Weekend series brings urgency
Saints have two weekends left before MAAC Tournament
A Siena men’s basketball team that head coach Carmen Maciariello has criticized for lacking a sense of urgency is reaching that point in the season when urgency can be the difference between going to the NCAA Tournament or going home.
The Saints are scheduled to take on Manhattan at UHY Center at 5 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Saturday, one of two weekends left in the regular season before they head down to Atlantic City,
N.J., for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament.
Sophomore guard Jordan King of CBA said it doesn’t feel like the end of the season because of the shortened schedule without nonconference games. He added he appreciates being able to play at all and thinks the team can find the urgency it needs.
“I would say the biggest thing is just working as hard as we can in practice,” said King, averaging 12.8 points per game. “If we’re working hard here, it’s going to translate over to the game. Like coach said, we got a good day of practice at the beginning of the week. Hopefully, we can have another one today and prepare
for that next game against Manhattan (on Friday).”
The Saints (9-3 overall, 9-3 MAAC) were supposed to play just one game against Manhattan on Wednesday. That got changed because of COVID -19 disruptions in the MAAC, so the single contest turned into two this weekend.
Siena is just one victory behind first-place Monmouth (10-6 overall, 10-7 MAAC) in the race for the regular-season title and the No. 1 seed. The MAAC is seeding the teams by overall league wins, rather than winning percentage, this season because not every team is playing the full 20 conference games.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way for these guys,” Maciariello said. “We said, hey, every single day we’ve got to get better … That’s what it’s about. We can’t take days off. We can’t just show up and go through the motions and think, hey, we’re getting a sweat, we’re getting the rust off. We’ve got to make sure we’re not just having activity. We have to make sure we’re having productivity, too.”
While Siena was splitting with Niagara last weekend, Manhattan was off because of changes in the MAAC schedule. The Jaspers’ most recent game was a 77-70 victory over Iona on Feb. 13 that snapped a five-game losing streak.
Manhattan is led in scoring by Seton Hall transfer Ant Nelson (13.3 ppg), a 6-foot-4 junior guard. Junior forward Samba Diallo (Umass) and junior guard Jason Douglas-stanley (George Mason) are among the other Manhattan transfers, and head coach Steve Masiello acknowledged it hasn’t been easy getting everyone on the same page with all the Covid-19related interruptions.
“It’s been very challenging — not just for us,” Masiello said. “This year hasn’t been a normal year for any program. If you’re fortunate enough to have a lot of guys who have chemistry, it could be a little bit of an advantage. We’re just trying to take it day by day and get better every day and control the things we can control.”
The Jaspers rank fourth-to-last in Division I in 3-point percentage at 27.2, which Masiello insisted wasn’t indicative of his team’s shooting ability.
“We haven’t shot it well this year and I don’t know the answer to that,” Masiello said. “I don’t know if it’s because we didn’t have a preseason. I know we’re a better shooting team than we’ve shown.”
Siena is led by senior guard/ forward Manny Camper, who is the team’s top scorer at 13.3 points per game and leads the MAAC in both rebounding (10.5) and assist (4.3) average. He’s continued to elevate his game, making a strong case for conference Player of the Year even as two-time Player of the Year Jalen Pickett has struggled at times coming back from a hamstring injury.
Camper said the Saints have only played their best basketball “in spurts” to this point.
“I think it’s important we continue to lock in, continue to build our connectivity and just become the best team we can be heading into March,” Camper said.
Note: Maciariello said graduate guard Nick Hopkins is “day-today” with a knee injury. It’s unclear if he’ll play against Manhattan.