POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. — Dan Geriot has had a few “Welcome to the MAAC,” moments in his first season as Iona’s head coach. You’re allowed some of those. We’ll give that grace.
But oh boy, did the dean of the MAAC
have his way with the rookie.
John Dunne’s Marist team put together a flawless gameplan that torpedoed everything Iona wanted to do offensively, forcing a season-high 24 turnovers by the Gaels. A month ago, I wondered if the MAAC would have to adjust to Geriot’s NBA-influenced schemes and principles, but it appears that the MAAC has – for the most part – been ready. Marist blasted Iona from start to finish, leading by as many as 46 and winning 83-38 at McCann Arena.
The loss drops Iona to 2-3 in MAAC play with two resounding losses to Quinnipiac and now the Red Foxes. On the flip side, it was Marist’s most complete performance of the season on both sides of the ball, and a much-needed home win after two tough road losses earlier in the week.
Here are my takeaways.
Iona
- Trouble with the drop, the ball stuck
Dunne is known for his stingy drop coverage against pick-and-rolls, and Iona’s ball screen-centric offense just had zero answer. The Gaels let Marist set the tone physically and didn’t respond.
“They’re as good of a ‘read the ball’ defense as you’re going to see,” Geriot said. “The way they were able to dial in on that part of it, and even on the non-shooters, they were able to get there so our ball reversal is very limited. And while that was happening, now you have ball pressure back onto you, even in that drop coverage.”
When Iona got into the middle of the drop, there were multiple instances of the Gaels coughing up the ball because they didn’t have the options that they expected or simply made a bad mistake.
Marist’s defense is terrific, but to limit Iona to six assists with 24 turnovers? That’s not just defense. Iona had zero offensive rhythm, couldn’t hold onto the ball, couldn’t hit an outside shot or even generate an outside shot, and struggled to get two feet in the paint looking at the basket. That’s a really bad offensive recipe for anybody.
CJ Anthony struggled, then Geriot took him out, and the lineups with Keshawn Williams and Denver Anglin struggled as well. Anthony lead Iona with 11 points, but somebody has to lead you in scoring every night. Whatever backcourt or frontcourt Iona threw out, the Red Foxes had it shut down.
- You can’t just burn the tape
One of the things that I’ve noticed about Geriot as a person and as a coach is that he brings a similar expression and tone to press conferences from wins as he does in losses. While obviously, a 45-point loss affects him, being in the NBA forced him to learn how to move on quickly and how to mentally deal with the flow of a season.
He’s been very transparent about how process-oriented he is, usually going into more detail than most coaches. Geriot emphasizes “failing correctly,” or making mistakes because you’re on the right track vs. mistakes coming from a place of poor process. This was not a game where Iona failed correctly.
“We were so disheveled in our timing, in our spacing,” Geriot said. “That hasn’t really happened to us a ton, and I think it’s on our discipline. I have to see it on film and have to sit in it.
“Our guys weren’t really high on scouting reports (before this year). So I think in my mind, how are we continuing to produce for them on the coaching staff side? I got to do a better job of producing for them. We got to take a look internally about how the flow of our offense is going, what our defensive coverages are looking like. I think we’re doing a much better job defensively than offensively right now.”
- Offense bled into defense
Marist is a defense-first team, but when that defense is humming, it can turn into offense. The Red Foxes had 23 assists to just six turnovers, playing significantly more disciplined than the Gaels, and taking advantage of an Iona team that was being battered on the other end.
“Definitely (the offense bled into the defense),” Geriot said. “That’s where we have up more middle drives than we’re used to, a little more tendencies for the personnel than we’re used to.”
Despite Iona leading the MAAC in 10-0 runs, the Gaels couldn’t put together any sort of push in this game. One would think that for a team as explosive in stretches as Iona is, going down early isn’t a big deal, but that lead grew and grew.
Marist was ahead by 20 going into halftime, and you could sense the cold dread as Iona slowly walked across the court from its bench to its tunnel. Geriot facepalmed a few times and what should be a short walk felt like forever.
Nothing really changed in half two.
“It was just the snowball of the turnovers,” Geriot said. “Even in the second half, when it started, we still turned it over nine times in the first whatever six minutes of the half. So not only did we have that, the halftime adjustment was to try to play more physically and also take care of the ball, and then I think when we’re missing some of those paint shots, the paint patience went away. We weren’t piercing it with any timing or force.”
Marist
- Elite scouting report
Every time Iona went down the floor, Marist’s entire coaching staff made sure everybody knew where on the floor Toby Harris was. Harris has been a deadeye shooter at 6-foot-8 for the Gaels, and a major key to Iona’s wins. He is averaging 15.8 points in Iona’s wins but just 7.2 in the Gael losses.
That’s partially because the Red Foxes held him to zero by making sure that he couldn’t get open looks.
“We wanted to do our best to not let him get off,” Dunne said.
“We couldn’t give him nothing,” Elijah Lewis said. “No free space, no free shots. We wanted to make sure that we were there, that it wasn’t easy.”
Iona’s offense never found any sort of flow, as Marist was aggressive in its drop coverage and guarding the off-ball shooters. They forced Iona’s players into uncomfortable offensive positions,
The Gaels couldn’t get into their most consistent actions and turned it over when they did.
- Is that spurtability?
I’ve written plenty about Iona being the most spurtable team in the MAAC, and how it raises the Gaels’ ceiling, But in the first half on Sunday, it was Marist that looked like an extremely spurtable team.
The Red Foxes first opened the lead out to double digits by scoring 14 points in just over two minutes and eight points in 54 seconds. That came from threes by four different players: Parby Kabamba, Rhyjon Blackwell, Justin Menard and Jaden Daughtry.
Marist continued to add points quickly as it scored a ton off of turnovers. The team is tied for third in the MAAC with eight killshots this year, but it makes its money for the most part by avoiding killshots by the other team. It did both on Sunday.
“Everything comes from our defense,” Lewis said. “Our offense comes from our defense, and I think we played really good in transition today, which played a big part in having our runs.”
- Historic blowout
Alright. Bear with me.
Marist’s 45-point win is its largest ever over a Division-I opponent, and by proxy, largest ever over a MAAC opponent. It was Iona’s biggest loss since losing by 45 to Colorado in 2019. The 38 points is the fewest that Marist has allowed in the Dunne era and the fewest overall since Black Friday 2012 when it allowed 33 to Vanderbilt. Additionally, the 38 is the fewest it has allowed in a MAAC game ever.
Dunne hasn’t had a team allow that few points since holding Fairfield to 33 in the MAAC Tournament back in 2015 when he was with Saint Peter’s. It’s the fewest that he’s allowed in a regular-season game since the 2009-10 season against Monmouth. It’s also the largest margin of victory of Dunne’s career as a head coach.
That doesn’t register with the coach though.
“Honestly, it doesn’t feel any different (than other big wins),” Dunne said. “A win is a win. It was a solid performance, but whether it’s 40 or 30 or 20, man, we just want to put together a solid performance and get a W.”
After his press conference ended, he was informed that the New York Giants had won, and you wouldn’t have known that he just had the largest win of his coaching career based on his displeasure hearing the football news. It’s ironically, the second straight year that I’ve seen Dunne get angry about the Giants blowing up their draft order after a Marist win.
The players enjoyed the game though.
“I had fun,” Lewis said. “I know my team had fun.”
Marist forced its most turnovers since forcing 26 against Manhattan in December of 2020.
Other MAAC Games
Merrimack 73, Manhattan 66
Merrimack is 5-0 for the second straight year. The last team to start 5-0 in back-to-back seasons is Siena in 2008-09 and 2009-10. That’s a pretty wild accomplishment for a program in its first two seasons in the conference. To me, Kevair Kennedy is running away with MAAC Rookie of the Year. For as good as the Fairfield duo has been, Kennedy is leading the only 5-0 team in the league in scoring, assists and steals, while shooting 48% from the field.
Quinnipiac 80, Mount St. Mary’s 69
Assuming Jaden Zimmerman comes back in short order and looks like himself, his injury could turn into a blessing in disguise for the Bobcats with how much is has allowed some of the auxiliary pieces to develop. Grant Randall is averaging 15.3 points and 7.3 rebounds over the six games that Zimmerman has missed, and Keith McKnight is at 13.2 and 6.0. Asim Jones is putting up 15.8 points at 3.7 assists in that span.
Canisius 82, Sacred Heart 78
I’ll have more on the Griffs later in the week, but I’ve been impressed with how they’ve played at home this year, now 6-1. Sacred Heart going 0-fer on the Buffalo trip puts them in a precarious spot with the next three games being against Marist, Quinnipiac and Siena. It needs Anquan Hill back badly.
Siena 74, Rider 65
Rider’s three best offensive games of the season by PPP have been the last three… but they’re still all losses. Siena grabbed more than half of its misses thanks to Antonio Chandler and Francis Folefac bullying the Rider frontcourt. Gavin Doty followed up his 31-point performance on Friday with 19 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
Fairfield 83, Niagara 75
An extremely important win for the Stags, getting on the board and splitting the Buffalo trip to avoid what would’ve been the program’s first 0-5 MAAC start since 2013-14. I think the Stags are a team that can get better over the course of the year as the freshmen settle into the rhythm of MAAC play, but 0-5 would’ve been really tough to come back from. The positive takeaway for Niagara is that the game was by far the best offensive performance of the season – 1.24 PPP
