SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The MAAC quarterfinals are in the books. The afternoon games saw the seeds hold to form, while the evening started off with an upset that was also a game for the history books, but not in a good way. The last game followed its predecessor with the lower seed pulling off the upset.
With that, some leftover thoughts from the MAAC quarterfinals played on Saturday:
- Niagara may have to go the rest of the way without Tahjere McCall, who went down awkwardly early in the game and looked to be in a lot of pain. He was on crutches before the afternoon was up. Head coach Joe Mihalich didn’t know anything more about the injury after the game, but said, “I’ll tell you what, if anybody can find a way to play, he will.”
- It wasn’t too surprising to see Iona get big scoring games from Lamont Jones (33 points) and Sean Armand (24). The two combined to go 25-26 from the foul line for a lot of their damage. They also got a nice outing from David Laury III with 10 points and 14 rebounds. The surprise in the scoring column was Taaj Ridley, who had 13 points and five rebounds. Jones said they’re always trying to get Ridley going both on and off the court because of how much he can help this team, saying that “he’s our Kenyon Martin.”
- The third game of the day had several noteworthy statistics for futility. Rider did not have an assist, was 0-6 from three-point range and had 21 turnovers. In addition, Fairfield’s 43 points tied a tournament record for the fewest points by a winning team. The 85 combined points makes it the second-lowest scoring game in tournament history behind a 43-40 game back in 2009.
- While the stats will stand out, Rider head coach Kevin Baggett summed up what was behind them quite succinctly: “We just thought we would have a little more patience and understand what we were trying to get done. They sped us up and we weren’t patient.”
- Fairfield head coach Sydney Johnson is an understated guy and thus may not strike you as a guy who gets fired up often. But he was getting animated often on Saturday night. Assistant coach Martin Bahar says Johnson is very intense in his job, although most don’t get to see all of his work since there’s much more than just the games. Derek Needham added, “He wants to win just as bad as we do.”
- Fairfield’s games thus far have been ugly, but the Stags’ defense has a lot to do with it. They know they’re not built to win games 90-85, so they focus on defending very well. It’s gotten them to the semifinals thus far, and an aspect of Johnson’s coaching that is very underrated because most talk about offense given his Princeton heritage.
- Johnson may have had a premonition about Saturday’s game that he shared, from talking to his wife. “I talked to my wife this morning, I said, ‘Honey, I don’t care if we win by one point with the other team making the basket for us.’ As long as we win. We are finding different ways to win. There’s really something special about the guts that these guys are showing, and I’m embracing that. I’m not fighting it at all.”
- Asked about the semifinal matchup with Fairfield, Manhattan head coach Steve Masiello had a quip from his walk to the interview room. “I just joked to Sydney, first one to 25 wins,” said Masiello. Manhattan beat Fairfield 34-31 just over a week ago.
- Manhattan simply took it to Loyola for much of the ballgame, moving the ball all around and attacking the basket. That was apparent watching the game, and Masiello admitted that when Loyola made their comeback, it was from a coaching mistake on his part to go away from that.”I did a poor job late in the game,” said Masiello. “I pulled us out of attack mode and played to the clock, which is a cardinal sin of coaching. But it’s a good lesson for us.”
