Monmouth leaning on consistency and senior core to get closer to elusive MAAC crown

King Rice has Monmouth positioned to once again be MAAC threat, building on Hawks’ success with returning experience and incoming transfers. (Photo by Vincent Simone/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

Iona may have a stranglehold on the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s recent postseason glory, and Siena has been one of the more dominant regular season programs over the past two years, but arguably the most consistent success outside of New York has called the Jersey Shore home.

Monmouth — darlings of the MAAC and nation in the latter part of the 2010s — has remained a force in the conference, rising above adversity and, in last year’s case, numerous pandemic-induced pauses to find its way back to the top half of a conference it has helped shape the perception of since arriving in 2013. And after finishing second to Siena last year, the most rewarding piece of the puzzle for head coach King Rice — always one to see the big picture in every situation — was not the finished product on the court, but rather the resolve his players displayed off it.

“I think the thing that I’m most proud of is how our guys fought through it to do well in school,” he remarked. “We got thrown for a loop — everybody did across the country — and I think I’m probably most proud that our team did well last semester. I think they were worn out, I think they were tired, getting shut down really wore on our minds, and for them to handle it on the court the way we did — just keeping their cool and doing what they were supposed to do is what I’m most proud of.”

“What I can take from that is we’ve got a resilient bunch of kids. It took all hands on deck for us to get through it, and I felt like our group — parents included — really worked together. It just shows that when our kids get their backs against the wall, they’ll do great things.”

Monmouth may not have its back against the wall yet, but the stakes have been raised in the MAAC in light of Iona’s latest NCAA Tournament appearance and Rick Pitino’s fairytale conquest. Rice has responded in kind, taking on a pair of graduate transfers in Shavar Reynolds and Walker Miller from Seton Hall and North Carolina, respectively, while adding a quartet of incoming freshmen that will fight for their share of minutes while also fending off their upperclassman teammates for a spot on the floor.

“I thought our league has been solid the whole time, but any time you bring in a Hall of Famer, it’s going to raise things and I’m all for that,” said Rice. “I think all of us are trying to find a new way of dealing with all of this stuff. This is new for all of us, and I learned from Coach (Kevin) Stallings that you have to change with the times, you have to be in front of things, but you also have to do things that fit you. We were fortunate to get two graduates to come here, and that’s going to help us tremendously, but we were also fortunate to land some young guys who we feel are going to help us have success in this league.”

“We’ve known Sam Fagan since he was a young kid, so I was super happy when he decided to come. Tadhg Crowley is huge, he’s a big, strong 6-foot-11 kid that nobody can move on our team right now. Jayden Doyle might be our most athletic guy we’ve ever brought in here, and he’s starting to figure it out, and then Tahron Allen’s a New York kid who can really score the ball. I’ve got to keep their heads clear and keep them in a good place. We’ve always had freshman breakthroughs, and I don’t think this year will be any different.”

As far as the Hawks’ returning contingent, George Papas has returned for his senior season after briefly testing the waters of the transfer portal, and has Monmouth’s traditional cadre of depth alongside him. Myles Ruth, instrumental last season at the point guard spot after Samuel Chaput was injured, will build on his rookie campaign in West Long Branch, with the front line of Jarvis Vaughan, Nikkei Rutty, Klemen Vuga and Myles Foster stepping up one year older and one year wiser.

“I think Myles has grown,” Rice said of Ruth, a St. Bonaventure commit swayed to the Hawks’ program after a phone call from Bob Hurley sold Rice on the guard’s potential. “I think his maturity off the floor has helped him understand the role he played for our team. After the season, he had to do some reflecting because he played a major role on the court, but he was a young guy and it was a lot of responsibility for him. I think Myles really matured in the offseason. He made big strides off the floor, in the classroom, so I think he’s ready.”

“Sam Chaput last year was about to have a big-time year and then was injured. Jack Holmstrom is a kid that does everything you could want a kid to do, and now the game is slowing down for him. We’re happy with his growth, and Klem also. Klem had appendicitis the day before practice started and lost his confidence, but he’s shown he’s made great strides this summer also. And then Myles Foster has totally changed his body, he's just grown up a year and he’s just been tremendous so far. What you’ll see is our guys had a tremendous summer in the weight room. Their bodies look a lot better. Jarvis is back healthy the whole way, he’s hitting on high cylinders now, ready to go, and Nikkei’s 100 percent.”

The influx of talent and returns of the incumbent pieces have also afforded Rice a luxury with which he was not presented until this season, the ability to play Marcus McClary at his natural wing position, where he feels the senior will be most effective and in line to play his best basketball.

“Marcus has been tremendous for us all four years,” Rice said of McClary. “He’s been one of our best defenders, and the cool thing right now is Marcus is at his true position, on the wing, and he’s playing tremendous basketball right now. He knows what he wants off the floor, he knows who he is on the floor, he’s embracing his role on the wing and just doing big-time things so far.”

“I don’t know if I can call it a breakout year, but I’m glad he’s back and I’m glad I can play him at his rightful position on the wing. He’ll be a problem for people to deal with because he’ll be playing against guys more his size, and now he’ll be able to have an advantage every night.”

Like most other teams welcoming back experienced players, Monmouth is hopeful that its own veterans will raise the bar and fix some of the issues that hindered the Hawks last year, while simultaneously upholding the uptempo style and defensive pressure that have been trademarks in Rice’s tenure.

“I think we’ll be better rebounding, we’ll be more versatile on defense,” Rice acknowledged. “I’m going to go back to some of the things that make people worry about our defense more. We’re still going to go super fast, but I think we’ll take care of the ball better because of the guys we have being older. We’re just a group that goes out and plays our hardest every night. It’s been fun for me so far because I have all these older kids. When you have veterans, you can talk to them differently, put things in front of them differently. There’s going to be a lot of ownership from our players, and I think we’ll be a fun group to see play.”

Siena reloads with new supporting cast in search of regular season MAAC three-peat

Carmen Maciariello overcame losses of Manny Camper and Jalen Pickett by finding depth in transfer portal as Siena defends its MAAC regular season championship. (Photo by the Albany Times Union)

The late-season surge of Iona this past March, coupled with the magnetism of head coach Rick Pitino as he has firmly positioned the Gaels to maintain their place at the head of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference table has shifted the majority of college basketball eyes to New Rochelle as the 2021-22 season commences in less than eight weeks.

But while Pitino commands the lion’s share of attention around the MAAC, Siena, the conference's regular season champion of the past two seasons is not resting on its laurels, welcoming a slew of newcomers to the Capital Region with the same goal firmly in place.

“I just see a hungry, motivated group, a bunch of guys who came to Siena for one reason, and that was to play meaningful games and win championships, regardless of what happens with preseason polls,” head coach Carmen Maciariello declared as the Saints begin a defense of an honor they hope to win for a third straight season, matching Fran McCaffery’s teams of 2007-2010. “My first year, we were picked sixth and we won it, last year, we were picked first and we won it. At the end of the day, the preseason polls mean nothing, and we’re kind of excited to continue to work in silence.”

“I thought the best thing, and we were the second-latest team to start, was we had a very resilient group. I didn’t try to run them into the ground, I made sure they were in a good mental space. I was just happy with the guys being able to have that resolve and still come together, and I didn’t have a full roster once, whether it was Aidan Carpenter, Nick Hopkins, Jordan King, Jalen Pickett. For me, it was a learning experience. It didn’t end the way we wanted, but when it’s all said and done, you have to play the cards you’re dealt and I thought our guys did a great job of just being resilient, enjoying playing Siena basketball, and a feather in their cap is they have something in the record books in their legacy. We had 16 straight wins, and they should be proud of that.”

With Pickett and King having transferred, and reigning MAAC Player of the Year Manny Camper taking his talents to the professional landscape, Siena will look largely different on the surface compared to what Saints fans had become acclimated to when Maciariello assumed the reins from Jamion Christian in 2019. But with the transfer portal affording the third-year coach the flexibility to adjust his roster, balance it and also offer immediate impact opportunities, the dropoff in Loudonville will be minimal, if that. In fact, Maciariello is banking on being able to push the tempo more than he did in his first campaign at the helm.

“I’m hoping we can play a little faster,” he said, with inflections of excitement audible in his intonation. “Year one, we led the league in scoring, year two was kind of a different style, we were a little more deliberate. But I want to play fast.”

“We have Aidan Carpenter, Nick Hopkins, Jackson Stormo all back, and they know how we want to play. And when you add to that a guy like Anthony Gaines from Northwestern, who should be a double-double guy for us like Manny was, you look to see who wants to fill those other starting roles. Jackson’s going to be the headliner, and I think he’s got a chance to be one of the best bigs, if not the best, in the league. And all those other guys with the experience they have, I think Nick and Aidan will definitely bring that to the table, knowing how we want to play and how we do things. I’m looking for both of them to have big years. Nick’s a very cerebral player, makes winning plays. He’s just a calming influence out there.”

Siena’s supporting cast has been an integral part of the recent success for one of the MAAC’s flagship programs, as Stormo, Hopkins and Kyle Young all supplemented Pickett, Camper and King the past two seasons. Now, the former trio becomes a unit of leadership for the likes of Gaines, Colby Rogers and Jayce Johnson, with several others also primed to bring new looks and high-level basketball to the Times Union Center floor.

“Those two guys, I personally knew, Colby from when I got the job and Jayce when I was an assistant,” Maciariello said. “You can also talk about Jordan Kellier, who came from Utah, and Mike Tertsea, who came from Gannon. I think all those guys will have a chance to play meaningful minutes. We’re hoping to be able to play nine or ten guys, and I haven’t even spoken about Michael Baer, who has been just awesome with his ability to pick up things and be a sponge. He wants to play, he wants to win. Coming from Iowa, he’s got some great basketball etched in his mind. He was guarding Luka Garza every day, so guarding Jackson isn’t as tough as you would think. I’ve got a great group of guys who are working hard, and great freshmen in Javian McCollum and Jared Billups, so hopefully it’s going to be a little faster pace than we played last year and in my first year.”

“Colby’s a guy who can handle the ball and create his own shot, can score, he wanted to come to winning program. Jayce is a Swiss Army knife, he can play one through four, he was a college-recruited quarterback, he was first committed to Wagner to play football. I mentioned Jordan Kellier, he’s probably a combo forward more than a three, a physical lefty who can make a mid-range jumper and put it on the floor a bit, bully you to the rim. And then Mike Tertsea and Michael Baer will play up front, so I’m really excited about the depth we were able to build through the portal, and also the class difference. Anthony Gaines will probably stay one year having already started working on his Masters at Northwestern. Jayce has two, Jordan has three, Colby has three, so we were able to kind of build it a little bit where we don’t have to worry about guys playing meaningful minutes one year and then bouncing.”

In McCollum and Billups, and also Taihland Owens as he continues to recover from a knee injury that has hampered him during the summer, Maciariello sees opportunities for each to step in and assert themselves as the latest iteration of incoming talent to don the green and gold of Siena while also expanding their respective skill sets.

“I think we’re looking for attitude, energy, effort, appreciation,” he said when asked how he and his staff assesses each prospective recruit. “We’re looking for these guys to be thankful for what they have here at Siena and that gratitude, and they all have it. Javian is a quick guard, can shoot it from anywhere on the floor, and he’s a point guard who can pass it, make great plays, and create his own offense as well. And then Jared Billups is probably our second-best athlete behind Anthony Gaines, and that’s really speaking volumes about him and Anthony. But Jared’s college-ready, probably one of our better defenders already.”

“What you look for in these freshmen is the ability to learn and be coachable, and I think those guys do a great job just listening and understanding what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Maciariello had the opportunity to have the entire team on campus for eight weeks this summer, a time period he heralded for his players and staff being able to build bonds with one another in a relatively short time period, which becomes even more important as mid-major recruiting has turned into a consistently evolving landscape with the transfer portal being used as a vehicle to attract higher-level talent while also poaching players looking to take a bigger jump.

“I think the reality of it is, you’re going to have teams for two years,” he admitted. “I think there’s going to be two-year builds or two-year seasons where you’re trying to build for that second year. But obviously every year at Siena, we want to win, and that’s the goal as well.”

Siena will begin that quest on November 9 at St. Bonaventure, opening a non-conference schedule with the Atlantic 10 favorite Bonnies, one of several attractive opponents also including the likes of Ivy League powers Harvard and Yale, as well as defending Big East tournament champion Georgetown.

“That was the goal,” Maciariello reiterated when discussing how the stakes have been raised in light of Siena’s resurgence. “I wanted to help restore that prestige and that allure of the uniform. We want to play meaningful games and we want to challenge ourselves in everything we do. The fact that we can start a series with Harvard is great, we’re playing a Big East team in Georgetown, next year we’re in the Orlando Invitational and we’re going to Italy. We always want to grow, we always want to challenge ourselves. Every time we play, I want to play a team that’s competing to win their league. It shows we’re going up against the best.”

Sleep on Marist at your own risk as Dunne, Red Foxes carry tremendous upside into season

After scoring program’s highest MAAC finish in 14 years, John Dunne and Marist hope to build upon a solid foundation. (Photo by Hudson Valley Magazine)

In and around the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, everyone knows not to discount John Dunne, yet at the same time, it seems as though the grinding veteran coach is almost always flying under the radar each time the ball is tipped to start a season.

Such was the case last year, when a Marist team projected to finish near the bottom of the MAAC standings with a young roster that became even younger when Michael Cubbage was lost four games into a truncated season with a fractured foot ended up finishing fourth in the league only to post the program’s first winning season since 2007-08, an occurrence not lost on its leader.

“I was very satisfied as far as the regular season was concerned,” Dunne reflected. “We won three out of our last four, we were undersized, but we were playing well and with confidence. We really improved through the course of the year, but overall, I was pleased. We had such a new and young team, and you never know how that’s going to come together, so I was definitely pleased with that.”

With that said, though, Dunne stressed the need to build upon a burgeoning foundation by not only retaining the first-round bye it secured in this past March’s MAAC tournament, but also winning a game and advancing into the semifinals for the first time since 2006-07, when Matt Brady manned the McCann Arena sidelines and led the Red Foxes to a regular season crown.

“The goal every year is to get a bye,” Dunne reiterated. “Clearly, we want a winning season, but the goal has to be giving yourself an opportunity to make a run in the tournament.”

Marist will look to do that this season with a more experienced team that brings Jordan Jones back for an extra year to anchor its frontcourt while the likes of Ricardo Wright, Raheim Sullivan and Javon Cooley return to lead the guards and wings. In addition, Matt Herasme, Braden Bell and Victor Enoh are back to provide depth to a Red Foxes roster that also welcomes Samkelo Cele, a transfer from Southern University who instantly augments the toughness and gritty athleticism that has long been a hallmark of every Dunne-coached team.

“I just think Jordan’s a guy that’s probably the best back-to-the-basket scorer in the league,” Dunne said of Jones. “He’s really, over the period of his career, learned to play with poise down there. He’s really improved his game. He’s a very, very good shot blocker, and you might not notice because of Ndefo and how tremendous he was blocking shots, but Jordan Jones is a pretty good shot blocker in his own right. If he can play longer minutes, I think he’d be an all-league player. He helps our defense, he helps our offensive efficiency.”

“I think, at times, we lacked some toughness last year. I thought we needed to get a little bit stronger, a little bit tougher, and he brings that,” he added with regard to Cele, a 6-foot-5 South Africa native who can play on the wing and also as a stretch four if necessary in a smaller lineup. “He shot the ball at a 38 percent clip last year at Southern, so he definitely brings shot making, but his athleticism and toughness, and high character, makes him a good fit for the pieces we already have.”

In the backcourt, Sullivan and Wright will be the primary aggressors in a stable that introduces a pair of freshmen in Rutgers Prep standout Noah Harris, a combo guard whose strengths on and off the ball are equal, and Jao Ituka, who will help fill the void left by Hakim Byrd's transfer.

“I think he’s a guy that last year’s experience is going to help,” Dunne said of Sullivan, whose junior college experience aided his development as last season went on. “In the second half, I thought he was the best player on the court. If he can get more consistency, he’ll certainly have a chance to be an elite type of player. We have some options this year. You’ll see Noah on and off the ball. He shoots it at such a tremendous rate, but he’s not just a shooter, he’s a pretty good decision maker and we’ll get him into ball screens as well as off the bounce. I definitely have high expectations into the year, and certainly, he’s going to compete.”

“Ricardo Wright’s a guy that having to log so many minutes last year as a freshman is only going to help him. If he lowers his turnovers and continues to shoot the ball the way he’s been shooting it, he’s going to have a tremendous year. The one guy I do want to mention is Jao Ituka. I think you’re going to like him, he’s tough, he’s strong, 6’2, 210, sneaky athletic. He’s going to be a guy who’s going to compete for minutes for sure.”

All in all, one would be ill-advised to discount Marist again going into this season, but with most of the MAAC also improving along with the Red Foxes, a potential sleeper role is not out of the question. And after last season’s accelerated growth, Dunne truly believes his optimism for this year’s unit — a level of enthusiasm not seen in several years around Poughkeepsie — is truly warranted.

“The fact that those guys had pretty good success, I thought they learned through the course of the season how important it is to value the basketball, to bring that energy and focus,” he said. “Until you go through it, the new guys usually don’t understand that. They have a year under their belt now, and we certainly think our talent has risen.”