By Paul Gotham
ST. BONAVENTURE, NY — The rebound kicked off the rim and landed comfortably in the hands of Tavon Sledge standing just outside the free throw lane. With the slightest movement the 5-9 guard pivoted, looked ahead, made one dribble and sent a diagonal pass on a line.
On the opposite side of the floor Lamont “Momo” Jones was off and running. He caught the pass in stride and in one motion stepped into his shot from behind the three-point arc. The ball passed through the twine with 31 reading on the shot clock.
Rarely is the shot clock a necessity when Iona has the ball. Such is life with the Gaels who can shift from defense to offense quicker than you can say “back in the New York Groove” – the Ace Frehley tune played over the loud speakers in the Hynes Athletics Center after an IC victory.
One play and one basket made, but a handful of decisions happened without hesitation. There was no doubt who Sledge wanted to find with his pass. The sophomore did not try to take it the length of the floor by himself. Jones took off as soon as he recognized the ball going in his teammate’s direction. Finally, Jones did not at all second-guess his choice to shoot.
Armed with mantras only shooters utter, the Iona Gaels might be finding their rhythm at the right time as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference resumes league play later this week.
Jones scored 23 as the Gaels defeated St. Bonaventure, 93-74. He hit seven-of-11 from the floor including three-of-five behind the arc and six-of-six from the free throw line.
“Lately we’ve been working a lot on shooting,” Jones commented after the win. “Coach has been putting a lot of emphasis on getting our shot back. Everybody is taking heed to it.”
The senior guards ranks sixth in the land with 22.1 points per game, but don’t be mistaken. This is not a one-man team. The Gaels score 76.9 per contest, good for 26th in the land. Eight different Gaels have reached double figures in a contest already this season, and this was on display Monday afternoon at the Reilly Center.
Sean Armand connected five times behind the arc in the second half as the Gaels more than doubled their nine point halftime lead. As St. Bonaventure’s defense extended to take away Jones from long range, he used the dribble to get in the lane, drew the defense and dished to Armand for open looks from the perimeter.
“My teammates know I get going quick,” Armand commented. “It’s just the rhythm of the game. Open shots make open shots.”
And open shots they made. The Gaels hit 18-of-28 (64.3 percent) shots in the second, 10-of-16 (62.5 percent) from long range. Armand finished with 27 hitting seven-of-14 treys. His performance was reminiscent of last January when he dialed in 10 trifecta against Siena at Madison Square Garden.
“Shooters shoot,” said Iona head coach Tim Cluess when commenting about Armand’s and his team’s success. “We can get going. Sometimes you just get comfortable. You hit a shot or two, and the rim looks bigger to you. Whether it was a layup that led to your next jump shot, or you made one and you felt good.”
When the Bonnies tried to deny Armand the ball, A.J. English stepped in and drilled three from long range. The freshman scored all 11 of his points in the second half. From there, David Laury and Taaj Ridley took advantage of the open space in the paint. Ridley scored six of his 13 after the break. Laury, with a deft touch around the rim, tallied nine points in the second stanza.
“David is a different character of player. He helps us two out in particular,” Jones said referring to himself and Armand. “Some of the pressure we had in the beginning of the year is off us. A lot of it is all three of us, but you can’t focus on that.”
That the Gaels are coming together at all is worthy of note. They lost the nation’s leading assist man in Scott Machado, who is playing in the N.B.A. with the Houston Rockets, after last season. Gone also is last year’s leading scorer Michael Glover from a team that led the nation with 83 points per game and earned an at -large bid in the NCAA tournament a year ago.
Cluess and his staff responded by signing nine new players to the roster. The result has been six early-season losses.
“We were in every single game,” Cluess explained. “Most teams in our position would be losing by 20 or 30. We had chances and honestly the games we’ve lost is when we haven’t shot the ball well.”
Laury, in particular, makes the Iona attack more complex. The 6-8 forward sat out last spring and this fall per NCAA transfer requirements. Monday’s game was just his fourth in the Iona lineup.
“Without Dave, we were outside only,” Cluess continued. “It was easy to focus on these guys and take their shots away. Now that we added an inside player, which we didn’t have for the first nine or ten games, now it’s different.”
“He came to life a little in the second half,” Cluess said of Laury’s performance against SBU. “Which then creates decision-making on the other team’s part; who did they play on the pick-and-roll? Who do they play when Dave’s handling the ball?
Laury scored on three of five attempts in the second while connecting on three-of-four free throws.
“Dave had one practice with us before his first game,” Cluess added. “He’s only had four practices with us, so he doesn’t know offensively or defensively a lot of the things we’re doing. We’re learning on the fly which leads to mistakes. Guys are trying to cover, and it doesn’t look like we know what we’re doing out there. That’s guys trying to cover up for Dave who’s not there on the same page yet, but we know he’s going to make us better. We have to live through those mistakes. I can live with our record because I know we’re going to get better and better. That’s what it’s all about.”
Despite the frantic speed of play, the Gaels remain efficient. Their 111.29 Offensive Rating (an estimate of points scored per 100 possessions) leads the MAAC and is 28th in the nation.
SRS | Adjusted | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Rk | School | OSRS | DSRS | SRS | ORtg | DRtg | NRtg |
1 | Iona | 17.46 | -11.32 | 6.14 | 111.29 | 102.31 | 8.98 |
2 | Canisius | 10.19 | -4.91 | 5.28 | 111.27 | 103.56 | 7.71 |
3 | Loyola (MD) | -3.91 | 4.44 | 0.53 | 95.63 | 94.16 | 1.48 |
4 | Fairfield | -6.67 | 6.58 | -0.10 | 95.38 | 95.48 | -0.10 |
5 | Niagara | 6.29 | -8.62 | -2.33 | 101.60 | 104.73 | -3.12 |
6 | Rider | -3.07 | -1.04 | -4.10 | 90.78 | 96.88 | -6.11 |
7 | Saint Peter’s | -9.81 | 5.67 | -4.15 | 89.79 | 95.79 | -6.00 |
8 | Marist | -3.60 | -4.66 | -8.25 | 89.51 | 100.76 | -11.25 |
9 | Manhattan | -10.87 | 1.53 | -9.34 | 85.56 | 99.09 | -13.54 |
10 | Siena | -10.67 | -1.24 | -11.91 | 87.93 | 105.66 | -17.73 |
With the win Iona improves to 7-6. They are 1-1 in MAAC play. The Gaels play at Siena Friday night before returning home to play Manhattan on Sunday – in other words, the next chance to hear Ace Frehley through the loud speakers.
Offensive Rating statistics courtesy of Sport-Reference.com.
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