Guilderland grad Andrew Sischo, Daemen play for regional basketball title. /a8
Sischo, Daeman to meet St. Thomas Aquinas
On paper, it looks as if Daemen and St. Thomas Aquinas played less than half a season to reach the NCAA Division II basketball East Region final.
The two New York State colleges will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Albany Capital Center for a trip to the Elite Eight. Daemen played only 14 times. Aquinas managed one more game.
For coaches Mike Macdonald of Daemen and Tobin Anderson of St. Thomas Aquinas, the trip to March Madness may look short, but it felt longer than the yellow brick road to Oz. “It’s been wild,” Macdonald said. “We played 12 games in 25 days,” Aquinas coach Anderson added.
COVID -19 added an unanticipated element to coaching and scheduling this season. Many felt making it this far was too farfetched. The NCAA canceled its Division III Tournament and changed the regionals for its Division II event to predetermined sites — they’re usually on the campus of the highest seeds — to minimize of risk of spreading the disease.
Thus the Capital Center was picked as a host site for six teams, albeit without spectators.
“We started in September,” said Macdonald, a former Canisius coach in his seventh season at Daemen, a suburban Buffalo school. “The kids came back. We had to wait a little while before we could do workouts. We started the year with one guy at a hoop, one ball. The coaches couldn’t touch it. They had to go get their own rebound, and you could have maybe two people in a gym.
“Then we got to the point where we could have two people with one
ball. Just those two guys could pass to each other. Eventually worked our way up to where we finally got to play five-on-five the first week in November, and we had a positive (COVID) test. We had to shut down, and everybody went into quarantine for two weeks, which was not fun. The month of November kicked our butt. It was tough because we shut down then, and we came back after Thanksgiving and some guys decided to opt out.
“We were a roster of 20 to start the season, and nine guys decide not to play for various reasons. You understand, it’s not a normal year, and some guys were skeptical whether we’re going to get a season off the ground. We persevered. We came back at the beginning of December, we practiced for a couple weeks, and took some time off at Christmastime.
“We started practicing the first week of January with the idea we’re going open up Jan. 16, and right before we had a positive test. Shut down for 14 days again. We got out of quarantine, had a couple days of practice and played Gannon (on Jan.
29). It was just great to play. The coach in me was saying we’re not ready to play a game, but the father and the human being in me was saying we got to play.”
Daemen (9-5) had a 20-point lead early in the second half of that opener but lost 76-73, then lost to Gannon again the next night, 95-67. The Wildcats, led by Guilderland High graduate Andrew Sischo, handed Aquinas its only loss, although the Rockland County school won two other meetings with Daemen.
St. Thomas Aquinas (14-1), like Daemen a member of the East Coast Conference, had similar tribulations.
“We didn’t start playing until February,” Anderson said. “We were supposed to start playing in January. We had a couple of pauses early on. We told the guys, once we started playing, we were going to play as many games as we possibly could. We did that. In the region, we have the most games in.”
Aquinas had one stretch of three games in three days, playing Feb. 12 at Saint Rose, then heading to Rochester for back-to-backs against Roberts Wesleyan.
“We’re hitting our stride a little,” Anderson said. “It has been good in a way. It’s half of what you usually play, but at least we’re starting to get into the swing of things a little bit.”
The winner of Tuesday night’s game will advance to the Elite Eight on March 24-27 in Evansville, Ind.
Jakub Voracek scored at 3:47 of overtime to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 5-4 win over the New York Rangers on Monday night.
Claude Giroux, Joel Farabee and Ivan Provorov each had a goal and an assist, and James van Riemsdyk also scored for the Flyers. Sean Couturier and Voracek each had two assists, and Carter Hart finished with 20 saves.
Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists in the Rangers’ three-goal second period, and Colin
Blackwell, Julien Gauthier and Kevin Rooney also scored. Former Union College standout Keith Kinkaid stopped 25 shots.
Capitals 6, Sabres 0: Alexander Ovechkin matched Phil Esposito for sixth on the NHL’S career list with his 717th goal and the Capitals beat the Sabres. Ovechkin scored in the third period, helping send the Capitals to their fifth straight win with his 1,299th career point — one shy of becoming the 35th player to reach 1,300.
Penguins 4, Bruins 1: Evgeni Malkin scored on a power play for his 1,100th career point, leading Pittsburgh to the victory.
Panthers 6, Blackhawks 3:
Aleksander Barkov scored a tiebreaking short-handed goal in the third period, sending Florida to its fourth consecutive win.
Predators 4, Lightning 1:
Calle Jarnkrok had a shorthanded goal and three assists, helping the Predators to the road win.
Canucks 3, Senators 2 (OT): J.T Miller scored in overtime and Thatcher Demko made 44 saves for Vancouver.
Notes: The Kings’ game against the Blues on Monday night was postponed because of weather conditions that kept the Kings in Denver on Sunday . ... Montreal defenseman Ben Chiarot could miss the rest of the regular season after undergoing surgery Monday for a fractured hand.