MAAC Basketball Preview: Fairfield Stags Poised to Usurp Siena Saints' Throne
After three years of conference domination, Siena graduated three of its four best players and lost its head coach to Iowa. Are teams like Fairfield and Iona ready to challenge Siena for the conference title? How do other teams rank? Will Marist leave the conference's cellar?
We will know the answers to these questions in five months, but for now, here's the MAAC's 2010-11 Basketball Preview.
Note: The slides are in order of last year's final standings.
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Marist Red Foxes
1 of 11There are two ways for Marist fans to view the upcoming season. They can take the optimistic approach and say, “Hey, we only won once last year. It’s gonna be pretty damn tough not to improve, no?”
Or, they can espouse the pessimistic yet more realistic take, “Jeez, Daye Kaba left us and none of our freshmen will be the immediate impact player we need to be revived. How can we possibly be optimistic?
The answer to the pessimists’ resounding question: being optimistic would be as smart as asking Hal Mcrae if he ever considered hitting Brett for Miller with the bases loaded in the seventh.
Yes, Marist returns every key player except Kaba from last year’s team. But were any of those Red Foxes so exceptionally teeming with potential that we should think an offseason was all they needed to convert that potential into actual talent?
I think not.
Marist might be able to pick up a couple of wins here and there, but the chances of them leaving the MAAC’s cellar are about as good as saying Jimmy Patsos won’t get a technical foul this season.
Manhattan Jaspers
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Generally, when an 11-20 team loses six of its top seven scorers, there isn’t much that team can do to produce a winning record the next season.
People can rave all they want about Barry Rohrssen’s recruiting class, which includes a former Wake Forest commit, a regional JUCO POY, an all-city first team point guard, an Alabama transfer, and three other recruits. However, it will be almost impossible for these newcomers to develop enough chemistry to crack .500 this year.
In addition, Mike Alvarado, the all-city point guard from All-Hallows, will be required to run the point for 30-35 minutes per game. Nick Walsh is really Manhattan’s only viable point guard off the bench, but he is more comfortable and effective at the two.
We saw then-freshman Derek Needham play 36.5 minutes per game last year all the while commanding the offense like an upperclassman, but he also displayed some growing pains—i.e. his 3.8 turnovers per game. Needham also had established veteran teammates in Anthony Johnson and Yorel Hawkins, something Alvarado certainly lacks.
With Manhattan’s inexperienced—at the Division 1 level—supporting cast, it's tough to rely on a freshman point guard to lead the team back to relevancy in Year One.
This team will be good in the future—and it will probably show signs of potential this year—but the players need time to gel.
On a side note, it will also be interesting to see how Barry Rohrssen and his new assistant coaches, Scott Padgett and Scott Adubato, adjust the team’s playing style as the Jaspers finally have a surplus of big men.
Loyola Md. Greyhounds
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Forget that Brett Harvey and Shane Walker graduated. They were good ballplayers, but they certainly were not irreplaceable—if Bobby Olson and Anthony Winbush continued on their paths of development this offseason, the Greyhounds won’t be hit too hard by the graduations.
Loyola’s potential success this season hinges not on replacing Harvey and Walker but on Jamal Barney, who took a personal leave from the team for two weeks in January and averaged a meager 12.6 points per game last year.
The enigmatic Barney has played like a MAAC-plus talent at times but like an ordinary mid-major player at others, and if he can revive his game to its 2008-09 form—when he was the MAAC’s best scorer with 18.1 ppg—the Greyhounds could be better than people expect.
When Barney plays well, Loyola wins at a much higher rate than when he doesn’t. The Greyhounds are 13-6 when Barney pours in at least 20 points and 12-31 when he doesn’t.
In addition to Barney, Jimmy Patsos returns two other starters, Brian Rudolph and Winbush, and his entire bench. While most of his recruiting class will need to ease into Division I basketball, Patsos thinks Dylan Cormier, a combo guard who can shoot the lights out of a gym, is ready to contribute immediately.
Obviously, Loyola won’t finish atop the MAAC, but if Barney returns to his all-conference level, the Greyhounds could possibly play its first MAAC Tournament game on Saturday, not Friday.
Canisius Golden Griffins
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Frank Turner graduated, but seniors Julius Coles and Greg Logins are both candidates for all-MAAC honors while Elton Frazier, Tomas Vazquez-Simmons, Alshawn Hymes, and the controversial Robert Goldsberry were all key components last year.
Add in eligible South Florida transfer Gaby Belardo, who is supposedly one of the best Griffs already, 7’3” Marial Dhal, and Ashton Khan, a quick point guard, and Tom Parrotta is in pretty good shape after losing his star player.
Dhal, perhaps, was the most crucial addition to Canisius’ recruiting class. While the junior college transfer isn’t an offensive threat, his shot-blocking prowess will complement that of Vazquez-Simmons, the MAAC’s top swatter, potentially providing Parrotta with one of the conference’s most imposing frontcourts.
Belardo and Khan will assume Turner’s role of floor general, and, according to Steve Amedio, Parrotta thinks they are both ready to do so.
Rider Broncs
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Ryan Thompson graduated, but Tommy Dempsey has an experienced core of four seniors and two juniors for 2010-11. Although the Broncs endured a disappointing 2009-10, they still have the talent to be an upper-echelon MAAC team.
Senior point guard Justin Robinson, a commendable ball handler and deep threat, has improved every year under Dempsey’s tutelage and is definitely ready to run the show while fellow senior Mike Ringgold is one of the league’s best interior players.
Jhamar Youngblood, a senior who averaged 6.7 points per game in his first year with the Broncs, will join Robinson in the backcourt. The Broncs need Youngblood to be more efficient on the offensive end this year, and he is certainly capable of raising his meager 1.07 points per shot from a year ago.
If versatile junior Novar Gadson can play at a more consistent level than he did last year, the Thompson-less Broncs could finish in the top-four.
Niagara Purple Eagles
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Tyrone Lewis, Bilal Benn, Rob Garrison, and Demetrius Williamson graduated, and the program dismissed Austin Cooley. Now, only senior point guard Anthony Nelson and junior forward Kashief Edwards remain from a core of Purple Eagles capable of wreaking havoc on the MAAC and above.
Other than the aforementioned returnees, no Purple Eagle saw more than 10 minutes per game last season. In fact, Scooter Gillette and Eric Williams are the only other Purple Eagles who appeared in more than three games in 2009-10.
As usual, Joe Mihalich produced a solid recruiting class of Skylar Jones, Malcolm Lemmons, Antoine Mason, Joe Thomas, and Marvin Jordan. Jones, Lemmons, and Mason should be able to—and will need to—contribute immediately. In addition to the recruits, UNC-Wilmington transfer Kevon Moore is eligible.
This Niagara team lacks experience—even Nelson and Edwards will need to adjust to new scoring roles as a result of the loss of 56 points per game—and will remain in the middle of the pack despite having the pieces to upset a top-tier MAAC program.
St. Peter's Peacocks
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Devastating news broke at St. Peter’s this week. Senior guard Wesley Jenkins injured his ACL, and although the timetable for his return is unknown, he is expected to miss several months and possibly the entire season.
As Jenkins and fellow seniors Ryan Bacon and Nick Leon have developed, St. Peter’s has gone from a pathetic 6-24 team in 2007-08 to what could have been an elite MAAC squad in 2010-11. However, the prospect of Jenkins missing the entire season severely limits the Peacocks’ chances of finishing in the conference’s top four.
Bacon and Leon are good ballplayers, but they need Jenkins in the lineup to thrive. Free of worrying about Jenkins, defenses can focus more on the other two seniors.
Now, Jeron Belin and UTEP transfer Blaise French will be pressured to help fill the scoring void left by Jenkins. Both are capable of doing so, but the Peacocks simply won’t be the same without their leading scorer.
Iona Gaels
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Kevin Willard rebuilt a 2-28 team from three years ago into a dangerous, multi-faceted 21-10 squad in 2009-10. In the spring, Willard elected to sign with Seton Hall.
However, the program did not fall apart after his departure—in fact, it got even better.
Iona AD Patrick Lyons replaced Willard with Tim Cluess, unproven at the D1 level but a winner everywhere he’s coached. If the players didn’t feel confident in Cluess, several would have transferred. None of them did.
Soft seven-footer Jonathan Huffman and sharpshooter Milan Prodanovic both graduated, but Gaels fans probably won’t even notice.
In addition to maintaining its core of Scott Machado, Alejo Rodriguez, Jermel Jenkins, and Kyle Smyth, Cluess and former Fordham assistant and interim head coach Jared Grasso assembled an impressive recruiting class.
They signed Sean Armand, who averaged 28 points per game at CJEOTO Academy last year. The guard is a tremendous scorer who can produce off the drive or from NBA three-point range.
Bringing size and offense to the lineup, former Seton Hall prized recruit Michael Glover transferred to Iona from the College of Eastern Utah. Glover averaged 17.3 points and 6.9 rebounds per game last season.
Grasso helped lure former Fordham commit Jayon James to New Rochelle. James’ high school numbers are not impressive, but he is versatile—he can play several positions and score in a variety of ways.
Sharpshooter Aleksander Kesic will also join the Gaels’ squad.
When you combine that talent—much of which will come off the bench initially—with nearly the same Iona team from last year, you get a team sure to finish in the top of the MAAC.
Fairfield Stags
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Except—yes, this is a big “except”—for Anthony Johnson and Mike Evanovich, the entire Stags team that took Siena to overtime in the 2010 conference championship returns for Ed Cooley.
In addition, Yorel Hawkins, who missed the final 12 games of the season with a leg injury, and Greg Nero and Warren Edney, both of whom sat the entire 2009-10 season, are ready to play.
Hawkins should be the impact player he was prior to hurting his leg, while Nero is still improving his stamina but should be a valuable asset for the Stags. Edney’s injured foot still bothers him, but according to Collegehoopsnet’s Joel Welser, he is expected to play a significant role.
Last year’s conference Rookie of the Year, Derek Needham, will run the point again. He proved he could take over games as a freshman, and if he worked on cutting down his turnovers this offseason, Needham could be the conference’s most dangerous player.
Ryan Olander will need to mitigate the loss of Johnson by crashing the boards more and providing interior defense, both tasks he can certainly do. And, Lyndon Jordan, Sean Crawford, and Colin Nickerson will assume larger, possibly starting, roles.
This Fairfield team is poised to usurp Siena’s throne atop the MAAC.
Siena Saints
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Several names that have been associated with Siena over the years are no longer with the basketball program. Coach Fran McCaffery left for Iowa, and Ronald Moore, Edwin Ubiles, and Alex Franklin graduated.
However, unlike most mid-majors who lose their coach and three of their four best players in one offseason, Siena won’t take much of a step down in 2010-11.
The Saints promoted assistant Mitch Buonaguro to replace McCaffery and return MAAC Player of the Year candidate Ryan Rossiter as well as Clarence Jackson. Right there, Siena has a coach familiar with the system and two of the league’s top players.
The departures of Moore, Ubiles, and Franklin will enable players like Owen Wignot and Kyle Downey to see more floor time. Both players have shown potential and will finally have larger roles for the Saints.
Seton Hall transfer Brandon Walters will play alongside Rossiter down low. At 6’9” and 245 pounds, Walters has the frame to potentially become an elite MAAC player. His anemic numbers with the Pirates don’t accurately reflect his potential in this conference for two reasons—(1) he barely played, and (2) when he did, his opposition was generally better than the MAAC.
O.D. Anosike, who will join Rossiter and Walters in the frontcourt, added 25 pounds to his athletic but thin frame this offseason, so he will likely be able to hold his own against the league’s better post players.
Siena’s formidable frontcourt will be unmatched by any other MAAC team, and it will be a significant advantage come conference play.
Really, the only question mark hovering over this program is how well it will replace Ronald Moore, the nation’s best distributor in 2009-10. While McCaffery assembled a well-rounded, talented team, there’s no way the Saints would have achieved as much as they did without Moore—he’s called the Maestro for a reason.
Now, a mixture of Rakeem Brookins, Kyle Griffin, Kyle Downey, and Jonathan Breeden will command the offense. Not too shabby, but still no Ronald Moore.
If you’re expecting Siena to steamroll the MAAC again, you’re probably in for a disappointment. This team is filled with talent and potential and should still finish in the top-three, but it certainly won’t dominate like it has in years past.
2010-11 MAAC Predictions
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1. Fairfield
2. Siena
3. Iona
4. Rider
5. St. Peter's
6. Niagara
7. Canisius
8. Manhattan
9. Loyola Md.
10. Marist
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