‘What’s the next adjustment?’ Saint Peter’s won’t get down amid four-game slide
The MAAC’s two New Jersey teams, Saint Peter’s and Rider, have stumbled into losing streaks at a bad time. After visiting both on Saturday, I examine what’s ailing them. We’ll cover Rider in Tuesday’s edition for paid subscribers.
JERSEY CITY – For much of the first half of Saturday’s game against Fairfield, it appeared Saint Peter’s had tapped into something it isn’t usually known for: explosive offense.
A 13-0 run midway through the half pushed the Peacocks in front before Marcus Randolph, Brent Bland and Elijah Wood started raining 3-pointers down on the Stags for a 32-21 lead, Saint Peter’s largest of the day.
But this was the kind of explosion that peters out right away. The Peacocks didn’t make a field goal for the final five minutes of the half till Wood’s putback dunk that beat the buzzer. They started off the second half better, but from the 14:20 mark till 7:28 they were held scoreless, and the lead dissipated.
Saint Peter’s ultimately fell behind by nine Saturday before a late rally gave it a chance to tie on the final possession. Michael Houge’s shot didn’t fall, and Fairfield escaped 64-62, handing the Peacocks their fourth straight loss after a 7-2 start in the MAAC.
“Fairfield is scoring close to 80 points a night,” Saint Peter’s coach Bashir Mason said. “To hold them in the 60s, that was our game plan to do that. We gave ourselves a chance to win, gave ourselves a chance to put it into overtime and just came up a little bit short.
“Disappointed, but we’ll climb our way out of this. I’m sure of that.”
It was a challenging week for Saint Peter’s – it traveled to play first-place Quinnipiac on Thursday before hosting the second-place Stags. Corey Washington, Saint Peter’s top scorer and generally its best overall player, went through warmups Saturday but missed his fifth straight game since an apparent shoulder injury against Rider, making things even tougher. Now the Peacocks have fallen out of the top five of the MAAC.
While Mason was not satisfied with his team allowing Fairfield to shoot 50 percent, the Peacocks still showed up defensively, forcing 16 turnovers along the way. Defense has rarely been in question with this team. In four of Saint Peter’s last five losses, it held the opponent between 62 and 68 points. It’s just struggled to clear the 60-point threshold on the other end of the floor.
Six 3-pointers in the first 15 minutes – made by five different players – was an unusually torrid pace for a Peacocks team that has yet to make 10 in a game this season. Sure enough, they finished the day with eight. But their 26 total attempts marked a season high against a Division I opponent.
“I think one of the formulas for us – and we have to get better with, we’ve started working on it – teams are switching a lot of our actions, kind of turning us into individual basketball players,” Mason said. “We’ve got to work more on drive, kick, catch-to-shoot stuff that we’ve started implementing. Our guys know this, these are things that we’re breaking down and we’re talking about and this is the next step for us going towards March. What’s the next adjustment to make to get better?”
While senior Latrell Reid (11.8 ppg) was held to two points, two of his teammates stood out. Roy Clarke took command of the offense and tied a career high with 21 points on 8-of-14 shooting, adding four assists. Randolph set a career best of his own with 19 points thanks to 4-of-9 3-point shooting.
Randolph, in his first season in Jersey City after transferring from Richmond, buried a few 3-pointers early in the second half before the Peacocks cooled off, one from an incredible position mid-fall, halfway to the floor.
“I’m really happy for Marcus, man,” Mason said. “He’s been playing free, energetic. He’s got alpha and a good spirit about him. We’ve had to change it from, when things are going well for him, he’s that, to just being that daily. Y’all are seeing how I am. He went from starting early on to barely playing. I go based off of practice daily. He’s starting to give it to us and he’s being rewarded.”
And Randolph did more than just shoot Saturday. In the final two minutes, his offensive rebound and slick baseline move allowed him to feed Clarke for a layup that trimmed the deficit to 61-58. A minute later, he used one hand to steal a skip pass on the sideline near halfcourt, a tough tightrope play that led to a free throw for his teammate.
Mason indicated that Randolph has been doing better harnessing his energy into making key plays.
“More attention to detail,” the coach said. “I don’t know if he can guard this chair, but his attention to detail and focus on what we’re actually doing is a lot more there. He gets really energetic and wound up, and I tell him a lot, ‘I love it, but you’re playing a game that I’m not coaching right now.’”
Between Saint Peter’s and Rider, it’s pretty evident the Peacocks have the better team and the likelier chance to put a stop to the bleeding with seven games remaining in the regular season. The upcoming schedule is a mix of games against the worst teams in the league (Siena, Manhattan) and head-to-heads that can swing Saint Peter’s back into the MAAC’s top five (Iona, Mount St. Mary’s, Marist). And, as ever, the league is full of parity, with games usually decided by single digits.
“We got incredible fight and resilience and toughness. That’s one of our saving graces – teams can’t get away from us,” Mason said.
“… This is life and my ultimate job is to prepare these guys for that, the real world. We can’t get sad because we lost a basketball game. We can’t get sad when we lose a job. We have to figure out, ‘What’s the next thing to win a basketball game? What’s the next job I can get to take care of myself and my family?’ We’re not sad and we’re not down. My guys got their fighting spirit and they’re also playing for a guy who’s got a tremendous amount of fight, so we’ll be OK.”
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Happy Sunday! I’m aware there’s a game tonight – you might call it a big game – so I appreciate anyone who wanted to read about mid-major college basketball this morning.
Not only did I pull off a MAAC doubleheader on Saturday, I finally finished an important personal checklist. While I’ve covered Saint Peter’s in person before, this was my first time at Run Baby Run Arena, meaning I’ve now visited all eight Division I gyms in New Jersey over the past three seasons. (Nine if you want to count the Prudential Center and Walsh Gymnasium separately for Seton Hall.)
It will take me some more time to sort out what’s happening at Rider, but I did cover the Broncs’ loss to Marist for the Trentonian on Saturday night. You can read that here to tide you over if you’re so inclined.
For now, let’s clean the glass, and we obviously have to start with a big Big Ten upset:
Not only did Rutgers beat No. 11 Wisconsin, the Scarlet Knights set a program record for the largest margin of victory over a ranked opponent in a 78-56 rout. Bettors paying close attention to recent trends may have predicted a Rutgers victory – the Scarlet Knights were playing at least somewhat better with Jeremiah Williams in the fold, while Wisconsin had lost three straight, including to last-place Michigan. But nobody expected a 22-point destruction. This was the best basketball Rutgers has played all year. It was certainly the best Noah Fernandes (6-for-6 overall, 5-for-5 from three, 17 points) has played in a Rutgers uniform.
Steve Pikiell thanked fans for the atmosphere at the RAC. He always does this, but it’s never been more apropos. Wisconsin was clearly out of sorts in the first half, losing 11 turnovers before halftime. The last time I was there – the 61-46 stinker against Penn State – it didn’t feel like the building we New Jerseyans are used to. The fans always show up, but screams and cheers eventually turn into groans when you miss half your free throws and most of your threes. Fans’ patience is being rewarded now with some winning basketball.
To do my MAAC doubleheader, I had to sacrifice not only the Rutgers game but also Princeton’s sellout game against rival Penn. The Tigers won 77-70 over a rejuvenated Penn team that got back leading scorer Clark Slajchert, who missed all of January with an injury. Zach Martini (five) and Blake Peters (four) led a 3-point barrage – 16 in all for Princeton, which is now 5-2 in Ivy play.
Yale beat Cornell 80-78 in a duel of previously unbeatens; no team from the bottom five of the Ivy League has beaten any of the top three. Yale is in control now with wins over Princeton and Cornell, but both came in New Haven. It’s going to be an extremely thrilling three-horse race down the stretch.
NJIT, it’s your time to shine! The Highlanders started conference play 1-7 before upsets of the America East’s top two teams, Vermont and UMass Lowell, in a three-day span at home. NJIT freshman Tariq Francis is a rising star: 31 points and eight rebounds against Vermont, 26 and seven against Lowell. He has to be a shoo-in for conference player of the week honors. It hasn’t been all rosy news for the program this week, as Kjell de Graaf was ruled out for the season with a torn ACL. For more, I recommend Jaden Daly’s story from the Vermont upset.
Not much for me to add about Monmouth after pointing out the Hawks’ out-of-control home/road splits last week. More of the same this week: a narrow home win over William & Mary, a 12-point loss to Northeastern in Boston. It’s unclear why this team struggles to win away from the Jersey Shore. Not every road performance has been dreadful (see Drexel, Delaware), but Monmouth shot just 2-for-14 from the arc and was outrebounded by 12 Saturday.
FDU couldn’t buy a basket for the first 22 minutes or so Saturday at Central Connecticut. The Knights trailed 36-15 at halftime and 42-17 shortly thereafter before a late charge somehow got them within four points. It wasn’t enough in a 71-62 loss. FDU shot 4-of-26 from the floor in the first half, hardly what we’re used to seeing from an offense that’s normally high-octane. The Knights have lost two straight to slip to 5-5 in the NEC.