Swing to west prep for playoffs
Saints close out regular season with games at Canisius and Niagara
Siena men’s basketball coach Jamion Christian is experiencing the western New York trip for the first time this weekend.
Christian already knows it’s a difficult double to complete. After all, the Saints have swept Canisius and Niagara on the road only once since 2008.
“I got a ton of advice from the (Siena) coaches who were here before me back in the summertime,” said Christian, who was hired in May. “Each of those guys would say, to a man, the Buffalo trip is one of the toughest trips. That’s been something highlighted on our schedule all year long, just to prove how mentally and physically tough we are.”
The Saints close the regular season by playing the Golden Griffins at 9 p.m. Friday on ESPNU, followed by a Sunday afternoon date at the Purple Eagles.
Siena can complete an improbable worst-to-first story, and possibly even lock down the No. 1 seed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament at Times Union Center next week.
“Definitely, we’ve got to win,” Siena freshman guard Jalen Pickett said. “We’re going to come out, we’re going to play our style and just try to take care of Canisius first. Hopefully, we can go into Albany and be the first seed, if that happens. But we’ve got to take care of business, get the first one at Canisius and then go play a great Niagara team.”
The trip is something of a homecoming for Pickett, who is from Rochester. Pickett said Canisius offered him a scholarship and he visited the campus before committing to Siena.
The Saints (15-14 overall, 10-6 MAAC) are in a three-way tie with Quinnipiac and Rider for second place in the MAAC, just a half-game behind
three-time defending tournament champion Iona.
By beating Canisius and Niagara, the Saints would be guaranteed to finish at least tied for first in the regular season. They would also be no worse than the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament, which begins next Thursday.
It would be quite an achievement for a program that went 8-24 last season and was picked to finish last in the MAAC preseason coaches’ poll.
But it could get even better for Siena if the team gets help. The Saints would get the No. 1 seed if Iona also loses at Rider on Friday and Quinnipiac loses one of its final two games to Saint Peter’s or Manhattan.
The No. 1 seed carries with it an automatic bid to the National Invitation Tournament, if that team doesn’t win the MAAC Tournament to get an NCAA Tournament berth.
Siena can’t win a tiebreaker that involves either Iona or Quinnipiac, which both have the edge on the Saints either on head-tohead results or their record against other teams in the league in descending order of finish.
Christian said he’s not preoccupied with the myriad of tiebreaker scenarios.
“I’m always worried about the controllables,” Christian said. “The only thing we can control is playing against a very good Canisius team Friday. We’re just really focused on that and we’ll see how the tiebreaker stuff breaks out. The good thing is we’ve put ourselves in a great position that if we take care of business and do the things we can do, we’ll complete a really good regular season.”
There’s one simple bit of math for the Saints. Siena can clinch a top-five seed and first-round bye in the MAAC Tournament with either a win this weekend or a Monmouth loss to Manhattan on Friday.
Siena enters the Canisius game well-rested, having
played just once in the past nine days. Meanwhile, the Golden Griffins (13-16, 10-7) will be playing for the fourth time in eight days, including an 86-84 loss to Niagara on Wednesday.
Canisius coach Reggie Witherspoon said his team lacked energy against Niagara, but declined to blame it on the schedule.
“I don’t like to put it on things we can’t control, so I’ll just say we need to play with more energy and just kind of leave it at that,” Witherspoon said.
Canisius beat Siena 70-66 at TU Center on Jan. 5. On Feb. 1, Witherspoon suspended junior guard Isaiah Reese, the MAAC Preseason Player of the Year, indefinitely for “conduct detrimental to the team.”
The Golden Griffins are 5-4 without Reese.
“At times, we are (playing better without Reese),” Witherspoon said. “But every day’s a challenge, and so sometimes it looks like we could be and some days, maybe not.”