Iona isn’t used to a stud like Bagley
Before embarking on his third straight trip to the NCAA Tournament — and fifth in the past seven years — Iona coach Tim Cluess planned on introducing a new drill to prepare the 15thseeded Gaels for what awaits them against No. 2 Duke on Thursday afternoon.
“We’ll do something where I’ll have guys standing under the rim, and guys just dunking on them,” Cluess said. “[Duke’s] gonna dunk on our heads. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen several times. That’s just part of the game.
“Then, OK, get the ball out of the net, and let’s go play. Now that that’s over, let’s go play.”
Duke will be dominant, but it must last moments, not minutes.
Cluess acknowledged he has never before faced a frontline as imposing and talented as the Blue Devils, who feature 6foot-11 Marvin Bagley III — the ACC player of the year and potential top pick in the NBA draft — and 6-10 Wendell Carter Jr., another likely top-10 pick.
Duke (26-7) leads the nation in offensive rebounding, with Bagley averaging 21.1 points and 11.5 rebounds, while shooting over 60 percent from the field. Carter averages 13.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.2 blocks, while shooting over 56 percent.
Playing in the MAAC, Iona (20-13) hasn’t faced a team with as much length since losing at Syracuse, 71-62, on Nov. 14, and whatever game plan Cluess constructs can’t be tested until tipoff.
“You can’t [simulate it],” Cluess said. “We have absolutely no way of doing that. We don’t have those type of people around campus. We don’t have any equipment that we can strap onto our arms to change our length.
“The biggest issue when you play teams like this is you go 20 games without seeing that, and then all of a sudden it’s back out there. That’s the difficult thing about going through your league season and not having those players to go against.”
Iona’s 6-8 forward TK Edogi played in pickup games against Bagley, a fellow Arizona native, but said he isn’t sure the top prospect remembers him.
Of course, Edogi remembers how tough Bagley was to slow even in high school.
“He’s always been a freak athlete,” Edogi said. “You could tell he was gonna be a great player.”
Even though Duke also has “three superstar guards on the perimeter,” Cluess said, he expects to swarm the big men inside and force Gary Trent Jr., Grayson Allen and Trevon Duval to beat Iona from outside.
“I think you have to try to do that,” Cluess said. “The tough thing about that is they [shoot almost] 40 percent from 3, and if they miss … they’re getting [37.9] percent of the shots they miss, and that’s playing in the ACC. Playing against our size, the number’s gonna probably be higher than that. We have to find a way to keep them out of there the best we can, and not always necessarily rebound balls, but tip it out just to get it out of that area.”
Bagley will be a multi-millionaire in a few months, starting an NBA career that could include multiple All-Star nods. Iona’s roster features a group of players who can only hope to get an AllStar Game ticket one day.
But 6-7 Roland Griffin has played against former Duke No. 2 overall pick Jabari Parker before, and the Iona forward isn’t intimidated by matching up with Bagley, the seemingly unstoppable big man.
“I don’t look at him as the top player in the draft. I just look at him as another player,” Griffin said. “Everybody puts on their shoes, and their shorts the same way.
But everyone doesn’t play the same once the shoes and shorts are on.