Fresh start in tourney
Saints determined to make most of chance to compete
The Siena women’s basketball program had an exasperating regular season with a heartbreaking finish, their team denied any Senior Day festivities because of another positive coronavirus test.
The Saints say they’re past all that and they’ll open the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament against Niagara — the opponent they were supposed to play last week.
The ninth-seeded Saints (3-8) take on the No. 8 Purple Eagles (4-6) in a firstround game at noon Tuesday at Boardwalk Hall. The winner gets top-seeded Marist in a quarterfinal at noon on Wednesday.
“We’ve faced so much adversity this season that it just seems like one thing after another,” said Siena graduate guard Isis Young, the MAAC scoring leader at 18.9 points per game. “We just are built to kind of get through stuff. I felt like we got through it, honestly. We made some jokes about it, we made some laughs about it.”
Because of repeated COVID stoppages, Siena and Niagara played the fewest games of any team in the MAAC, except for Canisius (0-5), which halted its season in early February for health and safety
reasons.
Siena had only six players in uniform for a loss at Monmouth.
The Saints and Purple Eagles both received waivers to be eligible for the NCAA Tournament after falling short of the minimum 13 games, which allowed them to participate in Atlantic City this week.
Siena took a bus down to Atlantic City on Sunday afternoon, watching the movies “Ali” and “Rudy” on the way.
“My message to the team was pretty simple in that there’s going to be a lot of outside noise and a lot of people with opinions on how the season went and what our record is,” Siena coach Ali Jaques said. “Nobody can really put value on us. We know what we’re capable of. I think there were a lot of challenges that were out of our control this season and right now I think every game is 50-50 and we have to approach it that way.”
Though Siena can approach the postseason as a fresh start, Jaques acknowledged it’s difficult to escape the COVID fear of the regular season after so many positive tests.
Siena played the final game of the MAAC Tournament last season, a quarterfinal loss to Fairfield, before the remainder of the event was canceled due to the pandemic.
“Honestly, I think it’s weird being anywhere,” Jaques said of the return to Atlantic City. “It’s odd when you walk into a hotel lobby and there’s people sitting at slot machines and there’s people sitting at a bar without a mask on and you scamper to your room as quickly as you can and you stay on your hotel floor and you don’t leave.”
Jaques said she took a walk on the Boardwalk on Monday to get some fresh air and tried to stay as far away from people as she could.
Siena will get much closer to Niagara, led by 5-foot-5 sophomore guard Angel Parker, who averages 14.5 points, 6.9 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game.
“We were prepared (for Niagara),” Jaques said. “It (last week’s cancellations) gave us a couple of extra days just to watch every game they’ve played twice.”