Monmouth's experience, guard depth will make Hawks a factor in MAAC

King Rice loses Ray Salnave, but brings deep Monmouth team into a MAAC where Hawks should challenge Siena for conference supremacy. (Photo by Vincent Simone/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Toward the end of last season, it appeared as though the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference battle between Siena and Saint Peter’s was going to welcome a third entrant, until the coronavirus pandemic scrapped the remnants of the 2019-20 campaign before even the slightest strand of a net could be clipped.

Seven months later, Monmouth, the aforementioned third team in the mix after a resurgent stretch drive, has reloaded in the wake of losing Ray Salnave but also returning its trademark deep roster, and like everyone else in the nation, is adjusting to basketball life in a COVID-19 world.

“Anytime you get a game canceled, it’s devastating for anybody in the program,” King Rice reflected as the Hawks pick up the pieces after not even getting to take the floor in the MAAC tournament this past March, as the NCAA pulled the plug on the season several hours before Monmouth was to face Quinnipiac. “My first thing was just to make sure that my kids were okay and explain to them that this is something nobody’s ever dealt with in college athletics. It’s really a terrible situation, but at that time, we were all scared and we didn’t know anything about it. I just wanted to make sure my kids were safe and our families were safe, then we had to deal with what was in front of us.”

“Our staff and our players have done a tremendous job of just keeping their minds in a good place, trying to stay healthy, working out, finishing school. That was way different than anything they had ever dealt with before.”

Adjustment to a new set of guidelines and routines is going to be one of the biggest keys to navigating an obstacle-littered season over the next five months, and Rice was his usual candid self when assessing the hardest part of coaching in a pandemic.

“The unknown,” he declared. “You think, ‘Okay, this will be done by the summer, and then we’ll go out recruiting and we’ll be working with our guys all summer.’ As a dad and a husband, it started getting to me and my staff. When you get dealt a hand that you don’t like, you still have to figure out the next move. And then you throw in — on top of this — all the racial things going on in our country and what guys were seeing on TV during this time with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and basketball just didn’t seem as important. If we get this chance to play basketball, that’s going to be our blessing. This country’s been dealing with a lot of stuff, so hopefully getting to play basketball will give us some relief. These kids really, really want this.”

The kids of whom Rice speaks comprise one of the deeper and more experienced rosters in the MAAC, something that gives the Hawks a leg up in a league that is younger than it was last season. Ray Salnave has departed, having headed to DePaul as a graduate transfer, but Monmouth returns a cadre of guards in George Papas, Samuel Chaput, Marcus McClary and Melik Martin to go with MAAC Player of the Year contender Deion Hammond and newcomer Donovann Toatley, as well as a burgeoning front line that will feature Nikkei Rutty and Jarvis Vaughan more heavily after Mustapha Traore and Sam Ibiezugbe graduated this past May.

“Nikkei is ahead of schedule,” Rice said of Rutty, whose offseason injury was to sideline him until January. “He’s one of those kids who, because of his injury, got to come to campus early and work with the trainers, he got his surgery right away and started doing his treatment. He’s been here working on his body, he’s jogging, he’s shooting. They said sometime in January, I’d say he’s in front of that (timeline). We’re not rushing him, we want him to get healthy before we do anything.”

“Jarvis has been tremendous. They also thought he would be shut down until November-December, and Jarvis came back this summer and is probably about 90 percent. He’s super athletic, he plays with so much energy, and he can do a lot of things on the floor. We haven’t had a lot of guys with Jarvis’ skill set.”

With the frontcourt — which also welcomes freshmen Myles Foster and Klemen Vuga — a work in progress, the backcourt becomes even more integral to a program that has thrived on guard productivity even before Salnave and Justin Robinson, going back to the days of Dion Nesmith and Jesse Steele.

“With Nikkei being out and Jarvis coming back from an injury, I think our strength is with our guards right now,” said Rice. “I think Deion is a kid that could be Player of the Year and I think he fits in with that group. Donovann can do a lot of things, our young guys are super good, and you can throw Melik and Marcus in there with the bigger guys, but our strength is our guards.”

It is not inconceivable to suggest that with the roster turnover at Iona and Rick Pitino’s inability to get as much time with his team as he may have liked due to the pandemic, Monmouth could perhaps be the biggest challenge to likely MAAC favorite Siena, who returns reigning Player of the Year Jalen Pickett and senior forward Manny Camper after the latter averaged a double-double last season. Even without a star the likes of Salnave, the Hawks’ coach remains confident, not worrying about anyone else but his own team and maintaining a clear set of expectations in West Long Branch.

“I don’t worry about what people say we can’t do,” Rice proclaimed. “I spend no time worrying about naysayers. I want to watch these kids flourish, I want to watch kids from other teams with big smiles on their faces because they get this opportunity to do what they’ve always dreamed about doing. I think we’ve shown we’re going to play hard, we’re definitely going to play smarter. I think my staff has gotten better over this time and getting our mind to what’s important, and helping these young men have a great year is the most important thing. That’s what we’re focused on.”