POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — John Dunne is known for his stingy defenses. He’s now in his 20th season as a head coach, and he’s only had an offense rank better than his defense in one of those seasons, his first at Marist in 2018-19.
Before the season, KenPom wrote an article about which coaches are the most impressive in his model on each side of the ball. Dunne is third, behind only Kelvin Sampson and Rick Pitino in terms of outperforming expectations on the defensive side of the ball. Ahead of Steve Pikiell. Ahead of Brian Dutcher. Ahead of Russell Turner.
Advertisement
Marist has finished with a top 3 defense in the MAAC each of the last two years, but Dunne’s team has actually not topped the MAAC in KenPom defensive efficiency since his final season at Saint Peter’s. That can change this year.
The Red Foxes held Lehigh to 0.81 points per possession on Tuesday, a lower output than what Houston held them to earlier in the year. Marist held the Mountain Hawks to just 2 for its final 18 from the field in the first half en route to a 78-55 win at McCann Arena. It was never close in the second half, and the Red Foxes improved to 4-2.
Entering Saturday’s games (Marist doesn’t play until Friday), the Red Foxes are 43rd in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency on KenPom. They started the season 108th. Dunne has had top 100 defenses before at Marist, but he hasn’t had one rank this highly since his time at Saint Peter’s. And the numbers are even kinder if you remove preseason priors on Bart Torvik, where the Foxes would rank 17th.
Jadin Collins-Roberts has grown up through the Marist program. He’s been part of those top three MAAC defenses over the last two years. How does he think this team has improved on that end?
Advertisement
“Coach Dunne makes it hard not to take pride in defense,” Collins-Roberts said. “It’s just repetition and practice. It starts behind closed doors, whether that’s in practice or just simply seeing it on film in film sessions and coaches talking it out.”
Okay. That’s not really an answer. Anything better from his teammate, Iona transfer Justin Menard?
“We’re just playing together,” Menard said. “Coaches do a great job in scout during the week, hammer away at every action they’re running. We go over how we’re gonna guard a bunch of ball screens, help defense, actions. We spend a lot of time in walkthrough and just going to do what Coach wants us to do.”
A little more? How about Coach Dunne?
Advertisement
“It’s a long season, so I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Dunne said. “I do think we have the potential to be better defensively. I think we have a little toughness. We are a little undersized at the guards, but they are all tough as nails, and they all have the will to prepare. They try to follow game plan, they have game plan discipline, they hold each other accountable, make multiple efforts.”
He’s right about it being very early in the season. And he’s right to be careful about directly comparing teams from previous years to this one, but these Red Foxes have been extremely impressive on the defensive end.
One major key for that is continuity. Defense is all about playing together as a unit, and Marist has the 10th-best minutes continuity in the country. These guys, for the most part, have played together before, and they know where each other need to be to get stops.
Collins-Roberts and Jaden Daughtry are two of the longest tenured players in the MAAC, as junior and senior, and they’re the keys to the defense.
Advertisement
“They’re through the roof with toughness, physicality,” Dunne said. “Jaden Daughtry’s got ridiculous numbers with blocked shots. They get deflections, they’ve both always given up their body for the cause.”
Daughtry is the best defender in the MAAC right now, but it takes more than one on that end, especially when you’re undersized. Parby Kabamba has stepped into the starting big role with Jason Schofield coming off the bench, and has protected the rim well. Dunne’s staff made some good additions in the portal with Menard and Rhyjon Blackwell, who have both gotten after it defensively thus far, in addition to strong offensive play.
The elephant in the room, at least statistically, is potential 3-point regression. Marist’s opponents are shooting just 22.1% – an unsustainably low number – from beyond the arc. That will normalize, but the Red Foxes will still be an elite defensive unit.
On a given night in the MAAC, it’ll come down to whether they can put enough points on the board. In Marist’s three Division-I wins, it has scored 75, 76, and 78. That’s usually going to be enough. But 54 in the loss to Harvard? Much tougher to say.
Advertisement
Menard and Blackwell aren’t quite the offensive force that Josh Pascarelli was last year, but they provide two different looks and can each lead Marist’s offense on a given night. Against Lehigh, that was Menard, with 17 points to lead the way. Against Dartmouth, it was Blackwell with 16.
The Red Foxes are off for more than a week now, with time to prepare for the team that knocked them out of the MAAC Tournament last year, Mount St. Mary’s.
Fairfield’s loss to Columbia shows room for growth
FAIRFIELD, Conn. — The last time I saw Fairfield last season, the Stags were down 7-0 in the first 80 seconds to Sacred Heart in the MAAC Tournament. That lead swelled to as many as 14 in the first half, and Fairfield never led.
Advertisement
On Wednesday, it was another slow start that the Stags couldn’t dig out of, starting the game down 17-4 in the first four minutes thanks to an array of triples from Columbia. The Lions completely dominated Fairfield from start to finish in a 106-77 drubbing at Mahoney Arena.
Chris Casey didn’t have a ton to say afterwards.
“They beat us in pretty much every facet of the game,” he said. “Our young guys learned from this how hard you have to play to beat good teams. So we regroup and go onto the next one.”
This is a young Stags group. Brandon Benjamin and Declan Wucherpfennig make up a dual-freshman starting frontcourt, while a bunch of other underclassmen play important minutes as well. Benjamin grabbed 11 rebounds but was held to 3-10 from the field. He was bothered by Columbia’s big lineups.
Advertisement
The Lions played 6-foot-8 Blair Thompson at the three with 6-foot-9 Mason Ritter and 6-foot-10 Ryan Soulis. It helped them outrebound Fairfield – who’d been a good rebounding team – by 10.
“We worked really hard to try to rebound the ball,” Casey said. “But we didn’t rebound it. They are bigger, were more physical around the basket than we played around the basket and they got rebounds. That’s something we’ll keep working on. We’ve been good at it. We weren’t good at it today.”
Perhaps more concerning than Fairfield’s younger bigs struggling was the amount of success Columbia had with dribble penetration. The Lion guards breezed past Stag defenders and into the lane, creating easy opportunities.
It helped Columbia generate plenty of open threes in the first half, and plenty of advantages in the paint in the second half.
“You gotta get in a stance and guard the ball,” Casey said. “We didn’t do that.”
Advertisement
The Stags escaped home games against Stonehill and Loyola (MD) by a combined five points in the Mahoney Classic, and own double digit road wins over NJIT and Le Moyne, but none of those teams are currently ranked higher than 300th in KenPom. Fairfield played Penn State tough on opening night, but it didn’t come out with the win. Losing to Columbia, now 6-1, isn’t necessarily a shock, but the margin is an eye-opener.
In the second half on Wednesday, Casey gave extended run to Tony Williams and Nasir Rodriguez, freshmen guards that he wanted to offer “valuable experience” to. He says it shows them the level you have to play at to beat good teams.
Braden Sparks started the season 10-for-22 from beyond the arc, but is four for his last 20. He’s been awesome this year, but it has been hot and cold so far. Deuce Turner was the opposite. He started 1-for-10, and is 12-of-22 since. The Stags need to get their scorers going at the same time. Cam Estevez coming out of his shell with 19 – mostly insignificant within the context of the game – points could get him going as well.
The Stags have one more non-conference game, against New Hampshire on Sunday, before playing the early MAAC slate on the road against Manhattan and Merrimack.
Advertisement
A few things to watch this weekend
Merrimack and Siena are both playing in three-game multi-team events. The Warriors lost to Penn on Friday and will take on Hofstra and La Salle on Saturday and Sunday. The Saints took down Longwood on Friday and will take on American and Maine on Saturday and Sunday. These events are really the only sequence of games throughout the course of a season that mirrors the conference tournament structure of games in quick succession.
Slow starts are nothing new for Merrimack, which sits at 2-5, as the Warriors started 1-6 last year, but Joe Gallo’s team hasn’t been forcing as many turnovers as usual with the zone. Each of the first six seasons in Division I, Merrimack has been top-40 in turnover rate, including top five four times. This season, it is 120th. If that rate doesn’t improve, I’m not sure what this team looks like later in the year.
Meanwhile, the Saints are 5-2 and looking to sport an impressive 7-2 record heading into the first weekend of MAAC play. Brendan Coyle had his best half of the season in the second against Longwood. For a shooter like him, I’m fascinated to see whether the quick turnaround helps him stay hot.
Advertisement
Mount St. Mary’s is definitely better than its 1-6 record. The Mount fought for 30 minutes with Cincinnati and for 45 minutes with West Virginia, but it also lost its only home game of the year to Bucknell and just got blown out by 23 and 53 to Western Michigan and Ohio State. Saturday’s game against Howard is a get-right opportunity at Knott Arena for the reigning champs before starting MAAC play on Wednesday against Sacred Heart.
Canisius has its biggest home test of yet coming up. The Griffs welcome undefeated crosstown rival Buffalo into the Koessler Center on Saturday. While Canisius hasn’t lost any of its four home games yet this year, Buffalo ranked 100 spots in KenPom higher than any of those opponents. The physical Bulls will give Canisius trouble inside, as the Griffs are 356th in 2-point percentage defense. But Canisius will try to slow the game down and limit possessions and with some good variance and a strong home crowd, they can give themselves a chance.
