Saints to add two ‘big-time’ transfers
Maciariello says they wish Pickett well but are moving on
The Siena men’s basketball team wishes Jalen Pickett well, but the Saints are marching on without him.
That’s the message Saints head coach Carmen Maciariello delivered in his weekly appearance on 104.5 FM on Tuesday, while dropping many hints about two Division I transfers he said the program is on the verge of signing.
“I think he could have achieved his dreams and goals at Siena, but we wish him well,” Maciariello said in his first interview since Pickett, the former Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year, announced Thursday he was entering the NCAA transfer portal. “The program moves on. That’s it. We wish him well, and we’ll be fine.”
Maciariello said Siena should be getting two “big-time” transfers on Tuesday.
“Really excited about that,” Maciariello told 104.5 FM. “We’ll add to our guard play bigger, athletic guards that can shoot and score and get in transition.”
He said one guard is a Georgia native who played his high school basketball in New Jersey and then went “out West” and is returning home. The other, Maciariello said, is a two-time captain at a “big-time school.”
Maciariello said he couldn’t mention their names until they signed paperwork.
Though nothing was confirmed, there are two players who fit Maciariello’s descriptions: Cal Poly sophomore guard Colby Rogers and Northwestern redshirt senior Anthony Gaines. Both are in the transfer portal.
Rogers, who is 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds, hails from Covington, Ga., but played his senior year of high school at Roselle Catholic in New Jersey. He averaged 12.2 points per game this season for Cal Poly of the
Big West, which went 4-20 overall and 1-15 in the league. He shot 35.3 percent from the field and 32.3 percent from 3-point range.
Last month, Rogers told Jake Lieberman, who covers college basketball recruiting, that Siena had contacted him since entering the portal.
He has already played against Siena once. As a freshman, he had 12 points on 5-of-5 shooting as the Mustangs beat the Saints 70-66 on Dec. 7, 2019.
Gaines, who is 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, is a Kingston native who was a
two-time captain for the Wildcats of the Big Ten. He played for the AAU City Rocks, a program for which Maciariello once served as coach. Siena offered him a scholarship in 2014, when Jimmy Patsos was still head coach.
At Northwestern, Gaines averaged 5.1 points per game and shot 37.5 percent from the field and 28 percent from 3-point range over four seasons. He averaged 3.9 points per contest this season in 23 games, starting five of them. Northwestern went 9-15 overall, 6-13 in the Big Ten.
He posted a Twitter message on Tuesday telling Northwestern he was “forever grateful” for his time there.
Gaines texted he’ll announce his new school on Wednesday. Rogers said he’ll post his decision publicly soon.
Gaines would be eligible immediately as a graduate transfer with two years remaining because players are granted an extra year due to the pandemic. Rogers would have three years left and would be able to play immediately if the NCAA does as expected and allows all transfers to play without sitting out a year.
The addition of two transfers would leave Siena with two scholarships open for next season.