Masiello reflects on coaching, COVID, life in wake of Manhattan’s season-ending loss

 

Steve Masiello may have wanted a better ending than Tuesday’s overtime loss, but Manhattan head coach found perspective and meaning in competing amid pandemic. (Photo by Vincent Simone/NYC Buckets)

Ending a season on the short end of a one-point overtime game is never an easy pill to swallow. Neither is preparing to coach in the midst of a worldwide crisis that transcends sports and life.

Yet somehow, Steve Masiello found a way to put an issue that gets harder for journalists to address — and courageous for him to tackle — in perspective once again as his Manhattan team came up short in the opening round of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, the victim of a 59-58 setback to a Fairfield team that had defeated the Jaspers by 18 points just four days prior.

Masiello has come under fire for six straight losing seasons in Riverdale since bringing the fifth MAAC championship — and second consecutive — to the program in 2015, but what is masked by the wins and losses has been a man playing the roles of coach, father figure and protective older brother in equal parts to the young men he oversees and develops, tasks that have only been magnified in the vise-like grip of COVID-19.

“It was a tough locker room, the guys were pretty down,” he conceded in his postgame press conference before going on to educate his players on the harsh realities of the world and urging them to use this bump in the road as a motivator to spark change for the better. “My message to them was, ‘this is life, fellas.’ Not everything’s going to go your way. What are you going to do right now? Are you going to sulk, blame people, hang your heads, or are you going to get back to work and get better?” 

“This year was kind of a — there’ll be an NCAA champion, there’ll be a MAAC tournament champion — but in essence, this year was a free year for the guys, so you get the opportunity to learn wisdom and experience without it going against you, and I think that’s something you’ve really got to capitalize on. This year could really be a great catapulting year for our guys if they’re mind is right in the offseason to come back and get to work and improve their weaknesses, build on chemistry. We didn’t have...like all teams, we didn’t have an offseason to develop mentality. In the summer, you have time to build that chemistry to the level that you’d like. It doesn’t mean you can’t still win, or vice versa, but we’re going to concentrate on those things and prioritize that.”

Masiello himself has been on the downside of adverse circumstances, but has always looked at the glass half-full and managed to turn the majority of ominous forecasts into positives in some way, shape, or form. It is this innate ability to realize the world beyond basketball that has kept him around the game for the past decade when a lesser coach would perhaps have been replaced for not delivering results. Wins and losses do go a long way, but it takes a special skill set to recognize the value in the pain that lies scattered along the road to success.

“Things didn’t always go their way, (but) they showed up,” an impassioned Masiello declared, his voice cracking momentarily. “They didn’t play on Zoom calls. They were there on the front line every day doing the work, and I have a lot of respect for all the kids and student-athletes that sacrificed to play basketball and do something they love, so kudos to them. I want them to look everyone in their eyes, I want them to hold their heads high, I want them to be proud of who they are and what they are, and the job they did.”