Saints drop third straight contest
Troy native announces transfer during game
Siena men’s basketball coach Jamion Christian insisted his team made progress on Saturday despite suffering its third straight loss.
Left unsaid was that the biggest development of all came away from the court while the 84-79 defeat to Colgate was unfolding before 5,202 fans at Times Union Center.
Right around the time Siena freshman guard Jalen Pickett was getting a steal on the press and going in for a dunk early in the second half, Notre Dame senior forward Elijah Burns took to Twitter at 3:01 p.m. to break some news.
“Troy boy through and through,” tweeted Burns, who played at La Salle Institute. He was photoshopped in a
Siena uniform with the Albany skyline in the background with a caption that screamed, “I’M COMING HOME!”
That was Burns’ way of saying that he’s transferring to Siena, where he’ll be eligible as soon as he graduates from Notre Dame in December, according to a source familiar with his situation.
He’ll arrive in Loudonville as a graduate transfer with 11/2 seasons of eligibility remaining. He sat out his freshman season at Notre Dame following ankle surgery.
His addition will give Siena
a 6-foot-8, 237-pound forward with Atlantic Coast Conference pedigree who is leaving the Fighting Irish due to a lack of playing time. He was averaging 5.3 points and 3.8 rebounds over 11.3 minutes per game this season as Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey went with a youth movement.
“Thank you to everyone who has supported me through this process. Love y’all,” tweeted Burns, who wasn’t available for a phone interview.
After the game, Christian said he couldn’t comment on Burns, who played for the Albany City Rocks Elite Youth Basketball League program before heading to Notre Dame.
“We’re always trying to add really good players to our program,” Christian said. “We want to do a great job recruiting the area and we want players to want to play here at Siena. That’s an area we can do a great job on as a program, as you can tell with the number of players we have from New York (six) on the roster.”
Pickett, from Rochester, had another strong game with 21 points, nine assists and seven steals.
“We made some adjustments in the press over the course of the week and getting into the right spots and just rotating to the ball,” Pickett said. “It really helped us out.”
Senior forward Evan Fisher led the Saints with 22 points on 9-for-12 shooting. He gave Siena its final lead at 71-70 on a layup assisted by Pickett with 3:22 remaining.
Siena outscored Colgate 52-34 in the paint.
“I’m just really proud of the way we fought today,” Fisher said. “Clearly, we didn’t get the result we wanted, but at the beginning of the second half, I thought we came out ready to go. We just had a few lapses on the offensive and defensive end, but I thought our fight was there.”
But again Siena (2-4) was outshot from the 3-point line. The Saints were 5-for-23 from behind the arc, while Colgate (5-2) went 11-for-23.
Colgate guard Jordan Burns made five 3-pointers and finished with a game-high 25 points.
Over the three-game losing streak, Siena is making only 23.4 percent of its 3-pointers, while opponents are at 47.8 percent.
“We’ve been talking about that since I got here, defending the 3,” Christian said. “We just haven’t done a great job of it. We’re working on it every single day. We’ve got some guys playing that don’t have a ton of experience, and so our ability to help them learn this is going to be really important.”
Colgate guard Jack Ferguson, who finished with 22 points off the bench, made a 3-pointer from the left side to put the Raiders ahead for good at 73-71 with 3:12 to play.
Following a shot clock violation by the Saints, Colgate’s Will Rayman scored on a tip-in to make it 75-71 with 2:10 left.
Colgate made 9 of 12 foul shots down the stretch. Siena’s Manny Camper, who had 10 points, missed four of five in the final two minutes.
Siena returns to action at Hofstra on Wednesday.
“Man, I love our team,” Christian said. “I love how much we’re growing. I love the areas that we’re improving on every single day.”