The Third Time Is Not the Charm for St Joseph's

The St. Joseph's Eagles entered Thursday night as the number one seed in the Skyline Conference Tournament. They were the top seed based on a 17-1 conference regular season.   The Eagles had only lost two Division III games on the season as one of their three losses had been to Division I Yale.  St Joseph's was looking for its twenty second win on the season in the semifinals of the Skyline Conference Tournament vs. Purchase.

Twice this season they had met Purchase and twice they were victorious.  I was there for their first win, a 78-64 home win.  In the last regular season conference game, the Eagles rallied from a ten point second half deficit to defeat the Panthers on the road 92-89.  In that game, St Joseph's shot a ridiculous nineteen of forty six from beyond the arc.

Now it's hard to beat a team three times in one season.  It's especially hard when that team, Purchase, is the two time defending Skyline Champion.  Thus, St Joseph's had a tough task ahead of themselves last night in front of their home crowd in the Danzi Center.

My son Matthew joined me on the drive to the St Joseph's campus in Patchogue.  We got to the Danzi Center about a half hour before game time.  Before the game, the Eagles had a special ceremony as Coach John Mateyko gave an 1000th career point ball each to Trey Black and Olivier Laurent.

As Coach Mateyko noted to me in a previous article on the Eagles, they are a very good shooting team, but they are quite small, as they play four guards for the most part.  At the beginning of the game, the Panthers went straight at that weakness by looking inside to six foot eight behemoth Craig Davis, who looks like the Division III version of Jai Lewis (know your CAA legends, folks).  Davis scored six of Purchase's first nine points as the Panthers went up 9-2 early.

Purchase was still up seven, 12-5, when St Joseph's rallied, scoring seven straight points.  An Olivier Laurent layup tied the game at twelve.  But the Panthers responded with a 9-0 run.  Andre Dixon, a second half of the season addition, just like Davis, scored the last two points of that run to put Purchase back up 21-12 with about twelve and a half minutes left in the first half.

But once again, St Joseph's would rally.  The Eagles outscored the Panthers 14-7 over the next three and half minutes and would be down only two, 28-26 with nine minutes left in the first half.  It looked like St Joseph's was going to go on a serious run.

However, it was Purchase that was going to end the half on a serious run. Over the last nine minutes of the first half, the Panthers outscored the Eagles 23-8 as they hit ten of their fifteen shots in that span.  Meanwhile, St. Joseph's went cold from the field shooting three for twelve. As a result, Purchase went to the half leading 51-34.

The Eagles had no answer for Davis in the first half.  Davis is six foot eight and I think fair to say, three hundred pounds.  St Joseph's biggest player is Shahab Syed who is listed at six foot six and maybe about 230 pounds. After seeing early on that it was impossible to guard Davis if he posted up,  Mateyko would try to double team Davis, as he had one Eagle player front Davis and one would help out underneath if he got the ball.  But the Panthers did a good job lobbing it into the big man and Davis was unstoppable, even with two guys on him. He scored seventeen first half points.

If St Joseph's was going to come back in the second half, it would have to be a Herculean effort.   But Purchase actually extended the lead to twenty, 64-44 with fifteen and a half minutes left.   St Joseph's scored the next six points to cut the lead to fourteen, 64-50.  But a Davis layup started a 7-0 mini run for the Panthers and the score became 71-50.

Time was running out on the regular season champions.  However, the Eagles didn't quit.  They were able to cut the lead down to fourteen 75-61 with about nine minutes left.  Eric Klingsberg, whose three pointer cut the lead to fourteen, had a chance to cut the lead even further.  But he missed the first of the one and one free throw attempt.   Purchase then scored the next eight points and the game was over.

Purchase would go onto win 105-81.  St Joseph's had no answer for Davis who had twenty nine points, fourteen rebounds and shot fourteen of nineteen from the field.  The Panthers as a team shot sixty two percent from the field and out-rebounded the Eagles 52-19.

St Joseph's was led by Klingsberg, who came off the bench to score nineteen points.  However he was the only Eagles' reserve to score points for his team as the Purchase bench outscored the St Joseph's Bench 38-19.   It was likely the difference in the game as points off turnovers (St Joseph's 22-8) and second chance points (Purchase 19-5) evened out.

It was also a cold shooting night for the best three point shooting team in the Skyline.  Chris Jimenez, Black and Laurent combined to shoot two of fifteen from beyond the arc as the Eagles shot only ten of thirty four from beyond the arc and twenty seven of sixty four from the field (forty two percent).

Now Coach Mateyko and his Eagles must wait out Selection Monday for Division III teams (the NCAA Division III field is decided next Monday).  Only sixty two teams make the Division III NCAA Tournament.  The Eagles have the fact that they are 21-4, went 17-1 in conference and were the regular season Skyline Conference champions.  They also defeated Purchase twice in the regular season, as well as twice defeating Farmingdale State, the other tournament finalist and have a big road win over a once ranked Eastern Connecticut team.

Hopefully it's enough to give them their second Division III NCAA Tournament bid.  Based on their resume, they certainly deserve it.  Cross your fingers.

The Most Underrated Team on Long Island - Part II - Mateyko Keeps the Eagles Soaring

This is part two of my two part series on St Joseph's Eagles basketball.

As I noted in the first part of the series, I interviewed Coach John Mateyko four years ago for my site.  The Eagles were in the midst of their second successful season in a row, the second of now many for St. Joseph's.  In that interview, he noted to me when he first started coaching that “Our first year we only had five guys who played high school ball. We had six guys on the bench who never played in high school.”

Mateyko is only a part time coach.  He is still a full time financial planner.  But he has a long history in basketball.  He first played at Archbishop Malloy under the legendary Jack Curran.  Mateyko then played at American International under one of Curran’s disciples, Jim Larranaga, the current University of Miami Florida coach, of course most well known as the former head coach of George Mason, who went to the Final Four in 2006.  Larranaga also played for Curran at Archbishop Malloy.

Mateyko said about Curran in my previous interview, “He’s it. That’s where you learn. Larranaga learned from him.  I learned from Larranaga.  I try to take as much as possible from them”.  I remember Coach Mateyko showing me a picture of himself with Larranaga, a good friend whom he talks to often.

After playing at American International, he was a graduate assistant coach there, where he coached former NBA guard Mario Elie, who played for the Houston Rockets during their championship teams.  He became an assistant coach at St Mary’s Manhasset for his best friend Tim Cluess, who is now the head coach of Iona.  Then Mateyko became an assistant at SUNY Maritime for four years, two as associate head coach.  Then he was hired as the St Joseph’s head coach in 2001.

It took some time, but St Joseph's has made the postseason five years in a row and should make it for a sixth time this season.  His 2008-09 team won the Skyline Conference Championship and made the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in the history of the program.  That team featured two terrific players, David Acree, the all time leading scorer in St. Joseph's history and J.J.Walsh, a former NAIA Player of the Year.  They lost to DeSales in the first round of the NCAA Division III tournament. DeSales went to the Elite Eight that season.

This season, including their win over Purchase, St. Joseph's is 15-2 and 11-0 in the Skyline Conference.  They have a road win over once #18 ranked Eastern Connecticut in the D3Hoops.Com Poll (now no longer ranked as of this week). St Joseph's also currently has fifteen votes in the latest D3Hoops.Com Poll.   One of their two losses is a respectable fifteen point loss to Yale, so the Eagles only have one Division III loss.

Including this season so far, in his last six seasons Coach Matyeko's record is 116-40. His team has appeared in three Skyline Tournament Championship games, four ECAC Tournament appearances and the aforementioned NCAA Division III Tournament appearance in 2009.


Here is the transcript of my interview with Coach Mateyko before his win over Purchase.  My questions are in italics, while Coach Matyeko's answers are in regular text.

***

Coach, talk to me about how your team has been so successful.

We have the same group for two years.  This group as juniors, we lost two of our big guys.  So last year we basically said "Let's have fun.  We'll throw five guards out there and see what happens." We spread the court out and we found out that we gave a lot of people problems.  So now, last year they were 22-7.  We just missed the NCAA. I was told we were the 63rd team and they let 62 in.  They come back this year, the same kids and they play well together. We're too small, but you know when we shoot the ball well, we're real good. We're real good to watch.

You're averaging 85-86 points per game, but you are also playing good defense.  You're third in the Skyline in Field goal percentage defense at 41 percent.

We throw a lot of junk at people. But it's no secret, our major problem is that we're weak down low.  We haven't been able to combat that.  We haven't led a game in rebounding in two years.  But this team in two years has compiled a 36-9 record. We're a pretty good group.

But you can win without rebounding.  You're at the top of the Skyline in three important categories; assists to turnover ratio, turnover margin and field goal percentage defense.

Right, all three of them. And the last one is assists.  We do well with handing out the ball to each other. They're great. We have three guards that basically are three point guards and they are very tough to cover as the league has found out.  The shame of the whole thing is that in about ten to twelve games I won't have this group anymore.  So we'll reload for next year.  We have seven seniors, five of them are starters who log over 30 minutes a piece.  It will be tough next year, but we're already recruiting and we've got some kids coming in,

So we're lucky on that end and I don't know where the next eight games will end up. I was telling these guys the other night, I felt bad, these kids have done so much. We beat East Conn(Eastern Connecticut, currently #18 in D3Hoops.Com's Top 25 Poll)...

I was going to talk to you about that, that's a huge win for you on the road. They're ranked.

Yeah, it was in their tournament. We were fortunate to play well and stick it out. That was really due to senior leadership. Then we went up to Yale, which was a lot of fun.

That was one of my questions. How did you get that game?

What happened is that there are a few things that I have been trying to do for ten years. It's your bucket list. One of the items in the bucket list was trying to get a game against a Division I team.  One, it helps out the program because you get a monetary payment for the program, it helps us out on our next trip next year some place.

We asked West Point, we asked Columbia, who was advertising.  Both of them turned us down.  They said you won twenty two games. That's a lot games for us to risk to play against somebody.  Coach Jones (James Jones, head coach of Yale) was nice enough to say yes and fit us in.  I was up there for a coaching clinic up in Yale three years ago and I just loved the place.  I thought it was good experience for the kids to go up there.

So we went up there and in the first four minutes they run out to a 29-4 lead.  So I looked at my assistant Charlie and said "Maybe this wasn't such a great idea."  But at 29-4, they sat back.  And the one thing we can do is shoot.  We outscored them 36-14 in the next ten minutes.

So the beauty of the whole deal, it really comes down to this; With a minute and a half left to go in the first half, Coach Jones calls timeout and the game is tied.  For just that one minute and a half, our team felt they belonged on a Division I court.  That was the fun of the whole deal.

You only lost that game by fifteen points.

Yeah, we didn't go away, but the kid Mangano (Greg Mangano) is so good. He's terrific.

Your philosophy is the same since you started with St Mary's with Tim (Cluess).  You like to run. You could say it's a variation of Paul Westhead's "The System".

Yeah. I think it's hard to prepare against a team that's you know is going to score eighty five points.  That's what we bring. That's what that system brings.  It puts a lot of pressure on the other team to say "Hey, we're going to have to put the ball in (the basket) tonight."

Your team really values ball possession, even though you really like to run.  Is that something you really worked on?

We work on every day with different drills. But the real reason is we don't lose the ball is that two of our guards, Trey Black and Chris  Jimenez, really were point guards in high school.  They have the mentality of point guards. They handle the ball like point guards.  And Trey and Chris are two good point guards, so that's why we don't lose the ball much.

You have seven seniors.  They all log a lot of minutes. How have they progressed over the four years?  They were all a part of that 2008-09 team that made the NCAA Division III Tournament.  Was that a valuable experience for them?

I think so.  In the case of Trey Black, he played on that team a minute before the end of the first half and the last minute pf the game.  He was a skinny kid who kept getting better, better and better.  Olivier Laurent, we always knew he had the talent.  We just had to figure out how to use it.  And Chris Jimenez, he was the starting point guard on that good team.  He's never changed.  He just always been really good.

Compare the two teams, the 2008-09 Tournament Team and this team.

There's no comparison.  The tournament team was much better. This team is a great shooting team and they do a lot of things that people can't cover.  But Acree was very good (David Acree, St Joseph's all time leading scorer) and J.J Walsh was very good.  This team doesn't have an Acree or J.J. Walsh.  So it's a little different.  This is more of a combination of five guys moving the ball, shooting the ball and playing well together.  The other team had two players that were better than everyone else on the court that night.

Right now, you're 14-2, 10-0 in conference.  You won at Eastern Connecticut and you received some votes in the latest D3Hoops.Com poll.  What do you think your chances are for an at large bid if you don't win the Skyline Tournament?

You know, when you get to an at large, you're really asking the basketball gods to give you a break.  I think we would be deserving of an at large right now.  But you have to finish out the season.  I don't think the NCAA committee values the Skyline Conference as they should.  We have three or four teams that can play with anybody.   I think that with a full resume and we keep on doing what we're supposed to be doing, we should get an at large.  But you never know. We have to win our tournament.

****

The Most Underrated Team on Long Island - Part I - St. Joseph's Defeats Purchase

Over the past five seasons, the St. Joseph's Eagles have reached the postseason in Division III.  Four of those times were in the ECAC Metro Tournament.  But in the 2008-09 season, the Eagles went 24-4, won the Skyline Tournament Championship, defeating Farmingdale State and made the Division III NCAA Tournament. The Eagles would lose in the first round to DeSales, a team that made it to the Elite Eight that year. Over those five seasons, the Eagles were 101-38 with three twenty plus winning seasons.

Four years ago, I had the pleasure of interviewing Coach John Mateyko, the head coach of the Eagles.  You couldn't meet a nicer man.  Coach Mateyko is only a part time coach.  His full time job is a financial planner, but his background in basketball is vast.  The above linked interview/story, which I highly encourage you to read, gives you all the details on John Mateyko's basketball background.  However, a key detail for this story, which is the first of two on the St. Joseph's program, is that he was the assistant coach for Tim Cluess at St. Mary's.  As everyone knows, Cluess is the current coach of Iona and is also Mateyko's good friend.

I watched a number of St. Joseph's games in the 2007-08 season, including their regular season home win over Farmingdale State, and the Skyline Championship game, which they lost at Farmingdale State.  The Eagles had a terrific guard in number three, David Acree, who set the all time St. Joseph's scoring record the next season.

I thought that 2007-08 team deserved to make the Division III Tournament but they were snubbed. Last season, they were snubbed as well. Coach Mateyko told me in our interview yesterday that he was told they were the sixty third team.  Only sixty two teams make the NCAA Division III Tournament.  So you see folks, tournament snubs don't just happen on the Division I level.  You just don't thankfully have Jay Bilas doing any "eye tests" on Division III teams.

As I noted, in 2008-09, the Eagles made the NCAA Tournament. Behind Acree and J.J. Walsh, a former NAIA Player of the Year, who was also Acree's best friend, they finally took down Farmingdale State in the Skyline championship game.  Unfortunately, I couldn't make any games that season due in large part to my younger son's kidney issues and subsequent surgery in the beginning of March.  But I remember distinctly getting a message on my answering machine from Coach Mateyko after he won the championship that he so deserved.

We have kept in touch a little bit over the last two seasons, but I haven't been able to catch any of their games, due in large part to that they often have the same schedule as Hofstra. However, I have kept track of his team's success over the past couple of years and yesterday, an opportunity arose to go out to Patchogue to St. Joseph's College to see one of their games.

On Friday, I contacted Coach Mateyko to let him know I was coming out and asked if he wanted to do another interview.  He immediately got back to me and was happy to do that.  The plan was for me to come out early and conduct the interview with him before their game against Purchase, the team that defeated St Joseph's in the Skyline Championship Game last season.

I made the familiar drive from the Southern State Parkway out east to Sunrise Highway to the Waverly Avenue exit.  The entrance to St Joseph's College is literally off the service road to Sunrise Highway.  I entered the Danzi Athletic Center and nothing had changed since the last time I had been there.  A student group was by the entrance selling candy just like I did the last time I was there for a game.  I walked down the corridor to Coach Mateyko's office, but he was not there. One of his players informed me if he wasn't in his office, he was in the bleachers in the gym watching the women's game.

Now when you go to a game at St Joseph's, there's no admission.  Yes, the games are free.  Where can you go for two hours of good entertainment for free?  Well, now you know of such a place.  The remainder of St Joseph's basketball schedule can be found by clicking here.

When I walked into the gym and made my way over to the St Joseph's fan section of the bleachers, I saw a familiar face.  Howie Hamlin, a colleague of mine at Hofstra, was there in the crowd watching his daughter, Danielle, a starting sophomore forward for the the Eagles.  Danielle averages 8.5 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Howie and I talked for the last four minutes of the game, which was won by St Joseph's 59-37 over the Purchase women's team.

As Howie was leaving, I saw Coach Mateyko and he greeted me. He asked me where my older son was, but I told him unfortunately that my "color analyst',as I call Matthew, wanted to spend time with his mommy, since my wife had to work earlier in the day.  So, we went to a conference room and we talked for a little over ten minutes before he had to leave to get ready for the game.  The interview with Coach Mateyko will be the second part of this story later in the week.

But I can tell you some things about this season's Eagles team.  They use the same philosophy Iona uses - Paul Westhead's "The System"; More Possessions + More Shot Attempts = More Points.  Last season though, Coach Mateyko switched to a four guard lineup, which caused match-up problems for his opponents.

This season, he has used that same four guard lineup to a 10-0 Skyline conference start and a 14-2 record overall entering yesterday's game. One of the wins was a 90-76 road win over #18 ranked Eastern Connecticut in the championship of Eastern Connecticut's Tournament.  The Eagles actually have nine votes in the current D3Hoops.Com Top 25 Poll.

Of their two losses, only one has come against a Division III opponent, Ramapo, who had received a significant number of votes in that D3Hoops.Com poll earlier in the season.  The other loss is to Yale.  Yes,  St. Joseph's traveled to New Haven and played the Division I Bulldogs on their home court in December.  Yale went out to a 29-4 lead before St Joseph's rallied and actually cut the lead to one, 44-43.  They trailed at half only by three points before losing to the Bulldogs 101-86.

Since they are a proponent of "The System", not surprisingly the Eagles are first in the Skyline in points per game at 86.8 points per game, entering yesterday's contest.  The Eagles are also first in the Skyline in three very important categories; assists to turnover ratio, turnover margin and free throw percentage.  They are also third in the Skyline in field goal percentage defense.

The Eagles are an experienced team with seven seniors, led by their dual point guards Chris Jimenez (14 points per game) and Trey Black (15 points per game).  Another two senior guards, Olivier Laurent, their leading scorer at 17 points per game, and Steve Velasquez (12.8 points per game) round out the double digit scorers.  Senior Vincent Russo is the lone forward starter, who averages 8.5 points per game.  Senior forward Shahab Syed is their sixth man and averages 8.8 points per game.

Before the game started, St Joseph's did a three pointer drill.  Meanwhile, Purchase was practicing a side to side defensive drill as the two assistants passed the ball from one side of the court to the other.  Next, one assistant drove toward the basket and the entire Panthers team dropped on their backs as they did a charge drill.  I haven't seen that drill before.

After the teams were introduced, the Cub Scout Pack 40 came out. Instead of the National Anthem, which was likely played before the women's game, the Cub Scouts, after some encouragement by the public address announcer, gave the Pledge of Allegiance.  Afterwards, they went up into the bleachers behind the scorers table and appeared to be playing tag the rest of the first half.

Coach Mateyko told me that he had a good shooting team and I quickly found out that was the case.  The team that leads the Skyline in three point attempts, 469, and three pointers made, 162, hit five of their first six baskets from beyond the arc.  But Purchase hung around due to hitting ten of twelve shots from the charity stripe. In fact, the two time defending Skyline Conference Champion Panthers took a 32-29 lead with 6:57 left in the half.

But as Coach Mateyko noted, the Eagles' style of play forces a lot of pressure on teams to keep up with them.   On offense, they spread the court with four guards and one forward in the middle.  They move the ball around quickly with passes and setup ball screens for open corner looks. Black is particularly effective at finding open people. On defense, they setup traps and force turnovers.  The three starting guards on Purchase had a combined ten turnovers on the day.  It's basically like watching Iona, minus Michael Glover.

It's especially very hard to keep up with a team that hits nine of their first fifteen three pointers from beyond the arc.  Jimenez hit a three to tie the game at thirty two.  His three pointer also keyed a 19-8 St. Joseph's run to end the half.  Jimenez had five three pointers in the first half which accounted for all of his fifteen points in the first twenty minutes.

The score at the half was 48-40.  It was going to be hard for the Panthers to keep up because they had hit four fewer shots than the Eagles in the first half and they only had two three pointers to St Joseph's nine.  I could see why teams felt pressured to keep up with St Joseph's.  When half of your opponents shots in the first half are three pointers (15 of 31 FG attempts), they hit nine of them and shoot fifty eight percent from the field as a whole in the first half, it's hard to keep up with a team like that.

The second half started out like the end of the first. Velasquez buried a three pointer, then hit a layup to put the Eagles up by eleven, 53-42. The Panthers, like most defending championship teams, refused to quit.  Purchase cut the deficit down to four, 56-52 with 14:45 left, due in large part to their three starting guards, D.J. Smith, John Pressley and Amar Reynolds. Smith, Pressley and Reynolds combined for forty two of Purchase's seventy points on the night.

But again, St Joseph's style of play was too much for Purchase to handle.  Over the next eleven minutes, the lead start to slowly grow.  It started with, what else, two three pointers by Velasquez and Laurent.  Then the Eagles, led by Laurent, starting driving the lane for layups.  The lead would become for the most part ten or twelve points.  But after another Laurent layup, St Joseph's was up by eighteen 84-66 with 3:38 left in the game.

All that was left was for both teams to start clearing the benches, which resulted in an interesting development.  Purchase Coach Jeff Charney brought freshman Joel Neri into the game for the first time.  Neri stands seven foot tall and he dwarfed St Joseph's biggest player, the six foot six Syed.  Neri also showed a touch, hitting two of his three shots easily.  Considering the Eagles lack of size, you had to wonder why Neri wasn't in there sooner.  But Charney has done a terrific job with the Panthers, leading them to two straight Division III NCAA Tournament berths, so I am sure he knows Neri needs seasoning.

After the Laurent layup, St Joseph's was content to run out the clock and didn't score the rest of the way.  The Eagles didn't need to as they won 84-70.  Jiimenez led all scorers with twenty points, while Velasquez added seventeen points and Laurent had fifteen points.  Black had only nine points, six under his season average.  But he more than made up for it with eleven assists and just one turnover.  

The Eagles had nineteen assists and only eleven turnovers.  They had as many field goal attempts as the Panthers, sixty, but hit seven more of their shots to shoot fifty three percent for the game.  They also hit fourteen of thirty one three pointers, while holding Purchase to only two of thirteen from beyond the arc.

As I left, I made eye contact with Coach Mateyko, waved my hand and yelled "Good game, coach".  The Eagles still have seven games left in conference to play before the Skyline Conference Tournament.  I took a look at their schedule and noticed they have a road game at Old Westbury on Feburary 15.   It wouldn't be the first time I celebrated my birthday with a basketball game.

(Part two of this story, my interview with Coach Mateyko will be in the next couple of days)