Siena heads down final stretch
After extra-off day, Sunday matchup with Fairfield marks first of final five games in regular season to prep
LOUDONVILLE, N.Y. The Siena Saints, while limping, are coming down the home stretch of the regular season.
At 4-22 (3-12 MAAC), coming off a weekend of back-to-back losses, and now battling a litany of new and nagging injuries and illnesses, Siena will take on Fairfield (16-10; 10-5) this Sunday, at 1 p.m. in what will be the start of the last five regular season games, before heading to the Metro Atlantic Conference Tournament, in Atlantic City.
“The vibe in this group is, ‘Anything can happen.’ We all believe in the process and we all believe in what we’ve been doing,” Siena sophomore guard Mason Courtney said. “I believe that there’s a lot of games that we’ve given away, where we haven’t necessarily been beaten, we beat ourselves. So, I think there’s a lot of good vibes and good energy, a lot of guys are feeling really good, and there’s a lot of confidence as we head into these final games.”
Siena will only play the one contest this week, due to a second conference bye, and the extra rest could be timely not only to get guys back on the mend, but also to gear up for the gauntlet ahead.
“This time during the season, a lot of guys are banged up, so it’s good to have the time to be able to recoup and rejuvenate,” said Siena redshirt-sophomore forward Giovanni Emejuru.
“It’s everything. We want these guys to also have their legs, especially, going down this stretch, right? Next thing you know, it’s going to be March and we have a tough remaining schedule, added Maciariello on the extra-rest.
The list of names missing from
Wednesday’s practice mimics a CVS receipt, with its length, and it in turn comes just two weeks removed from when the Saints were seemingly at their healthiest since the start of the season.
“Killian Gribben has got a fever, Sean (Durugordon) ha been sick, so I’m keeping him away, (Michael) Eley is banged-up, Zek (Tekin) is banged-up, Michael (Evbaghuru) has a lower-body injury, probably will need one more week of rest,” said Maciariello to start his press-conference Wednesday.
Prior to last weekend, along with having everyone healthy, Siena was coming off a win at Manhattan, for its first victory since mid-January. However, seeking back-to-back wins for the first time all season, Siena would first be dealt a 22-point loss at Saint Peter’s. Two days later, on this past Sunday, Siena would return home from Jersey City, but only then to take another loss, this time to Canisius, 73-64.
Both losses saw the normal, end-of-game struggles that Siena has dealt with all season, rear their unfortunate faces again, as the team would trail by five points or less in the second halves of each, but fail to fully complete the turnarounds. The Saints had come back from two, 10-point deficits versus the Jaspers, including one in the second half that would be erased with a 21-5 run to close out the game.
“Manhattan was a great win and then against Saint Peter’s, we just struggled a little bit. We didn’t stick to the game plan as hard as we should have and we played hard but we just couldn’t get it done and the same thing on Sunday,” said Courtney on the losses last weekend, “just the lack of attention to detail from everybody; like I got bingo-ed on a ball screen, I went under a ball screen, and Gadsen (CU) hit that big three, so there was a couple of big moments with just a lack of focus.”
“We have to be able to finish up games and close games out,” added Emejuru. “There was a lot of like self-inflicted wounds, on our parts, that really hurt us during the game.”
The injuries would start to pile up on the second-leg of the weekend, as while Evbaghuru expectedly missed his seventh straight contest due to a back injury, Durugordon, who has come back down to earth since his torrid start of sixstraight 20-point games, only crossing that number once in the past seven, also would sit due to an illness Maciariello clarified Wednesday as, the flu.
Eley and Tekin would also be checked-out at the 16-minute mark of the second half last Sunday and did not return. Postgame, Maciarriello said, “I just was going with the guys I thought were, on the court, playing well,” but the benching, plus a missed practice does breed concern, as Eley has been dealing with a combination of separate, ankle and hamstring injuries, since essentially opening night, and Tekin has suffered both a concussion, earlier in the season, as well as a knee injury, more recently, that have also caused previous absences.
Regardless of who can go Sunday, versus Fairfield, Siena is certainly no stranger to playing with a thinned bench, with Durugordon having missed the first 13 games of the season due to eligibility, Eley having missed 10 to aforementioned injuries, and already having played with over 10 different starting lineups on the season.
“We’ve been battle-tested for a while. I’m just trying to get these guys just to understand, ‘hey, this is how we need to play.,’” said Maciariello, on Wednesday. “We’re going to basically, today, go through all of our offensive sets and just making sure guys know where they’re supposed to be and how hard they have to cut. But, it’ll be a lot of halfcourt execution, just to get them to understand, kind of, the thinking part of it.”
Some silver linings do come from those who were able to suit-up throughout the weekend- in Emejuru, Courtney, and freshman forward Michael Ojo.
Emejuru on Sunday versus Canisius, despite the loss, would have his best game since heading to Loudonville this past offseason, as the redshirt-sophomore big-man would go for a career-high 23 points, on 8-12 FG and 7-9 from the free throw line, and 14 rebounds. It was also the first time Emejuru had scored above 20 points since January 5, and the first time back in double-figures since February 4.
“I was very happy for him,” said Ojo, “he had a great game. I’m happy for him and I hope we’re able to give him the ball the way we got him the ball that game, so we can keep him going like that.”
Ojo would also go for 12 points of his own, including 2-4 3PT, versus the Griffs, marking the second-straight game the freshman had finished with a double-digit scoring total as well as making multiple three-pointers, after going for 13 points versus the Peacocks, on 5-6 FG and 3-4 3PT.
“Yeah, I can be happy saying I had double-digits, but as a whole, we’re not doing what we do as a team, so, I’m trying to focus on that because you can’t win by yourself, you got to win as a team,” Ojo said, Wednesday. “So, we’re focusing on what we need to work on, as a team, which is communication, defense; just trying to figure it all out.”
Courtney finished with a standout stat-line in his own right and while it may not consist of any staggering numbers, the sophomore guard made four, three-pointers, making three of the last four games he has hit three or more shots from distance. Courtney (32%) is second to only Ojo (44%) on the team in terms of threepoint percentage but has taken 55 more attempts.
“It’s going to be very helpful if I can shoot shots and make shots like that. I’m just trying to get open and do whatever I can to help us win. I happened to get open, we had some guys hurt and I had to step up and shoot the ball a little bit more, and I happened to make them. If I can do that in the MAAC Tournament, great, but if I got to do other things to help us win, like play defense, rebound, it doesn’t really matter, the scoring for me, because I just want to win and keep getting more minutes.”
While those offensive performances may be helpful, the last matchup versus the Stags came down to the Saints’ play on the other end of the floor, as redshirt senior guard Brycen Goodine went for 40 points, including eight three-pointers, in a 93-69 road win at MVP Arena.
“Credit to them (Fairfield), (Goodine’s) a great player, but that was also kind of unacceptable from our part,” said Emejuru, “we should never let a guy come into our gym and score 40. That shouldn’t be acceptable.”
“I also agree. I mean, we showed that against (Canisius’) Dinkens as well (22 points); we can’t go under things, we can’t go under flare-screens, we have to be able to pressure the ball, we have to keep our shoulders and our hips in front, not give guys angles to turn the corner,” said Maciariello. “You can’t give ’em open threes, you can’t give ’em transition threes, and conversely, that means we have to be running really good offense: the ball has to move, we can’t quickshoot the basketball. As I said before, we have to be the team that scores in the 60s and defends a team to hopefully the 50s or low 60s.”