No repeat magic
Pickett can’t replicate late game winner from last year as Saints fall to Red Foxes
The Siena men’s basketball team couldn’t replicate last year’s win over Marist, falling on the road Saturday to the Red Foxes, 55-54.
Siena junior guard Jalen Pickett couldn’t deliver game-winning magic at Mccann Arena for the second straight year. For head coach Carmen Maciariello, that seemed almost irrelevant.
“End of the day, it shouldn’t have been down to that,” Maciariello said. “We should have been up and not giving up back-to-back 3s. We should have been inbounding the ball and making free throws and winning the game. Credit to Marist for winning the game.”
The Red Foxes hung on 55-54 on Saturday when Pickett’s fallaway jumper in the lane bounced off the back rim as time expired. Last season, the Saints beat the Red Foxes by two in Poughkeepsie when Pickett’s step-back jumper caromed high off the rim and through the net at the buzzer.
“Unfortunately, that’s exactly what I’m thinking about as he’s going into his spinback ( jumper on Saturday),” Marist coach John Dunne said in an ESPN+ postgame interview. “Actually, I thought he got a cleaner look this year than he did last year ... At the end of the day, even if we came up short today I was really, really proud of our effort. Our focus was tremendous.”
Siena had a five-point lead with two minutes left before Marist freshman guard Ricardo Wright made two 3-pointers in the final 1:26, including the winning basket from the top of the arc for a 55-54 lead with 42.8 seconds remaining. He used a pick to free himself from defender
King and went left before releasing the shot.
But Maciariello said the Saints lost Saturday’s game in the first half. They fell behind by 12 points and trailed 27-22 at halftime.
“We let them play with us,” he said. “We didn’t take open shots. We turned down open shots. We turned the ball over. I just thought we were very slow.”
Siena fell to 7-2 overall, 7-2 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The Saints lost for the second time in three games after tying the program record with a 16-game winning streak. Marist improved to 9-6 and 7-6.
Pickett and Manny Camper both went scoreless in the first half. Pickett finished 4-for-14 from the field for nine points and Camper was 2-for-10 from the floor with seven points, 11 rebounds and five assists.
Still, the Saints ended the first half on an 8-1 run and then surged to the lead with help from junior center Jackson Stormo and freshman guard Aidan Carpenter, who led the team with 12 points each.
“You’ve got to be able to finish the game,” Maciariello said. “We didn’t finish the game. I was proud of the effort to come back and take a lead.”
Carpenter gave Siena its first lead of the game at 40-37 with a 3-pointer from the left side off a crosscourt pass from Pickett.
Siena still led 54-49 when Pickett made a difficult fallaway jumper from the left baseline with 2:19 to play. Then the Saints got the ball back on a turnover with a King steal. But the Saints didn’t score again.
After Nick Hopkins missed an open 3 from the top of the arc, Wright responded with his own 3 as King was late getting out to him to cut the deficit to 54-52 with 1:26 left.
Stormo committed a turnover on a pick-and-roll with Pickett, setting the stage for Wright’s go-ahead 3.
King missed a 3-pointer for the lead with 19.5 seconds left. Siena fouled Wright on purpose and he missed the front end of a 1-and-1 to give Pickett one last shot at victory.
“Everything we do, there has to be just a sense of urgency, all the time,” Maciariello said. “There has to be urgency across the board from everybody, all the time. It can’t be we can turn it on and pick up and play really good in the second half.”
Siena faces Marist again at 3 p.m. Sunday.
Note: Siena had four games moved in the latest round of MAAC rescheduling because of COVID-19 disruptions. Their home series against Quinnipiac next weekend has been shifted to Feb. 26 and 27. Siena now has next weekend open. The home games against Manhattan were moved up a week to Feb. 19 and 20.