Jose Perez scored 27 points and hit game-winning layup as Manhattan stunned Iona Thursday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
Hampered in his last three games entering Thursday’s regular season finale against Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference leader Iona by a sore elbow that may have played a part in the senior making just eight of 45 field goal attempts, Perez shrugged off the cramps and carried Manhattan yet again, leading the Jaspers with 27 points and scoring the final two on a driving layup with 1.9 seconds remaining in regulation to provide the final margin in a 74-72 takedown of the Gaels to enter next week’s MAAC tournament in Atlantic City on a high note.
“Big players make big plays, and I’m a big player,” Perez proclaimed as he recounted his winning move, holding the ball in the open floor, backing down Quinn Slazinski before pump-faking and getting the Iona forward to bite, leaving him a clear path to the basket. “Coach trusts me to put the ball in my hands when time is winding down, and in crunch time, I’ve been slacking. No better place to do it than against Iona.”
“Whether he likes it or not, it starts with him,” Steve Masiello elaborated, citing Perez’s emotion as the fuel on which his Manhattan team runs most efficiently. “And tonight, his energy and the way he shared the basketball is why we had a tremendous win.”
Perez’s energy was on full display Thursday, facilitating Manhattan’s offense in the first half before letting the game come to him as it went on. Early in the second half, the charismatic swingman’s exuberance reached a crescendo after an Iona turnover, when he turned toward the media on press row and yelled, ‘Yo, this injury’s not gonna last forever!’, a reference to the aforementioned elbow soreness that affected him in Tuesday’s loss to Saint Peter’s, where he was held to just six points on 1-of-11 shooting.
“I tend to see everything that people critique about me,” Perez revealed. “When I’m playing, I cut all the critiques out. I know all the work I’ve put in, what it takes, and I do believe that I’m one of the best — if not the best — players in the league. Coach tells me that all the time, and I just try to be the best of my ability.”
“You’re one of the best in the country,” Masiello immediately shot back.
It was not completely smooth sailing for the Jaspers (15-14, 8-12 MAAC), however, as the 15-point lead the hosts had built early in the second half was erased by Iona, who played a majority of the final stanza without MAAC Player of the Year contender Tyson Jolly, who picked up his fourth foul less than three minutes removed from the intermission. And in a game that harkened back to Masiello’s first battle with Rick Pitino, when he faced his mentor in the 2014 NCAA Tournament, Manhattan never backed down, played within itself, and thanks to Perez, came out on top despite having both Anthony Nelson and Samir Stewart unavailable due to injuries.
“What I was proud of was when they took the lead, we stayed poised,” Masiello reiterated. “We stuck to our execution, we stuck to our strategy and defense, and we had discipline tonight. We didn’t try to get it back in one play. We didn’t go for the home run, we just chipped away, did what we needed to, and I thought tonight, we showed great toughness.”
“What we saw tonight is we’re just as good as anyone when we’re locked in the right way mentally. For us to do this tonight without Ant and S is really a credit to these young men and their mindset. We don’t lose our confidence. It’s a matter of going out and executing. It's a matter of us cutting the nonsense out and stop being immature, and playing like 22-year-old men. And when we do that, that’s who we are.”
Masiello has openly discussed, at various times this season, how to get Perez to play — in his own words — with emotion, but without being emotional. Thursday, on the heels of a 1-for-11 night Tuesday in a 22-point loss to Saint Peter’s, a mature and driven Perez showed up, stayed the course, and delivered.
“When he came here, he told me, ‘I’m a winner, Coach,’” Masiello recalled when Perez arrived from Marquette last summer. “And he is a winner, but he’s a perfectionist. So he’s watching film, texting me adjustments, telling me what he likes to see, what I like, and we have conversations. When things don’t go the way he wants, and I say that in a very positive way, he gets very frustrated with that. So what I try to tell him is, there’s no perfect game. You do ten things and you do nine of them right, people are going to tend to talk about the one wrong one. Worry about the nine great things you did, concentrate on that.”
“But he’s such a perfectionist. He wants to please his teammates, he wants to please me, he’s a pleaser. But he’s gotta understand you’re not always going to please everybody, and that’s okay. You’ve gotta worry about who the important people are, and they’re not judging you.”
Which begs the question: Does Masiello see a reflection of himself, as fierce a competitor and a noted perfectionist in every sense of the word, in his senior leader?
“Identical,” he deadpanned. “He reminds me a lot of me, so maybe that’s why we’re kind of meant for each other. Two crazies love crazy.”
“When he’s 2-for-15, I love him the exact same way. We’re still having pizza in my office like we’re getting ready to now, so nothing changes. Don’t worry about the outside noise. That’s part of his growth, that’s part of our growth as an organization, and when he understands that, we have a chance to be good.”
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