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.

****

Catholic School Shootout

This article is also on the Mid Majority 800 Games Recap Site.

Before last night, the last time I saw an Iona Men's Basketball game was March 30 of this year, when the Hynes Center hosted the championship game of the CIT as Santa Clara played Iona. With the recent advent of the College Insider Tournament (CIT), the College Basketball Invitational (CBI), as well as the seventy three year old NIT, which was won this season by Wichita State, some mid major teams' seasons now don't always end in loss.   The home team had a chance to end their season with a win.  Alas for the Gaels, it was the Broncos' season that didn't end in a loss, as Santa Clara downed Iona 76-69 to win the CIT championship.

The Gaels expect a lot more than a CIT berth this season.  With the addition of  Lamont "Momo" Jones, a transfer from Arizona, to a team that is returning Michael Glover and Scott Machado, Iona is the favorite to win the MAAC.  And if not for one Robbie Hummel, they might very well be undefeated.  The Gaels, who entered the contest with a 3-1 record, have averaged ninety one points per game, which is second in the country in scoring.  Iona is also second in the country in assists per game, averaging an incredible twenty two assists per game.

Iona's opponent, St Joseph's was also 3-1, with their sole loss being to Seton Hall.  St Joe's was looking to improve on last season, their second season in a row with twenty plus losses.  The Hawks have their own star in Carl Jones, who is averaging over twenty three points per game, shooting fifty six percent from the field and a ridiculous fifty seven percent on his three point attempts.

When I left my house in North Bellmore last night at 6:00 P.M., I was sure that I would not make it to New Rochelle until well into the first half.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the biggest travel days of the year as well as the biggest party night of the year.  I expected a lot of traffic on my route to Iona, especially on the usual traffic spots like the Northern State/Grand Central  Parkway, the Cross Island Parkway and the Hutchinson River Parkway.   Much to my amazement, the only traffic I encountered was on the will call line at the Hynes Center for my ticket.

After I got my ticket, I entered the gym shortly after tipoff.  Glover made two free throws to put the Gaels up 4-3.  I noticed the Hynes Center was pretty much full, which was somewhat surprising considering the school was on break for the long Thanksgiving weekend.. However, Iona had received a lot of local press as perhaps the best team in the local New York City Area.  Going into the game, the Gaels were the top ranked team in John Templon's Big Apple Buckets NYC Power Poll.  And given St Joseph's long history as a mid major basketball power, it made sense that the gym was near capacity.  And the 2,611 that were in attendance were treated to one hell of a game.

St Joseph's showed early on that they had about as much talent as Iona had on offense.  Langston Galloway's three point barrage and C.J. Aiken's all around play riddled the Gaels defense early on in the game. The Hawks had a 33-20 lead midway through the first half.  Up to that point, Iona's defensive play was seriously lacking.

The Gaels called timeout and then turned up the pressure defense.  As a result, Iona went on a run, forcing a lot of Hawks' turnovers and actually tied the game at thirty nine with a little less than three minutes left.  Iona's offensive plan was a simple one.  First, it was Machado driving the lane, often "Feeding the Beast", as in get the ball to Glover, who scored at will on the Hawks.  However if Machado saw St Joe's trying to concentrate on Glover,  Machado would either hit the layup or kick it to Kyle Smyth for an open three pointer.

St Joe's would regain the lead and entered halftime up 45-43.  Both teams got a rousing ovation from the fans as they left the court together by the Gaels bench for the locker room.   The halftime entertainment started off with the typical dance team performing with lousy canned music.

After that mercifully ended,  the fans were treated to the Iona Pep Band's terrific renditions of popular songs.  The Iona pep band is made up of  older gentlemen and plays only at men's games.  They play during most timeouts, at halftime and at the end of the game.  Their renditions of Steely Dan's "Peg", Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein", Rick James' "Brickhouse", and George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic's "We Want the Funk", among others, are absolutely terrific.  After the game, my friend Mal and I actually went over and thanked them for playing.

The second half was a back and forth affair. It was very close for the last twenty minutes of regulation, with no team getting a lead larger than five points. For Iona, Glover and Machado continued to score at will, but Smyth was now added to the mix, as he contributed several three pointers. But Galloway, Aiken, Carl Jones and Ronald Roberts kept St Joe's right there.

With 30 seconds left, the Hawks were up two, 83-81.  Machado was fouled and had a chance to tie.  But he only made one of two free throws and Iona was forced to foul.  However, Carl Jones returned the favor and missed his second free throw.   Machado found Taaj Ridley for a layup to tie the game at eighty four with eight seconds left.   With the fans stomping and chanting defense, Iona forced a turnover and the game went into overtime.

In overtime, Iona was up two 93-91 and had the ball on an inbounds play with about thirty seconds to play. Momo Jones was trapped by the Gaels bench, but the ball appeared to be knocked out of bounds by a Hawks' player.  However, the referee ruled St Joe's ball and Iona's coach, Tim Cluess was livid.  The Hawks would tie the score at ninety three and we went to a second overtime.

During the break before the start of the second overtime, Cluess had to be restrained by his assistant coaches and his players from going after the referee who made the call.  As the fans booed the referee's call, Cluess was fortunate that he wasn't called for a technical foul.  But his senior point guard wouldn't let him down.

Machado took over from there.  He would score seven of the Gaels' nine points in the second overtime.  The Hawks, who only really had a seven man rotation, seemed gassed at the end.  Iona would make the fans' holiday drive home a happy one, winning 104-99.  Glover had a huge double double with 34 points and 15 rebounds, while Machado's double double was 33 points and 10 assists.  Carl Jones led St Joe's with 25 points while Roberts had 20 points for the Hawks.

As we left the Hynes Center, I knew I would be back here soon.  Iona plays their next home game Monday night vs. LIU.  The Blackbirds were one of the top scoring teams in the country last season, averaging eighty two points per game.

Just the kind of tempo the Gaels like to play.