Elijah Buchanan led Manhattan with 26 points as Manhattan avenged a loss to Iona Friday with a win 24 hours later. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
Only 24 hours removed from a matchup in which Manhattan was outplayed for most of the night, the Jaspers repeated a recurring theme in their season, as unorthodox and unique as its circumstances may be.
Behind 26 points and 13 rebounds from Elijah Buchanan, Manhattan once again demonstrated a stronger effort in the second game of back-to-back series by splitting its pair of contests with Iona, defeating its longtime rival, 77-70, after the Gaels came away with an 18-point victory in the initial soirée between the two schools on Friday.
“We really wanted to make sure we locked in on them and didn’t give them anything easy,” head coach Steve Masiello remarked as the Jaspers (6-9, 5-9 MAAC) ended a five-game losing streak and a skid that saw losses in six of their last seven games with the program’s first win in New Rochelle since January 12, 2012, when Emmy Andujar’s 3-pointer at the buzzer capped off a game-ending 27-7 run that erased a 17-point deficit. “We wanted to concentrate on attacking them on the offensive end, try to get them into foul trouble, and I thought we were able to do that.”
“They’re a really good spacing team. Their rotations make it hard to trap, and tonight, we tried to cut back on that a little bit and pick our spots to try to get them more off rhythm. So it became a different look, and I thought we were able to guard and keep bodies on bodies.”
After Iona (6-4, 4-2 MAAC) benefited from a spectacular shooting display in Friday’s first half that it was able to use en route to victory, Manhattan did the same in the rematch. Three 3-pointers in the opening minutes staked Manhattan out to a 15-5 lead and launched Gaels head coach Rick Pitino into a timeout to rally the troops. The hosts chipped away, but Manhattan was able to recover and take a 10-point edge into the intermission.
The Jaspers extended the cushion to 12 early in the second half, but a 16-2 Iona run put the Gaels in front briefly with eight minutes to play. However, Manhattan responded with six straight points to regain the lead for good, as Buchanan — who seemed to have an answer for every potential Iona comeback — slammed the door with a three in the left corner with 90 seconds on the clock, a de facto dagger and punctuation on a career night for the former Mount St. Michael standout.
“He played a spectacular game tonight, he almost had a triple-double,” Masiello said of Buchanan, who also tallied seven assists. “He deserves all the credit, putting in the work in the gym, perfecting his craft, staying with the process. We believe a lot of guys in this program take big steps sophomore to junior year, and I think you’re seeing that with EB and Warren.”
“Manhattan did a great job,” Pitino conceded as Masiello became just the fourth of his former assistants to defeat him as a head coach, joining Tubby Smith, Mick Cronin and Kevin Willard, who turned the trick in November when Seton Hall defeated Iona. “Sometimes you make excuses, which I’ve always believed is a sign of weakness, but the reason we lost tonight is Manhattan outplayed us. On the backboard, outplayed us shooting the basketball, outplayed us totally. They deserve all the credit, no excuses on our part. They outplayed us.”
Five games remain in the regular season for Manhattan, who now has a bye week before visiting Siena one week from Wednesday, and gets to take a confidence boost into a midweek matchup with the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference favorite Saints.
“It’s all about who gets hot right now,” Masiello said. “We’ve got five left in the regular season, and it’s all about who gets hot. I’ve been in this league way too long to see teams peak at the right time, and that’s what it’s about. I’m trying to explain the guys, don’t get caught up with results right now. Understand your vision, stay with your process, don’t worry about the glory, be impactful. And we did that tonight.”
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