HAMDEN, Conn. — Joe Gallo lives for games like this. The MAAC lives for games like this. Twenty minutes into a matchup at the top of the conference standings, Merrimack and Quinnipiac were knotted at 21. It’s par for the course for a program that has made a living off of winning games by scores like 53-49, 58-46, 49-47, and yes, 48-37, but not for a group of players that has by far the best offense of any Merrimack team in Division I.
In the bowels of M&T Bank Arena, while walking from the bench to the locker room, Gallo and Warriors’ assistant Chris Mohr exchanged words.
“Hey, let’s go,” said Mohr, who was on staff with Bill Herrion before coming to Merrimack. “Our type of game.”
“In my head, I was like our type of game, but maybe not the players’ type of game,” Gallo said.
Merrimack was 350th in points per game last year, winning games by doing just enough offensively and going 14-6 in its first season in the MAAC. It took an old-school Merrimack win for a team averaging over 72 points per game in conference play to match that number. Now at 14-2 and in the driver’s seat for a MAAC Championship with four games until Atlantic City, the Warriors got there by taking down the Bobcats 56-49 on the road.
While Lawler Arena has turned into one of the more impressive home-court advantages in the MAAC, with Merrimack students serenading the 10th year coach with chants of his name, the Warriors are also road warriors. Merrimack has road wins over Marist, Siena, Mount St. Mary’s and now Quinnipiac.
Late in the second half, with possessions at a premium, the Bobcats didn’t value their trips the way they needed to. Tom Pecora drew up an alley-oop to Keith McKnight above the zone, but it wasn’t there. Tai Turnage threw the ball off the backboard with 22 on the shot clock and turned it over.
Turnage played a strong game, coming off the bench for Asim Jones, who dealt with early foul trouble, but as a freshman, he still needs seasoning in moments like this. Perhaps it’s something that is good to get out of his system before Atlantic City hits.
But it wasn’t just Turnage. Jaden Zimmerman threw a lob on the very next trip that wasn’t there with 19 on the shot clock, resulting in a turnover.
Two possessions later, Turnage, not a great 3-point shooter, took a 28-foot three with 23 on the shot clock. Three wasted possessions in three minutes in a game where you may only get three possessions in three minutes.
“You’ve gotta be disciplined enough not to throw it,” Pecora said of the lobs. “And I was surprised by Tai’s shot. Tai’s a good little player, but we need Asim Jones on the floor, and he was unplayable tonight.”
Gallo’s team was more picky, and intentionally kept the game slow.
“We stayed out of our three-quarter court pressure because we didn’t want them to attack us out of that,” Gallo said. “We’re comfortable in it. We preach, if you’re a high-possession team, you might be okay throwing one or two of those away. We’re used to defending for long stretches of time, I think teams with the firepower that some of these teams have, they’re not used to playing 30 seconds of offense.”
And they’re not used to playing 30 seconds of defense either.
Kevair Kennedy, Gallo’s star point guard, couldn’t get his first or second move to go by Quinnipiac’s defenders for most of the night, but he shined late in the shot clock. Quinnipiac threw all kinds of bodies at him, primarily Amarri Monroe, but also switching McKnight and Zimmerman to give him length. He was patient and found the creases eventually, scoring a game-high 24 points and attempting 14 free throws.
Even if he didn’t touch the paint until there was four or five seconds left on the shot clock, he’d still get there eventually, and it was a strong possession.
“Someone told me there’s never been a rookie win player of the year in the MAAC,” Pecora said. “(Kennedy’s) got my vote.”
With a two-game lead in the MAAC, Gallo knows that any slip up can cede ground, and more importantly, momentum heading into the MAAC Tournament, which is just over two weeks away.
Home wins over Siena and Iona next week can lock up at least a share of the MAAC regular-season title, and if that combines with a Saint Peter’s loss, then Merrimack clinches it outright.
Gallo compared it to jumping out to big leads and taking the foot off of the gas and letting the game get close late, which is something the Warriors have done. But they can’t do it in the standings.
“It’s the same thing with being in a championship hunt,” Gallo said. “Is it great that a couple teams lost that we needed to lose? Yes. But then that can’t make us complacent just because they dropped a game or two. You’ve gotta keep chasing the greatness and the chips will fall where they do.”
Despite trailing by 19 with under 10 minutes to play, Marist gave itself a chance to tie the game in the final minute, but couldn’t connect on the three. Alarm bells are now blaring in Poughkeepsie, as the Red Foxes haven’t won since Elijah Lewis’ injury, now three losses in a row. Yes, it was a difficult schedule, but Marist was 157th at KenPom on the morning of Feb. 7, and is now 194.
Regardless, I think Siena is a bad matchup for the Foxes on the surface, because the drop coverage allows and invites the Saints to score in the mid-range with Justice Shoats and Gavin Doty, and if the drop defender steps up, they can both make the quick pass, and so can Francis Folefac as the screener, to hit a cutting Antonio Chandler. Chandler had a season-high 19 points, while Shoats and Doty combined for 32 without making a single three.
It was a much-needed bounce-back for Siena, which had lose two in a row to good teams prior. A huge weekend awaits for the Saints, facing Merrimack and Saint Peter’s.
Saint Peter’s 83, Fairfield 74
The score here is closer than the game was. Saint Peter’s zone flustered Fairfield into tons of early turnovers as they struggled to get the ball to the high post bigs. Eventually, the Stags began to wear down that middle of the zone, and they scored 34 points in the final 10 minutes, but it was too little, too late. Saint Peter’s made nine threes and shot 28-of-33 from the foul line.
The win puts Saint Peter’s at 9–0 at home in MAAC play, but at just 3-4 on the road, with three of the final four games being away from Jersey City, there’s a lot to keep an eye on. Fairfield has mostly taken care of business against the bottom of its MAAC schedule to get to 8-8, but it’s just 1-6 against the teams higher than it in the standings at the moment. The one win coming against Marist at home after the Red Foxes lost Lewis during that contest.
Manhattan 69, Canisius 65
This was a doozy of a game to eliminate Canisius from the MAAC Tournament picture (even if it ties for 10th at 7-13 with Iona and Niagara, the Griffs were swept by both teams). Manhattan led by as many as 17 in this game, and then trailed by as much as six in the second half, but came through to grab the win. These days, that’s all that matters. A wild roller coaster ride of a season continues for Manhattan, which has now won three in a row heading into the final three games of the season.
Two years into Jim Christian’s tenure as Canisius’ head coach, the Griffs have missed the MAAC Tournament both times, are 0-4 against archrival Niagara, and have had losing streaks of 14, eight, and now 11. The highest-ranked KenPom team that Canisius has defeated over the last two seasons? 253rd-ranked Siena last year. The Griffs looked to be much improved this year, sitting at 3-2 in the MAAC after winning at Manhattan on January 9, but they haven’t won since. Canisius is 6-30 in the MAAC under Christian. That’s not to say Christian can’t turn the ship around. John Dunne was 6-30 in his first 36 MAAC games at Saint Peter’s, but then led the Peacocks to the NCAA Tournament in year five.
Perhaps Reggie Witherspoon would’ve suffered the same fate in the continuation of the NIL era had he been retained after the 2023-24 season, but he never won fewer than seven MAAC games.
I’m curious to see if Canisius can play a little bit of spoiler for anybody’s seeding in the next few weeks, and I’m especially curious to see how Christian navigates this offseason and what he builds around in year three.
Justin Hawkins’ game-winning goaltended layup robbed us of having the 10 teams locked into Atlantic City two weeks in advance, but the Purple Eagles are still alive. Iona has now lost four of its last five games, including two at home. Brian Griffith was in-and-out of the Purple Eagle rotation for most of conference play, but he’s scored in double figures in each of the last two games, a huge boon off the bench for a team that has needed some scoring in any form. Niagara has just a 0.7% chance of making the MAAC Tournament, even after this win, per CBB Analytics. And they’ll have to win at least one, probably two, games on the road, which will be tough as the Purple Eagles haven’t won a game outside of Western New York since beating Binghamton on Nov. 8. And even the last two home games are tough, with Quinnipiac and Merrimack coming to town.
Sacred Heart 86, Rider 75
How about that weekend for Sacred Heart? No Mekhi Conner in either game, but the Pioneers still bounced back from a few of the worst offensive performances of league play with back-to-back home wins scoring 1.2 points per possession. The Pios have all but locked up a spot in Atlantic City with this one, as Rider has officially been eliminated from contention.
The Broncs failed to build any sort of momentum from the miraculous win over Saint Peter’s a few weeks back and have lost four in a row by double digits. This one probably could’ve been even more than just 11. Last year, Rider finished the season on a three-game winning streak to secure the eight seed in Atlantic City. Two years ago, the Broncs earned the four seed with a miraculous seven-game winning streak to end the season. This year, the hole that Kevin Baggett’s team dug was just way too deep, and they kept digging.