MAAC Report: Takeaways from my trip to the Mount, its win over Iona, and more

EMMITSBURG, Md. — I never actually thought that I would make the trip down to Mount St. Mary’s for a game. Over the last three four years that the Mount has been in the MAAC, as I’ve made my schedule, I don’t even write their home games down on the list of games to choose from. I’ll probably continue to do that. It took a pretty extravagant effort to go in the first place on Monday, but I’m extremely pleased that I did.

While the rest of the schools in the conference are in urban or suburban settings, the Mount is plopped down a few miles from town on either side of Highway 15. There’s nothing around. On one side, the athletic complex. On the other side, all of the academic buildings. If you stand in just the right spot on the side of the athletic complex, you see the golden twinkle of the Statue of Blessed Mother, nestled amongst the hilly backdrop, rising high above the blue triangular facade of Knott Arena in the foreground. It’s a view unlike any other in the conference.

The arena itself transports you to a different era. Its unique architecture and wooden bleachers give it an energy that exudes historical importance, even though it’s merely a 38-year old building. Then you look up and see the massive new videoboard in one end zone, and the balcony-style hospitality seating in the other end zone.

Mount St. Mary’s athletic director Brad Davis has pushed renovations and changes to many parts of the building since he took over, but he also takes pride in the charm that it offers. He said that people tell him that Knott Arena is “the Hinkle of the MAAC.” I can’t say whether they’re right or not, but there’s an aura of mysticism that other venues in the conference just don’t have.

I’ve made the trip. I successfully battled the cutting gusts attempting to sweep my Nissan Kicks off of its wheels to make it and watch a basketball game between the Mount and Iona. The Mountaineers grabbed a 66-59 victory – their first MAAC win of the year – riding two 10-point scoring runs in the second half. Here are three takeaways from each team

Mount St. Mary’s

1. Anthony Arrington flipped the game

After missing the first 10 games of the season, Wofford transfer Anthony Arrington made his Mount debut against Loyola on Dec. 13. He slid right into the guard rotation on the bench, having played 21 minutes per contest over the last four.

In the second half on Monday, Arrington scored seven points in a row for the Mount as part of the first of the two 10-0 scoring runs. He gave the Mount a 42-41 lead with a corner three, and the building erupted.

He also played a role in bottling up Iona star CJ Anthony. He supplements Xavier Lipscomb’s physicality with another strong body off the bench, part of why the Mount was able to play the game that it wanted to play for a full 40.

“We were able to put guys on him that could match his physicality,” Donny Lind said. “We made it uncomfortable for him as much as we could. He’s a really good player, and I was pleased with the effort we had.”

Arrington hasn’t been efficient offensively so far, but that second half stretch shows that he can provide a lift when needed.

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2. The McEldon factor

Luke McEldon is 6-foot-10, 255 pounds but has skill beyond being a straight bruiser. That’s becoming a rare archetype in the MAAC and at the mid-major level, and he balled out on Monday with 18 points on 9-of-12 shooting from the field.

The Mount got him involved early and often. He got post-ups against Lamin Sabally – whom he has two inches and 40 pounds on. He got dropoffs from the guards for layups, and he played with comfort and energy throughout the night.

“We usually try to get the ball inside as often as possible early in the game,” McEldon said. “And from there we can play on the outside.”

But on a night where the outside shots weren’t falling, it was McEldon and Justin Amadi pounding it down low all night. Even when McEldon picked up two fouls in the first half, Lind stuck with him for a few minutes, trusting him to not pick up a third while being the matchup problem that he is.

3. AK Kébé’s WOW factor

It’s going to be hard to top AK Kébé’s alley-oop dunk during the second 10-0 run when it comes to picking out the best slam of the year in the MAAC. Arlandus Keyes let go of the ball when Kebe was still a foot or two behind the 3-point line, but suddenly, Kebe appeared at the rim, sneaking past Alliou Fall to grab the ball where only he could get it and flush it home.

It immediately forced an Iona timeout. The Knott Arena crowd was stunned. For a Mount St. Mary’s team that feeds off of energy and emotion – as we saw in the MAAC Tournament – it was a play that got the entire bench jumping.

“It was insane, it better be on SportsCenter,” Arrington said.

“We’re working with him and focusing on those things that he can do that nobody else can,” Lind said. “With his length and his athleticism, and the ability to get deflections, and the ability to make plays on defense that turn into offense, or a tip-in.”

It was just Kebe’s fifth game of the season, as he missed the first eight and the Loyola game, but the tantalizing moments are happening more often this year.

Iona

1. A game of runs

Iona leads the MAAC with 13 killshots (10-0 runs), and it even had one in the first half of this game. It nearly had another in the early part of the second half, scoring eight in a row to build a nine-point lead. However, the Gaels couldn’t stack possessions together in between runs once the threes stopped falling early on.

Then, in the second half, the Mount put together two killshots. One to take a 42-41 lead, and then one to take a 58-46 lead, essentially salting the game away by holding the Gaels scoreless for more than four minutes.

Like the Quinnipiac game, a physical MAAC opponent just wore them down in the second half. Dan Geriot looks at when the Gaels had a 41-32 lead as a missed opportunity.

“It’s more like how do you keep hitting those singles, how do you keep pushing forward together?” Geriot said. “And a lot of the snowball that went the wrong way was based on our transition offense, and that’s something that we have seen a little bit before, so we need to understand that, feel that, see it on film and continue to converse with the guys about it.”

2. Not CJ’s night

CJ Anthony might be the single best story in the MAAC this season. I’ll tell you that story in a feature later this week. He took the league by storm in non-conference play but played his worst game of the season on Monday.

He’s essentially been able to control the game flow for Iona almost every night, and if he couldn’t, he’d hit a few big shots to make up for it. He didn’t have that against the Mount. He scored 10 points on 3-9 from the field, which isn’t a bad “worst game,” but it certainly felt as though he didn’t have the impact that he usually does.

The Mount put a few different bodies on him, threw pressure at him and mitigated his impact, but it’s all part of the process for Geriot.

“I think it’s him learning it,” Geriot said. “I talk about it all the time, we gotta go through this. Dealing with ball pressure is good for him, I believe we failed correctly tonight. I don’t believe we were out of sorts – we were out of sorts with our passing, and that’s a big thing for us.”

3. Guarding down low

As previously mentioned, McEldon had a great night for the Mount. Iona as a team is much better defending the perimeter than the paint, and the Mountaineers leveraged different ways to get in the paint and feed McEldon to exploit that.

Geriot thinks the Gaels need to read the plays better when the ball gets in the paint.

“We’re giving up too much at the rim by overhelping,” he said. “We got to continue to read our help, and that’s how we become an elite defensive team.”

Siena’s staff definitely saw how the Mount created points at the basket, and would love to see Justice Shoats and Gavin Doty hit those dropoffs to Tassie Goodrick (should he play) and Antonio Chandler on Friday night.

Other Notes Around the League

Quinnipiac 64, Marist 58

Marist’s three MAAC games this year have been 72, 75, and now 68 possessions. Of the 21 that it played last year, only four of them were 68 or more possessions. Asim Jones has scored in double figures in six of the last seven games for Quinnipiac, and the one time that he didn’t is QU’s only loss in that stretch. While Tarik Watson and Jason Schofield can rack up points when they get the ball in the post, I don’t always feel like the best use of Marist’s possessions is playing through the bigs.

Merrimack 80, Sacred Heart 72

Merrimack was probably due for a better shooting night after going 26% and 27% against Princeton and Vermont, and Sacred Heart got caught in the crosshairs of that early. The Warriors started 5-0 last year, and are 3-0 to start this season despite five new starters. It was another 18 points and 7 assists for freshman point guard Kevair Kennedy, who is making a habit out of that at the moment. Sacred Heart is allowing opponents to shoot 61% inside the arc in MAAC play.

Manhattan 74, Rider 71

Davis Bynum had a game-high 19. He had just 17 total points on the season after the Broncs lost to Quinnipiac on Dec. 7. He’s now set season highs in four successive games. Perhaps Rider playing through him and Shemani Fuller more will lead to more success. But Manhattan got big bench production from Anthony Isaac and Terrance Jones. The Jaspers are still a thin team, but have two punches off the bench this year instead of just one.

Saint Peter’s 70, Fairfield 66

Zaakir Williamson had his first double-double in a Saint Peter’s uniform, but the Peacock guards crashing the glass (eight rebounds for Bland, seven for Eaton) might be the story of the game. Fairfield is a tremendous rebounding team, and Saint Peter’s got in there and beat them on the glass. We know that Braden Sparks, Brandon Benjamin and Declan Wucherpfennig can put numbers on the board, but the Stags need to find consistent offense beyond those three.

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