Siena takes first MAAC basketball title in ten years; St. Peter’s finishes a game behind despite a dramatic win to close the season
The 2020 MAAC basketball regular season wrapped up on Friday with plenty to be sorted heading into the league’s final day; the MAAC title was on the line when action tipped Friday and seeding for the upcoming tournament in Atlantic City was still to be determined as the last night of games got underway.
Siena wins the title
Siena claimed their first MAAC championship in ten years on the final day of the regular season Friday, beating Monmouth 86-72. Donald Carey had 18 and team-leading scorer Jalen Pickett added 15 for the Saints, who took the lead for good just over two minutes into the game. Siena finished with a 15-5 mark in the conference, edging St. Peter’s, who held the top spot of the MAAC standings for much of February, by a game. The Saints were picked to finish only sixth under first-year head coach Carmen Marciello, but a run of nine straight wins to close out the year clinched them the league’s regular-season title.
Dramatics in Jersey City don’t shift standing for St. Peter’s
Siena needed every game of their ongoing nine-game winning streak to hold off a St. Peter’s squad that also won their season finale. The league title was still up for grabs heading into action on Friday, with St. Peter’s coming in a game behind Siena while holding the tie-breaker between the two schools. A dramatic ending in Jersey City between SPU and Iona, during which Peacocks freshman Matthew Lee hit a three with less than three seconds remaining in the second half to give Peter’s the lead, served only to send St. Peter’s into the MAAC tournament on a high note; their number two seed was already locked with the earlier finish between Siena and Monmouth.
Iona’s long road to the five-peat
Four-time defending MAAC champion Iona will be in an unfamiliar position in Atlantic City for the 2020 MAAC Tournament. The Gaels, finishing 9-11 in the conference, good for sixth place, accumulated their worst conference record and final standing since the 2009 season. If Tim Cluess’s team wants to win an unprecedented fifth-consecutive MAAC tournament, they’ll have to do it without a first-round bye and win four games in five days at Boardwalk Hall.
Monmouth falls to fourth
A competitive Monmouth squad, which was handed only their second home loss of the season in Friday’s contest against Siena, fell to the fourth seed with the result. King Rice’s team, led by junior guards Deion Hammond and Ray Salnave, finished 12-8 and were in competition for the league’s regular-season crown until a late-February loss to rival Rider took their destiny out of their hands. The Hawks may have an edge in the league’s tournament as the closest campus to Atlantic City, and could be a serious challenger to Siena and St. Peter’s this week.
Home-cooking no good for Siena
Monmouth wasn’t the only MAAC basketball team with an exceptional record on their own floor. Siena was a perfect 14-0 at home, and no team that finished in the top four of the league’s standings lost more than three times in their respective gyms. Rider, who finished 12-8 and earned the three-seed via a tie-breaker with Monmouth finished 11-1 at Alumni Gym, and St. Peter’s was 11-3 at Yanitelli Center.
But for the first time since 2014, Siena won’t play host to the league’s tournament at Times Union Center in Albany. With the event being moved almost 300 miles south to the Jersey Shore, the Saints will need to find a winning formula away from their friendly confines to earn the MAAC’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid.