Iona Drubs St Peter's Twice (Recap of St Peter's - Iona Doubleheader)

After we watched Stony Brook win the America East Regular Season Championship, my older son Matthew and I exited Pritchard Gym while the players were still hoisting the America East Regular Season Championship trophy.  We made our way to the car and headed out for the long trip to New Rochelle for the last regular season games for the women's and men's teams.  The trip took a little more than a hour, thanks to lighter than usual Sunday traffic and a little bit of a lead foot by yours truly.

Matthew was wise enough to have slept the entire trip. I had to wake him as I parked our car in the Iona garage. After Matthew stretched, we walked to the Hynes Center.  Iona was hosting St Peter's in a Senior Day doubleheader.  The women's game was first and the men's game would follow a hour later.

When we walked into the gym, the women's game was already in the second half with the Gaels up eight, 39-31 with about sixteen minutes left.   But as basketball is a game of runs, the Peahens went on a 11-4 spurt in the next four minutes.  Iona was only up one, 43-42 with about twelve minutes left and Iona Women's Head Coach Tony Bozzella was not too pleased.

But what was going to be a microcosm of the men's game, the Gaels outscored the Peahens 31-7 the rest of the way, which included a game ending 16-0 run.  St Peter's missed their last eight shots and committed two turnovers in that span.  Meanwhile, Iona hit eighteen of their twenty free throw attempts in the second half.   The Gaels' Women's team won the first half of the doubleheader 74-49.

Matthew and I joined Coach Bozzella, his family, my friend Mal and his friend Emilie for the Senior Day Dinner at a reception room in the Hynes Center.  It was a nice event where Coach Bozzella briefly spoke about  how his group of seniors were such helpful mentors to the freshmen and sophomores on the team,  He spoke how this team was a family and he thanked all the parents and people who have supported the team during the season.  It was a nice reception.

We left the reception and headed back into the Hynes Center Gym several minutes after what was supposed to be the start of the game.  Much to my surprise, the Senior Day awards ceremony for the six seniors on the Iona Men's Basketball Team was still taking place.   When we got to our seats, all the way up in the top rows of the general admission side of the gym, Scott Machado was being introduced last to the packed crowd.

After Machado was given a standing ovation by nearly the entire crowd, the six Iona players; Machado, Michael Glover, Randy Dezouvre, Kyle Smyth, Jermel Jenkins and Trinity Fields all raised their framed jerseys while photographers snapped picture after picture.  Then the Iona Bagpipe Band came out, which was a nice treat for this Irishman.   Finally, to top it off, Scott Machado's brother sang a wonderful rendition of the national anthem.

The Gaels spotted the Peahens a 4-0 lead.  A Glover dunk and a Momo Jones three put Iona up to stay 5-4.  But St Peter's kept it close throughout the first half.  The score was only 17-14 when Jenkins hit three consecutive three pointers in a row to give the Gaels a 26-17 lead.  But the Peahens refused to go away in the first half and actually cut the deficit to five, 40-35 at halftime.

As I noted earlier, Matthew and I were in the upper rows of the general admission seating opposite the Iona bench.  One of the perks though of sitting in that section was being directly behind my favorite pep band in New York college hoops, the Iona Pep Band.   The pep band was killing it at halftime playing "Sussudio", "Brickhouse", some Led Zeppelin, then "Frankenstein" and more Led Zeppelin.  Later on, they made my day by playing the theme song to the old TV show "The Wild, Wild West".

The first four plus minutes of the second half saw very little change.  Iona had pulled out to an eleven point lead.  But St Peter's was able to cut the lead back to seven, 50-43 with a little less than sixteen minutes left.  At the under sixteen media timeout,  the pep band played the James Bond theme song.  Perhaps the pep band knew that the Gaels were about to use their "License to Kill" on the Peahens.

It started innocently enough with two Sean Armand free throws.  Then it was a three point play by Machado, followed by layups by Dezouvre and Glover.  Jones followed up with a three point play, then an Armand went back to back with a three pointer followed by an old fashioned three point play.  Before you knew it, Iona was up 68-43.

But the Gaels weren't done yet.  Another three point play by Jones was sandwiched between two Glover layups.  Jenkins once again found his three point shooting touch and buried another two shots from beyond the arc. It was a 31-0 run before Lamin Fulton ended it with a three pointer.  The Gaels were up 81-46 with still eight and a half minutes to go in the game.

It turns out that many fans, knowing that the game was over, actually left at this time.  Matthew and I were able to move down several rows and get a better view of the last few minutes of the game. All that was left was for Iona Coach Tim Cluess to take his seniors out one by one.  Then I just needed the pep band to play "Peg"  to make my night complete.  Sure enough, late in the second half, the band cued up my favorite Steely Dan song.

Iona took its foot off the throttle down the stretch, despite pleas from Matthew for the Gaels to score one hundred points.  Iona just missed, winning handily 98-61.  In a rarely seen nice touch, Cluess let Smyth, a key player and a starter for most of the season, stay on the court and dribble out the last few seconds of the game.

The beat down of St Peter's was perhaps a little payback for the Peahens knocking the Gaels off in the MAAC Championship game last season.  But that was a much better St Peter's team than the 5-25 team I saw Sunday evening.  In the college basketball world, things can turn around quickly in a year.

Jenkins, in his last regular season home game scored a career high twenty one points on seven three pointers. Jones led Iona with twenty four points, while Glover and Armand each had fourteen.  Machado nearly had another double double with nine points and twelve assists.  Darius Conley led three St Peter's players in double figures with twelve points.

As Matthew and I made our way out of the Hynes Center for perhaps the last time this season, I wondered two things.  One, I thought about whether Iona could not only win the MAAC Championship but also make a run to the Sweet Sixteen this season.  Second, I wondered if the Iona Pep Band hires themselves out to play at parties.

Finally, Home is Where the Gaels Are (Recap of Niagara vs. Iona)

Iona spent the entire month of December on the road.  The Gaels went 6-2 on their road trip.  They went as far west as Denver (an overtime win over the Denver Pioneers), as far north as Burlington (a win over the Vermont Catamounts) and as far south as Williamsburg (a win over the William and Mary Tribe).  And on Tuesday night, Iona had a neutral site conference game at Madison Square Garden.  Wearing the home whites, the Gaels gave the Garden crowd a 95-59 crushing of the Siena Saints.

But Iona finally played their first true home game at the Hynes Center last night since November 28 as they hosted Niagara in a MAAC conference game.  It was a later start than usual for a Gaels night home game, 9:00 PM.  This was to accommodate the folks at ESPNU who wanted Butler-Wright State for the 7:00 PM start time.   The later start time didn't affect the crowd, as the Hynes Center was filled to near capacity.  When the Gaels took the court a few minutes before tipoff, the PA announcer stated "Welcome home your Iona Gaels!"   You know you have been away a while when you get a greeting like that.

The Gaels opponent, the Purple Eagles of Niagara, came in with a 6-9 record.. But they had won their last game, a 66-61 road upset over Loyola, Maryland, who was previously undefeated in conference.  This was already the second game this season against Iona for Coach Joe Mihalich, who is coaching in his thirteenth season for Niagara.  The Purple Eagles lost handily at home to the Gaels 98-75, one of the eight games on Iona's road trip.  Considering how Iona destroyed Siena Tuesday night, it looked like it would be another long evening for Niagara.

However, the Purple Eagles showed why they knocked off the Greyhounds earlier in the week.  They came out with intensity and purpose and the scoreboard reflected that.  They held the nation's fourth highest scoring team without a field goal over a three minute span in the first half and eventually took a 22-17 lead with less than nine and a half minutes left in the half.  The home crowd starting getting restless.

But the Gaels' staple, the three point shot, would get them going.  Jermel Jenkins and Sean Armand combined for three shots from beyond the arc, and the game was tied at twenty six with seven minutes left in the half.  Armand, who had a record breaking three point shooting performance Tuesday night at the World's Most Famous Arena, was rewarded for his efforts by starting over Kyle Smyth.  Unfortunately, he did not have anywhere near the success of Tuesday night.  Armand only shot two of eight from beyond the arc and had six points on the night..

The rest of the half saw only fourteen points scored as both teams struggled from the field.  Iona would go into halftime up 35-31.  The Gaels leading scorer on the season, Michael Glover only had four points.  It would seem that Coach Tim Cluess' game plan in the second half was for Iona to get it inside to their best player.

And sure enough, that's what happened at the start of the second half.  Glover scored the first six points for the Gaels. A few minutes later, he assisted on two straight layups by Taaj Ridley.  Finally he capped a 19-10 spurt with a layup and hitting one of two free throws in a later possession to put Iona up 54-41 with a little over ten minutes remaining in the game.  It looked like the rout was on.

But Niagara, a young team with six of their seven players in their rotation being freshmen or sophomores, again showed resiliency.  An old fashioned three point play by Juan'ya Green and a three point jumper by Marvin Jordan resulted in a Purple Eagles' 6-0 spurt.  The lead was cut to seven, 54-47.  After a free throw put the Gaels up eight, 55-47, Niagara had several chances to cut the lead further but couldn't capitalize.

Then Randy Dezouvre, a reserve for Iona, gave the Gaels some huge minutes.  He hit two layups in a row, grabbed a rebound and took a charge.  As a result, Iona went back up by double digits, 63-49 with less than four minutes left.

But Niagara refused to quit and they didn't let the lead get any bigger.  In fact, they cut the deficit to single digits, 63-55 with ninety seconds left.  But the Purple Eagles would not get any closer.  The Gaels had a hard fought 73-61 win and their homecoming was a happy one for their fans.

Glover scored fifteen of his nineteen points in the second half.  Scott Machado had thirteen points and eight assists for Iona (12-3, 4-0 MAAC) while Jermel Jenkins added twelve off the bench for the Gaels.   Green, Jordan and Malcolm Lemmons each had fourteen points for Niagara (6-10, 1-3 MAAC), while Antoine Mason had twelve for the Purple Eagles.  If that last name sounds familiar to New York City hoops' fans, it should.  He is former New York Knick forward Anthony Mason's son.  His dad was there last night, and he is as big as ever.

As I left the Hynes Center with my older son Matthew, the PA system played "Back in the New York Groove". Yes, the Gaels are back in the New York groove.  But I think the Gaels were just happy to be back home.

Sean Armand's Virtuoso Solo (Recap of Siena vs. Iona)

Having attended many concerts at Madison Square Garden in my lifetime, there is often an opening act before the headliner.  The opening act is usually not that good, but the headliner more than makes up for that fact.  And often, the headlining band has a solo performance, usually a virtuoso guitarist, who has the crowd buzzing in amazement.  Such was the case in last night's Siena vs. Iona game.

Last night was a college basketball doubleheader at the World's Most Famous Arena.  The opening game/act was Louisville vs. St John's, who both decided to put on a brickfest for the first twenty minutes.  The Red Storm shot five of thirty five from the field in the first half (fourteen percent), while the Cardinals only shot thirty four percent to lead 29-18 at the half.  Louisville would win handily by fifteen, 73-58.

Thankfully the headliner game, started shortly thereafter.  As the public address announcer noted, the game featured "two mid major powers".  And the crowd, mainly made up of red for that local Power Six conference team, decided to stick around to see what the mid major fuss was all about.  After witnessing the headliner game myself, I am sure many in the audience were glad they stayed.

Two seasons ago, Siena was truly a "mid major power".  In 2009-10, the Saints would win their third straight MAAC conference championship and thus make their third straight NCAA appearance.  During this period of dominance, the Siena would win two NCAA Tournament games.

But the nucleus of that team graduated after that 2009-10 season.  Sensing that a rebuild was going to be in order,  Fran McCaffery decided instead to grab a huge payday and take the Iowa head coaching position. Mitch Buonaguro got the head coaching position and struggled in his first season as the Saints went 8-10 in conference, 13-18 overall.  This season Siena has been about the same, 0-2 in conference and 5-7 overall entering the contest.

They were playing an Iona team coming off a surprising loss to Hofstra, 82-75.  In that game, the Gaels had an uncharacteristic eighteen turnovers in the first half as they were down fifteen at halftime and never could recover.  Coach Tim Cluess took the responsibility for the loss and they were looking to rebound in front of a large crowd on perhaps the world's largest stage.

The fans in attendance were actually pretty quiet at the start of the game.  Siena actually came out on fire, taking an early 16-14 lead with about fourteen and half minutes left.  The Saints hit seven of their first ten shots.  But the pace clearly favored their opponents, the Gaels, the team that is fourth in the country in scoring offense, averaging 85.5 points per game.

Iona would take advantage of that pace as they went on a 21-9 run, powered by five three pointers, three by Jermel Jenkins and two by Momo Jones.  The score was now 37-23 Gaels with 7:15 left in the first half. The audience was now fully into the headlining act.  And they were about to get the virtuoso solo performance.

Iona's Sean Armand was one of Tim Cluess' highly touted recruits entering the 2010-11 season.  He played about eleven minutes per game last season, averaging slightly over six points per game.  With the graduation of Rashon Dwight, Armand appeared to be in line for a starting position this season.  But Jones transferred from Arizona to Iona to be near his ailing grandmother and received a hardship waiver to be able to play this season.

As a result, Armand was relegated to the bench again.  He has averaged thirteen minutes per game this season.   However, Armand has improved his three point shooting from 42 percent last season to 44 percent this season going into last night's game.  And he improved on that shooting percentage last night, as he got to show off that shooting talent in a big way.

After the Saints cut the lead to twelve, 37-25 with six and a half minutes left, Armand took over.  He would score the next TWENTY Iona points by himself.  He warmed up first with a layup.  Then like a great guitarist, Armand nailed two sweet riffs in a row, or in his case, buried two three pointers.  And like a great performer who knows his abilities and how to please the audience, Armand kept firing away.  He would hit six three pointers in total over those final six and a half minutes.

Armand by himself outscored the local Power Six conference team in their first half., 20-18.  Iona was up 57-31 at halftime.  As impressive as Armand was, the more impressive fact might have been that the Gaels scored fifty seven points and their leading scorer on the season, Michael Glover only had two of them.

With the game over for all intensive purposes, there were only two things left on the mind of the fans watching the game.  One, would Iona scored one hundred points again?  And two, what would Armand do for an encore?

Well, Tim Cluess knows how to keep the audience happy and had Armand start the second half.  And he didn't disappoint.   Three minutes in, Armand buried his second attempt of the half.   Not even two minutes later, another one, which was his eighth of the night.  The Armand watch was now officially on as the Iona record for three pointers in a game and the MAAC conference record for three pointers in a game were on the line.

After Glover briefly interrupted his performance with a layup, Armand hit his ninth three pointer to put the Gaels up thirty one, 70-39 with a little less than thirteen and a half minutes left in the game.   That broke the previous Iona record of eight by Kyle Smyth, the man he replaced in the lineup at the start of the second half.  It also tied the MAAC record of nine, previously held by five players.  Now all that remained was the record breaking tenth three-pointer..

The fans didn't have to wait too long for that record breaking tenth one.   Armand hit that with ten and a half minutes left to put the Gaels up thirty five.  He attempted three more shots from beyond the arc on the night, but missed on all three.  No doubt he was tired from going ten of nineteen from the three point line. Plus, thirty two points is a pretty good night.

Iona would actually go up by as many as forty one points before they settled for a 95-59 win.  They didn't get their one hundred points.  But the designated home team dominated Siena in front of a large New York City hoops loving crowd that was starving for made baskets after the first game of the evening.

The Gaels were a mind boggling seventeen of thirty nine from beyond the arc.  The nation's leading assist team had twenty one assists on the night, nine by Scott Machado and seven by Jones, who had fourteen points. Jenkins had sixteen points and Glover ended up with ten.  Siena was led by Evan Hines, who scored twenty two points and OD Anosuke had twelve points and thirteen rebounds.  After hitting seven of their first ten shots, the Saints only hit sixteen of their last fifty three shots.

As the crowd exited the Garden late last night, they witnessed another record breaking performance.  But it wasn't by a Power Six conference team player.  It was the "mid major power" who had the three point virtuoso who broke two records on the night.   Quite a feat in the World's Most Famous Arena.

The Paul Westhead Invitational

Yesterday was an exasperating day.  I can't get into details, but I was agitated when I got home.  Thankfully, salvation was only ninety minutes away, for I had this game between LIU and Iona circled on my calendar.  I knew I was going to see a game that "The Guru of Go" would truly love.

Westhead is the creator of "The System".  It's based on simple math - More Possessions + More Shot Attempts = More Points.  And there are no two better examples of  "The System" than LIU and Iona, led by their proponents, Blackbirds' coach Jim Ferry and Gaels' coach Tim Cluess.. Last season, LIU was fourth in the nation in scoring at 82.7 points per game and fifth in the country in possessions per game at 70.6.  Meanwhile, Iona is currently first in the country averaging 94 points per game and second in assists at 21.3.  

"The System" has worked for both teams.  LIU made the NCAA Tournament after winning the NEC championship.  Meanwhile Iona made the MAAC Conference Tournament finals, then the CIT finals and are the heavy favorites to win the MAAC this season.  This was going to be the basketball version of the Penn Relays (Google it).  I had the over/under for points scored for last night's game at 180.

I was hoping to bring my basketball buddy, my older son Matthew to the game last night, knowing he would love this fast pace, high scoring game.  But he had homework to do, so daddy went off by himself to New Rochelle.  As I got there, there was another good crowd on hand at the Hynes Center.  Not as good as the game vs. St Joseph's last Wednesday, but the one side of bleachers was basically full.

As expected, the game got off to a rip roaring, albeit sloppy start.  The Gaels went out to an 11-2 lead.  But the Blackbirds came back and cut the deficit to four, 23-19.  By this time, both teams had a combined nine turnovers, but of course forty two points.  After Jermel Jenkins hit a three pointer to make it 26-19, the Gaels had eight possessions where they used 10 seconds or less of the shot clock.

The game was still close, 33-29 with a little less than six minutes left when Iona when on a 21-9 run to end the half.  It was led by their two best players, Michael Glover and Scott Machado, who combined for twelve of the twenty one half ending points.  The Gaels were up 54-38 at the half.

The halftime entertainment consisted of two of my favorite things.  One, a local catholic school boys team played at the half.  And they emulated the two college teams by playing end to end action.  The other was hearing the always terrific Iona Pep Band playing songs like "Peg", "Brickhouse" and some Stevie Wonder and KC and the Sunshine Band tunes.   While all this was going on, I honestly thought I might see more points scored in the second twenty minutes than the first twenty minutes.

And at the start of the second half, Iona came out with the intention of doing exactly that. Within barely the first eight minutes, the Gaels outscored the Blackbirds 33-17.  During this time, Iona forced eight LIU turnovers.  Meanwhile, Glover was terrorizing the Blackbirds, scoring at will inside while Jermel Jenkins scored at will from the outside with three point bombs.  With twelve minutes left, Iona was up 87-55.  The  game for all intensive purposes was over and the question was, when would the Gaels score one hundred points?

Someone though forgot to tell the Blackbirds the game was over.  LIU outscored Iona 19-3 over the next nearly eight minutes.  The Gaels actually went scoreless for about four and a half minutes during that stretch. The score was 90-74.  But a layup by who else, Glover, made sure the score didn't get any closer.

Iona finally scored one hundred points on a layup by Machado 2:19 left. At that point, the crowd started to file out.  The Gaels would not score again, but they already had done enough damage.  LIU managed to score their season average from last season, eighty two, but lose by eighteen, 100-82.   Had Iona not had that scoring drought in the second half, the teams would have easily eclipsed the point total for the first half.  But ninety points in the second half certainly wasn't bad.

Glover had another double double with twenty eight points and fourteen rebounds. Machado had another double double as well with fourteen points and ten assists.  Jamal Olasewere led LIU with twenty points.  The two teams combined for forty two assists and forty turnovers.  Iona now heads out on the road for the entire month of December. Meanwhile, LIU already has to start defending its NEC conference championship on Thursday against an improved Wagner team.  No rest for the weary.

As I left the Hynes Center and headed to my car, I thought of one thing.  Someone should send Paul Westhead a plane ticket to New York.  He should catch a couple of Iona and LIU games.  He would be so proud.