John Dunne has balanced retooling his roster with needing to gain experience as Marist hopes to improve its MAAC standing. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
MAAC Monday returns this week with a closer look at a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference program once again trying to push the right buttons in its latest rebuilding effort, then segues into some notable quotes from this past weekend’s league action in the latest batch of quick hits before refreshing the MAAC’s updated stat leaders and revealing a new set of power rankings. This latest team spotlight goes into the Hudson Valley to profile a retooling unit that had to go into the transfer portal to make up for a majority of its losses, and now finds itself adjusting on the fly while trying to keep pace with the MAAC’s overall uptick.
When he left Saint Peter’s for Marist nearly five years ago, John Dunne got the upgrade in facilities and resources that many felt would allow him to raise the Red Foxes into the top of the MAAC after his yeoman’s work in extracting blood from a stone countless times during his 12 years in Jersey City. So far, Dunne has made gradual improvements in Poughkeepsie, but has had to essentially start from scratch on two separate occasions.
The 52-year-old’s first full-scale rebuild came in 2019, when Marist was left without a proven veteran leader following the graduation of all-MAAC guard Brian Parker. Dunne was on the right track and finished in the top half of the conference standings in the COVID-abbreviated 2020-21 campaign, but took a slight step back last season even with eventual MAAC Rookie of the Year Jao Ituka under his aegis. Then, for a second time, a significant exodus ensued at a program whose postseason drought now stands at 15 years and counting since its 2007 regular season league crown and subsequent National Invitation Tournament appearance.
Ituka transferred to Wake Forest in the offseason, with fellow all-MAAC talent Ricardo Wright departing as well, landing at SMU with former Siena head coach Rob Lanier. Raheim Sullivan also left the team, and by the time the dust had settled, Dunne was forced to replace 88 percent of his scoring from last season, which has contributed to a longer honeymoon period this year as the Red Foxes stand 4-9 at the present moment.
“It’s more about us and what we need to do to get better on a daily basis, what we have to start bringing to the game every day,” Dunne imparted in the wake of a 27-point loss to Iona this past Friday, one in which Marist started out well offensively but was unable to sustain momentum against the Gaels and the pressure defense of Rick Pitino. “We’ve just got to focus on what we need to focus on to improve.”
“We want to win and we’re ready to compete. You just have to bring the discipline to the table of what you need to do, and not just for a few plays, but over 40 minutes. And when you’re relying on so many young players, you have lapses and you can’t have those kinds of lapses on both ends of the floor. You’ve got to learn how to put a complete game together against good teams. There’s a lot of teams in our league this year that have a lot of veterans, a lot of older guys that know how to compete for 40, and we’ve just got to get to that point.”
Marist's inability to construct a complete game at the moment is in no way indicative of a lack of talent on its roster. In fact, the Red Foxes possess two players in particular who may very well find themselves among those receiving all-MAAC recognitions several weeks from now, namely fifth-year senior Patrick Gardner and freshman point guard Isaiah Brickner.
“Pat’s 6’11 and skilled,” Dunne said of Gardner, a Division II transfer by way of Saint Michael’s College in Vermont. “If he’s on his game, he’s going to play well. Self-admittedly, where Pat needs to learn how to compete and get better is really on the defensive end, just learning how to battle every possession and not take possessions off defensively. He’s so much better today than he was a month ago, and he’s a ton better, lightyears ahead of where he was this summer. He’s been extremely coachable and he works really hard. He’ll get better and better as the year goes on.”
Gardner, who ranks in the top five in the conference in both scoring and rebounding, got a head start in adjusting to the physicality and style of the MAAC before transferring up, having played as a Purple Knight under Eric Eaton, the Saint Michael’s head coach who spent most of the past decade as an assistant coach at Quinnipiac and Iona before landing the head job in the Green Mountain State. And while Gardner has worked to adjust his own game, he has also found a new comfort and willingness to be a veteran leader on a team still gaining much-needed experience in the heat of battle.
“A lot of the bigs are the same weight as me, but it’s always a battle down low,” Gardner remarked of his acclimation to the Division I ranks. “It helps to be tall and everything, but I’ve gotta rely sometimes on my touch rather than physicality. (Eaton) pushed me a lot the two years I was at Saint Michael’s. He helped me down low, especially in the post and everything. He’s definitely been a great help developing me with my left-hand hook. I’m very thankful for him.”
“I’m just trying to lead by example. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of highs and lows with the team, so letting the players know it’s alright to make mistakes and it happened to me — I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I still make mistakes — my advice is always how you bounce back. It’s going to be a big learning curve, but I’m with them through the highs and the lows. I have no problem with that.”
In Brickner, a 6-foot-4 point guard from California, Dunne has a project with tremendous potential and upside that has revealed itself in flashes. Longtime MAAC followers may look at Brickner and see a younger version of Trevis Wyche — whom Dunne coached for four years at Saint Peter’s — and it would not be too far out of the ordinary. Coincidentally, Dunne sees a similar career arc between the two.
“It’s funny you say that,” he recollected. “Back then, Manhattan was the really, really good team in the league, and I remember Trevy throwing the ball into the stands many times against their pressure as a freshman and then dominating their pressure when he was a senior. Isaiah just has to stay the course, know that there’s growing pains. Just like Gardner, he’s very coachable and mentally tough. He’s definitely got some potential.”
Marist remains a work in progress, and with the ever-fluid state of mid-major college basketball, Dunne has found himself needing to reinvent some of his methodology and be more innovative in recruiting. Still, the need to be a veteran outfit with in-game experience trumps whatever means are necessary to justify the end.
“I’m still committed to bringing in some high school guys,” he said of his recruiting goals. “But obviously, the transfer portal is big now and all the teams in our league that are having success are all older, and you have to get older to have really good success in the league. So it’s a combination of growing the young guys in your program to get older and then staying, but you also have to go into the portal and get a couple of older guys as well. The key is to get older, for sure.”
Quick Hits Around the MAAC
“He’s learned so much of how to be a point guard in the way he runs pick-and-rolls, the way he sees people, the way he keeps his dribble going when he doesn’t have anything, to the way he sees the floor, his defense is great. Great pickup.”
— Rick Pitino on Daniss Jenkins’ growth and impact
“I can’t even explain how much he’s helped me. You see it in the results. He’s on me every day, every little turnover, and I just try to go out and be aggressive. He always tells me to be a good passer, you have to be aggressive. He challenges me every day, and I love it. I have no choice but to get better.”
— Jenkins on Pitino’s influence
“We love it. He’s so relaxed, never shows emotion so you never know what he’s thinking, so I just try to motivate him and say little things like, ‘come on, Cruz, I need a big game, I need a big half.’ And he comes out and he plays.”
— Jenkins on Cruz Davis and his spark off the bench
“They’re really, really good, man, and they’re gonna beat a lot of teams in our league. But certainly, I’m disappointed in some of the discipline things that we focused on for a few days that we just have to get better at.”
— John Dunne on Iona and what went wrong for Marist against the Gaels
“Coach Pitino would know a lot better than me what his future holds and what level he could play at, but I’d put my money on him. He’s pretty good.”
— Dunne on Jenkins
“We just turned the ball over and gave them free baskets. We’re struggling to score and our guards are struggling to score, and then you’re doing that too and have no chance of winning. We’ve gotta find some answers here offensively. We have a bunch of issues we need to fix right now.”
— Jay Young on what plagued Fairfield in Friday's loss to Niagara
“I was looking for the team to pull together, because with this game, we needed more than two people in double figures. We needed the whole starting five to contribute to winning.”
— Mervin James on Rider’s effort in Friday's loss to Quinnipiac
“People keep asking. The guys keep playing hard, they don’t look like they’re getting down, and they haven’t. And I think they’re learning. This was a situation where we were without our leading scorer, and you couldn’t tell. Our enthusiasm was high, and I think they just are enjoying the whole process of getting better. Everything didn’t go great — I didn’t like the way we started the second half — but I think we’re getting better.”
— Reggie Witherspoon on Canisius’ evolution and second-half comeback to beat Manhattan despite Jordan Henderson being unavailable
“It just shows us what we believe. We obviously think we’re one of the best teams in the MAAC, and we’ve just gotta keep on winning.”
— Jared Billups on what can be taken away from Siena's win over Rider Sunday, with both Javian McCollum and Jayce Johnson injured
“They’re about winning, they’re about stepping up and doing the job at hand. They knew we were down a couple guys, but it was going to be that pack mentality, that ‘hey, we’re the hungry dogs, we’re the hungry team, we’re coming to get the job done, no excuses.’”
— Carmen Maciariello on his Siena team’s effort Sunday
“In my world, it’s predicated on getting stops. If you look at social media, they don’t have anybody getting stops on social media. Everything is about scoring.”
— Kevin Baggett on the importance of defense during Rider’s four-game losing streak (three in MAAC play)
Scoring Leaders
1) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (18.2 PPG)
2) Patrick Gardner, Marist (17.4)
3) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (16.6)
4) Daniss Jenkins, Iona (16.4)
5) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (16.1)
6) Javian McCollum, Siena (16.0)
7) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (15.4)
8) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (15.2)
9) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (15.0)
10) Isiah Dasher, Saint Peter’s (14.4)
Rebounding Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (8.8 RPG)
2) Supreme Cook, Fairfield (8.8)
3) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (8.3)
4) Paul Otieno, Quinnipiac (7.4)
5) Mervin James, Rider (7.1)
6) Patrick Gardner, Marist (7.0)
7) Malik Jefferson, Mount St. Mary’s (6.9)
8) Jared Billups, Siena (6.4)
9) Ike Nweke, Quinnipiac (6.2)
10) Sam Iorio, Niagara (6.1)
Assist Leaders
1) Daniss Jenkins, Iona (5.0 APG)
2) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (4.1)
3) Latrell Reid, Saint Peter’s (4.1)
4) Luis Kortright, Quinnipiac (3.8)
5) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (3.8)
6) Javian McCollum, Siena (3.8)
7) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (3.4)
8) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (3.1)
T-9) Savion Lewis, Quinnipiac (3.0)
T-9) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (3.0)
Field Goal Percentage Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (.762)
2) Corey Washington, Saint Peter’s (.737)
3) Paul Otieno, Quinnipiac (.609)
4) Jackson Stormo, Siena (.579)
5) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (.552)
6) Malik Jefferson, Mount St. Mary’s (.547)
7) Supreme Cook, Fairfield (.533)
8) Berrick JeanLouis, Iona (.506)
9) Ike Nweke, Quinnipiac (.497)
10) Patrick Gardner, Marist (.490)
Free Throw Percentage Leaders
1) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (.978)
2) Mervin James, Rider (.889)
3) Javian McCollum, Siena (.873)
4) Caleb Fields, Fairfield (.840)
5) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (.839)
6) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (.818)
7) Jackson Stormo, Siena (.807)
8) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (.784)
9) Isiah Dasher, Saint Peter’s (.758)
10) Jared Billups, Siena (.738)
3-Point Field Goal Percentage Leaders
1) Bryce Moore, Niagara (.467)
2) Andrew Platek, Siena (.461)
3) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (.415)
4) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (.413)
5) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (.409)
T-6) Jaylen Murray, Saint Peter’s (.407)
T-6) Jamir Moultrie, Canisius (.407)
8) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (.406)
9) Nick Brennen, Manhattan (.396)
10) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (.385)
Steal Leaders
1) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (2.1 SPG)
2) Luis Kortright, Quinnipiac (1.6)
T-3) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (1.5)
T-3) Latrell Reid, Saint Peter’s (1.5)
5) Caleb Fields, Fairfield (1.4)
Blocked Shot Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (2.3 BPG)
2) Jackson Stormo, Siena (1.7)
3) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (1.6)
4) Stephane Ingo, Marist (1.4)
5) Osborn Shema, Iona (1.3)
Power Rankings
1) Siena (11-5, 5-0 MAAC)
Last Week: 2
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 vs. Rider (W 68-63)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 at Niagara, 7 p.m.
2) Iona (11-5, 4-1 MAAC)
Last Week: 1
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 at Quinnipiac (W 81-58)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 vs. Fairfield, 7 p.m.
3) Quinnipiac (12-5, 3-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 5
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 vs. Iona (W 81-58)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 vs. Saint Peter’s, 7 p.m.
4) Niagara (9-6, 4-2 MAAC)
Last Week: 4
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 at Manhattan (L 64-59)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 vs. Siena, 7 p.m.
5) Rider (6-9, 3-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 3
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 at Siena (L 68-63)
Next Game: Sunday 1/15 at Iona, 1 p.m.
6) Manhattan (5-10, 3-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 9
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 vs. Niagara (W 64-59)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 at Mount St. Mary’s, 7 p.m.
7) Fairfield (6-9, 2-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 6
Last Game: Friday 1/6 vs. Niagara (L 77-69)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 at Iona, 7 p.m.
8) Mount St. Mary’s (6-10, 2-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 8
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 at Marist (L 63-56)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 vs. Manhattan, 7 p.m.
9) Canisius (4-11, 2-4 MAAC)
Last Week: 11
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 at Saint Peter’s (W 67-60)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 vs. Marist, 7 p.m.
10) Saint Peter’s (7-9, 2-5 MAAC)
Last Week: 7
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 vs. Canisius (L 67-60)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 at Quinnipiac, 7 p.m.
11) Marist (5-9, 1-4 MAAC)
Last Week: 10
Last Game: Sunday 1/8 vs. Mount St. Mary’s (W 63-56)
Next Game: Friday 1/13 at Canisius, 7 p.m.
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