to live a long time.
That resolve and ever-present fortitude, a quality that has manifested itself many times over the years since that moment in 2014, was on full display again Tuesday night at Draddy Gymnasium after the Jaspers trailed Fairleigh Dickinson — minus its head coach and leading scorer — by as many as 11 points in the first half before toughing it out and yet again finding a way to win en route to closing out the Knights, 78-73, to preserve the first-ever 5-1 start in Masiello’s tenure.
“I thought we didn’t handle adversity in the first half,” the coach admitted, a textbook display of candor from those who know Masiello and his tendency to be brutally honest to a fault in all aspects on his program’s performance. “And so my message was — it was a character thing — I know these guys really well, I know who they are as people, and they were out of character. My job is to get them back in character, and once you kind of steer the ship that way, they’ll follow. It wasn’t about basketball. We’ve got to be more together.”
“I think the one thing that you love about them is their commitment to things and the sticktoitiveness that they have to really understand. In the first half, we were worried about whose fault it was instead of, ‘let’s fix it and move forward.’ Once you kind of fix that and become solution-based, everything sorts itself out.”
And so it did again in the second half Tuesday. Two sets of two-man games, with Jose Perez and Josh Roberts working together in the early stages of the closing stanza, then Samir Stewart and Samba Diallo finding a veteran synergy down the stretch, propelled the Jaspers forward in a similar vein to their victory over crosstown rival Fordham four days into the season. It was Stewart in particular who galvanized the team on this occasion, first hitting another of his patented clutch 3-point shots to give the Jaspers the lead with just over eight minutes to play. Then on the ensuing possession, the senior point guard literally lied on top of a loose ball, using his back to force a tie-up that gave the ball back to Manhattan, the possession arrow in its favor at that juncture.
“We were down, our energy was down,” Stewart said of the sequence that epitomized Jasper basketball over the past decade. “We were losing a lot of loose balls, that was a loose ball I was trying to win for us, it was late in the game and possessions matter. I was trying to grab possession and just win a loose ball for our team.”
“I think anytime you have a guy that’s sacrificed and paid their dues, he has the voice of the locker room,” Masiello declared, again drawing parallels between Stewart and RaShawn Stores, the quintessential floor general who now occupies the associate head coach position on staff. “And Samir exemplifies everything that we want in how to do things. He really understands those things. I remember his freshman year, at UMBC and GW, and how I thought he was going to quit basketball. So to see where he’s grown to now is very impressive, and it’s really something that I’m very proud of.”
Another byproduct to take pride in is how well Perez has taken to Masiello, almost as if the Marquette transfer was destined to play for a coach just as passionate as him, with a competitive fire that burns just as strong and bright. When the two are on the bench together, one is usually not too far from the other, and the interplay back and forth could easily be mistaken for an argument to the casual observer. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
“That’s how we communicate,” Masiello revealed. “I have that relationship with my guys. To you, it might look like arguing. I know where he’s coming from. His intention is he’s trying to help me win the game. That’s what he’s trying to do. Is the way he goes about it at times not good? Absolutely. The way I go about it at times isn’t good. So we understand where we’re coming from, but I have no problem with that because at the end of the day when I do this with him, he’s like, ‘I got you, Coach.’ And that’s what it’s really all about.”
The intimacy between players and coach, and a heart that has done its best and most resonant beating in the shadows while the majority of the area is focused on the exploits of Iona and Monmouth after both the Gaels and Hawks made powerful non-conference statements with wins over Alabama and Cincinnati, make the Jaspers more dangerous and formidable. But, as it always has been in Riverdale, the commitment to one another is the only thing that matters, and early returns are indicative of that gift being used to Manhattan’s advantage.
“In the locker room, we looked at each other and we said, ‘let’s get back to playing our brand of basketball,’” Stewart recalled. “If we do that, we’ll come out with a win, and that’s what happened tonight.”
“In the huddle, we keep saying, ‘stay together.’ That’s our motto. Stay together, stay together. We’ve got newcomers, (Perez) and Josh, but we feel like if we stay together as a team, nobody can beat us.”
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