Despite overtime loss in finale, Manhattan's season still rewarding for Masiello

Manhattan's now-concluded 11-21 season may not have been what Jaspers have hoped for, but for Steve Masiello, more positives can be taken away as program now shifts further into a bright future. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ALBANY, NY -- Far too often in this business, the cruelest reminder of how fickle fate and the college basketball gods can be is that for 349 of the 353 Division I teams, the season always ends in a loss.

For Steve Masiello, however, the journey -- now concluded with an 11-21 record after Manhattan's 69-65 overtime loss to Canisius in the quarterfinals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament Friday night -- reached its final stop, although prematurely, with a smile and a heartfelt reflection of a year rife with adversity, of maturation both on and off the basketball court.

"This team has been a lot of fun to coach," he prefaced in his opening statement to his postgame press conference. "(They've had) a lot of growing pains, a lot of ups and downs, but a fun group. They come to work every day. I have great young leaders, really talented players. I think we learned a lot from this season -- especially this weekend -- and I think it's going to be great motivation for our program."

To know Masiello is to understand both him and the emotion with which he lives -- let alone coaches -- as he now places a bow around his eighth season in command of the Jasper program. Despite what his detractors have said -- and continue to publicize -- over the years, in the eye of the hurricane, beneath the hard shell, lies a fiercely competitive man willing to fight for and defend anyone who continues to believe in him. And like all men and women, Masiello is human -- not infallible and quick to recognize his miscalculations -- as he made sure to point out Friday, even in the wake of a point that would be too low for most to even cite extenuating circumstances in its midst.

"I've learned not to really count my chickens before they hatch," he conceded, highlighting his optimism for this year's Manhattan team before junior forward Pauly Paulicap -- the 2017-18 MAAC Defensive Player of the Year -- suffered an injury in January from which he would not return for the duration of the season. "I had big expectations for this year's team. I'll say it again: I've got a great group of young guys to battle and compete, and represent this brand. It's just the way I want it."

Following the Jaspers' win over Rider on February 5, Masiello poignantly mentioned how the realization of some of his team's short-term goals gave him greater joy in coaching his team, and shepherding it along through a baptism by fire. One month later, even as Manhattan's curtain came down before he and his players, the battle-hardened coach continued to heed the old adage of the late Dr. Seuss: Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

"Every time I go to the practice court, it's been a joy for me this year," he shared, with a tinge of passion and satisfaction cracking through his trademark steely facade. "I know I have 12 or 13 guys that want to practice, get better and compete, and they're a different group in this sense: I'm used to a lot of guys I've had be very emotional, they wear their emotions on their sleeve. This group doesn't. It takes them time to show their emotion, and it was weird, where we lost and the locker room was very quiet, and then you saw with the guys, it kind of set into them. So for me, this group was just a joy to coach because of how they approached every day."

"I get 11-21, or whatever we wound up being. I think there's some good things ahead for us. I like our future. I like to look out the windshield. It's pretty big, the rearview mirror's small for a reason, the windshield's pretty big for a reason. That's kind of how I look at it. This group is too good, and they're too good of people, too hard-working not to have great things happen to them down the road."