MAAC Basketball: 2020 conference tournament preview and predictions

By Pan Karalis | Mar 9, 2020

BRIDGEPORT, CT - MARCH 07: (L-R) Ryan Bacon #4, Jeron Belin #5, Wesley Jenkins #15 and Nick Leon #22 of the St. Peter's Peacocks celebrate with the conference championship trophy after they won 62-57 against the Iona Gaels during the final of the MAAC men's conference basketball tournment at Webster Bank Arena at Harbor Yard on March 7, 2011 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. (Photo by Chris Chambers/Getty Images) /

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BRIDGEPORT, CT – MARCH 07: Jeron Belin #5 of the St. Peter’s Peacocks celebrates by cutting down a piece of the net after St. Peter’s Peacocks won 62-57 against the Iona Gaels during the final of the MAAC men’s conference basketball tournment (Photo by Chris Chambers/Getty Images) /

With the MAAC basketball tournament tipping off on Tuesday, here’s our breakdown and predictions for this week’s event in Atlantic City

MAAC basketball is consistently one of the most interesting mid-major contests in the men’s game. The regular seasons are never predictable, standings never stable, and despite the complete chaos that’s come to define MAAC hoops, Iona has the longest-running conference tournament winning streak in the country. This week they’ll be vying for an unprecedented fifth-straight MAAC basketball championship.

But the landscape of the conference changed in a big way this year; new coaches, like Carmen Maciariello and Greg Paulus greatly exceeded expectations in their first year on their respective campuses. Maciariello managed to lead Siena to its first regular-season title in ten years. Iona finished with its lowest league standing since 2009, and for the first time since their run began will have to compete in the MAAC tournament without a first-round bye.

Some familiar faces returned to dominate MAAC hoops, like Jalen Pickett, Ray Salnave and Tajuan Agee, while others, like Dimencio Vaughn, Deion Hammond and Rich Kelly emerged as major contributors and go-to scorers. Newcomers like Elijah Burns and Isaiah Washington joined the league and became immediate contributors. A core of mostly freshmen came within a game of winning the regular-season title for St. Peter’s.

But the hard truth for mid-major conferences like the MAAC is that nothing really matters before the conference tournament. No team in the conference has even an outside shot at earning an at-large bid to the tournament, and even the worst-performing teams over the regular season can win the league’s ultimate prize.