Saints hold on for victory
Siena comes within one point of fewest given up in topping Saint Peter’s
It might have been hard for the viewing audience to watch, but to Siena men’s basketball coach Carmen Maciariello, the 47-40 win over Saint Peter’s on Saturday night was absolutely gorgeous.
He watched his team respond with toughness and tenacity after having its 16-game winning streak ended by the Peacocks the night before.
“Oh, besides my wife (Laura), this is the second-most beautiful thing I’ll see today,” Maciariello said in a postgame Zoom call.
The Saints scored just two field goals in the final 10 minutes, 42 seconds, but those baskets proved to be the difference in a typically hard-fought victory over the Peacocks at Alumni Recreation Center on Saturday night.
Jordan King snapped a 40-40 tie with a runner in the lane near the end of the shot clock with 1:01 to play. After a Saint Peter’s turnover, Siena’s Jackson Stormo scored on a layup off a Jalen Pickett assist for a 44-40 lead with 19 seconds to play.
“Definitely a great bounceback game for us,” Pickett said. “It showed we can guard. This was a MAAC Tournament-type of game here. Grind it out, physical, trying to keep the emotions down on both sides. Everybody was getting worked up. I just think it was an overall great home win.”
Siena (7-1 overall, 7-1 Metro
Atlantic Athletic Conference) held the Peacocks (7-6, 4-4) to only two points and no baskets in the final 10:18.
The Saints scored their fewest points in a victory since a 47-46 overtime win over Cortland in 1965. The combined 87 points were the fewest in a Siena game since a 52-32 loss to Iona in 1964. The 40 points allowed were one shy of Siena’s Division I record.
“We had to focus on defense even more,” Siena senior guard/forward Manny Camper said. “We struggled to score. We normally score 60-plus a game. We scored 47. So, like I said, Saint Peter’s does a good job of mucking it up a little bit, making us work for everything. And just to be able to go toe-to-toe with them and be able to hold them to 40 points, that says a lot about our team.”
King had 12 points while Camper added 12 points and 13 rebounds. Pickett added 11 points, five rebounds and five assists in his second game back from a hamstring injury.
Siena battled Saint Peter’s to a 39-39 standstill in rebounding, a change from when the Saints were outrebounded by nine the night before.
Their man-to-man defense limited the Peacocks to 26.8 percent (15-for-56) shooting from the field.
“Proud of the effort,” Maciariello said. “It shouldn’t have to take a game that we played Siena basketball for eight minutes the night before to come back and get that type of defensive effort. But that’s the ballclub we can be. I’ll take a win like that every day of the week.”
Stormo, the junior center who transferred from Pepperdine in the offseason, got the first start of his college career in place of Kyle Young.
Stormo finished with nine points and seven rebounds in 26 minutes. Young played only one minute and Maciariello said after the game he wasn’t hurt.
“I think Jackson (Stormo) gives us a great opportunity,” Maciariello said. “He’s a student of the game. I think we can execute with him and he’s shown with his play why he started.”
Saint Peter’s took its final lead at 38-36 when Daryl Banks III made a 3-pointer with 10:18 to play. The only points the Peacocks scored after that were a pair of foul shots by Hassan Drame for a 40-40 tie with 1:31 on the clock. The Saints ended the game on a 7-0 run.
The Saints prevailed despite shooting 15-for-46 (32.6 percent) from the floor and 4-for-17 from 3-point range.
“I thought we got better as a team tonight,” Maciariello said. “I thought we were able to do some things late-game and I think our freshmen grew ... I think we had maybe 11 straight defensive stops in the second half when (freshman forward Colin) Colson was in the game. Obviously, it wasn’t pretty, but when you can compete for 40 minutes, which we hadn’t done all year, I’ll take it and run with it.”