Jason Collins (0) drives past Iona’s Jeremiah Quigley as Marist defeated Gaels in New Rochelle for first time since 2013. (Photo by Harrison Baker/Marist Athletics)
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Wednesday night served as the opening act for a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference season already projected to be one of the more unpredictable campaigns in the 43-year history of the league.
Perhaps, then, it was only fitting that the lid on the abundance of parity was lifted with one of the most familiar sights around the MAAC for nearly two decades: A John Dunne special.
The term, coined in this space to describe the rock fights and gritty battles Dunne made famous in his 17-plus years as a head coach — first at Saint Peter’s before moving on to Marist — manifested itself again Wednesday as his Red Foxes met Iona in a rematch of last year’s MAAC tournament championship game.
And in an affair that was defined first by 20 minutes of a first half comparable to basketball quicksand, then by a frequent whistle and herky-jerky flow down the stretch, it was the visitors who turned the tables on the reigning champion as Marist survived a blown 10-point lead to fire the final salvo in a 68-64 victory.
With the win, Marist assured itself of finishing over .500 in the month of November for the first time since the 2007-08 season, the last of Matt Brady’s four years at the helm in Poughkeepsie. However, the upper hand in this battle was certainly earned.
A 25-all opening stanza gave way to Iona (2-5, 0-1 MAAC) pouncing on the Red Foxes out of the intermission by scoring seven of the first nine points after halftime, prompting Dunne to call a timeout to quell the momentum. Following a stretch where both teams traded blows, Marist suddenly seized control midway through the final stanza with a 16-5 run, taking a 54-46 lead with less than eight minutes remaining in regulation. The lead would swell to as many as 10 points following a Jadin Collins layup that made the score 59-49 with 5:27 on the clock.
Iona would again regroup as the triumvirate of Idan Tretout, Joel Brown and Greg Gordon willed the Gaels back to life. Tretout and Brown started what would eventually become a 14-3 run by the hosts, punctuated by Gordon scoring eight of his 14 points in that spurt, to regain a slim 63-62 advantage just 75 ticks from the wire.
Marist advanced the ball past the halfcourt line, running the shot clock down to six seconds before Dunne called a timeout and drew up a sideline out-of-bounds play in which Collins threw a lob to Isaiah Brickner, who finished with a two-handed slam that put the Red Foxes ahead to stay.
“We practice that play all the time,” said Brickner, the sophomore point guard. “Coach called it up and said if they locked and trailed, to throw it up. JC threw a great pass and that’s a tough pass to throw in a tight game like that. He had the courage to throw it up, and I just finished it.”
Longtime MAAC followers will remember Dunne making the same call in the championship game of the 2017 CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament, when Chazz Patterson and Trevis Wyche connected on it successfully to win the CIT for Saint Peter’s. Nearly seven years later, the coach marveled at the similar execution.
“I’ve run that play for years,” Dunne admitted. “Sometimes guys don’t have the guts to throw it, even when it’s open, and you’ve gotta look (to see) if it’s a lock and trail and how tight they’re playing on the five. Once we lined up, I kind of knew it was going to be there. I just didn’t know if (Collins) was gonna throw it. Not only did he throw it, he threw a perfect pass for a dunk. That was pretty nice.”
Iona managed only one point, a free throw by Gordon, in the final minute of action, coming up empty in a disappointing setback in which head coach Tobin Anderson revealed his visible chagrin with the Gaels’ inconsistency.
“I’m frustrated with where we’re at,” he bluntly stated. “You could take all the expectations and polls and all that stuff, and we’re not as feisty as we should be right now. I’ve gotta do a better job. I didn’t like how we played, to be honest with you. The reality was Marist didn’t blink. Marist kept coming, they played well, and they outplayed us in the second half. We created this ourselves, we’ve gotta find a way out of this.”
“I think we’re a tough team, I really do. We’re not playing very tough. We’re not being resilient enough together, tough enough the whole way through. We’re better than that right now. I’m in between okay and patient, but I’m also a little bit angry with how we’re playing. We’re not getting it done yet, and we have to. We’re not getting consistent, across the board every night, play from each guy. We have four guys play well, three guys don’t play well. We can’t have that. We’ve gotta get mentally tougher. If we don’t get mentally tougher, we’re in trouble. That’s all there is to it.”
Iona will head up the New England Thruway for its next shot at redemption, coming Friday against Fairfield, while Marist will take Friday off before returning to action Sunday against Manhattan. The matchup with the Jaspers affords the Red Foxes a chance to exit the opening weekend of MAAC play with a coveted 2-0 record, something Collins and Brickner made possible with their rapid maturation and unflappable nerves in the second half.
“These two guys both really stayed poised in the second half,” Dunne said of his freshman and sophomore backcourt. “I think in the first half, they were really erratic and they would admit that, but in the second half, they stayed really poised. For us, we’re a young team, so we just have to learn when you’re up 10, you can’t gift them points at the line and you can’t give them layups. That’s just us being young, but when they did score, we stayed strong and made the plays at the end when it counted.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.