MAAC Basketball: 2022 conference tournament preview and predictions
By Jon Surratt
MAAC Basketball has always been a very competitive conference between all the mid-major programs. Even this year the five through 11 seeds all were one or two games between each other, but the usual suspect remained at the top of the conference.
The MAAC tournament remains at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey for the third year in a row. The conference will at least stay there next year as well, after settling an extension with Boardwalk Hall into next year.
The first round of the tournament will be played on Tuesday, March 8 from 5-9 P.M. ET. The quarterfinals will be played on Wednesday and Thursday, March 9-10 with the semifinals being played on Friday, March 11, and the championship game on Saturday, March 12 at 4 P.M. All games will be broadcasted on ESPN+ with the championship on ESPNU.
The defending conference champion Iona Gaels coached by Rick Pitino won the regular-season championship with a three-game cushion over the Saint Peter’s Peacocks. The Gaels were led by last year’s MAAC Rookie of the Year Nelly Junior Joseph and guard Tyson Jolly. Iona was picked first in the preseason unanimously with all 11 votes.
One of the biggest surprises this season was the Siena Saints. The team that everyone thought would go on to win the conference in 2020 before COVID shut the tourney down lost key players in Jalen Pickett and Manny Camper, last year’s MAAC Player of the Year, to Penn State and the G-League, respectively. However, the team was able to get a team-wide contribution to being the No. 3 seed.
Monmouth, who is leaving to join the CAA after the season, has always been a force under head coach King Rice but has never won the conference championship even with great teams in the past. The Hawks finished as the four seed this season, but had some impressive showings this year, can they pull it off this time around?
Some of the bigger disappointments would be the Quinnipiac Bobcats, who finished as the worst team but had a horrible tumble down the standings losing 10 out of their last 12 games.
The past five championships, although the team did lose in the tournament before the shutdown, have been claimed by the Gaels and the team was in the championship game in 2014 and 2015 and won in 2013. Can the Gaels make it six in a row or can a team pull off an upset?