Jaspers’ Masiello plots triumphant season

For Manhattan head basketball coach Steve Masiello, these days truly are the best of times — and the worst of times.

March has always been the month where Masiello has done his best work. In his five seasons at Manhattan, he has led the Jaspers to three postseasons, three Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference [MAAC] tournament championship games — winning two — and one Collegeinsider Tournament.

And while this March has not gone as well as in past seasons, when the Jaspers bowed out of the MAAC Tournament in the quarterfinal round, there has been a chunk of good news coming out of Manhattan as the school recently extended Masiello’s contract for four more seasons, making sure he will be around to start working on some more magical Marches to come.

Now if he could just get through this one.

“It really is tough watching the tournament when we’re not involved in it,” Masiello said. “But that’s one of the reasons I’m going around to all these games. I stayed for the MAAC semis, I went to the Atlantic 10 tournament and then I went to Brooklyn for the NCAA Tournament. I want to feel this. I want to feel the pain. I want to see other teams playing in it. I want to miss it. I want it to hurt. 

“That’s the greatest motivation there is,” he continued. “I want to see what I’m missing out on. I want to taste it. I want to smell the pretzels in the stands. I want to see the alumni tailgating and cheering, see the coaches, see the players. I want to see all of it because when you experience success you kind of have to keep yourself in the jungle so to speak.  You have to keep yourself hungry. You have to keep yourself driven. I want to know what I’m missing. I don’t want to shut the TV off and not know. I’ve done that in the past after we’ve lost in the NCAA Tournament. But not going to a tournament this year? No, I want to feel that.”

Anyway, the new contract has softened the blow of not being in the tournament a little bit for Masiello. It was a nice diversion from a season cut shorter than he wanted. And he’s happy that Riverdale will still be his basketball home for at least the next four seasons.

“Am I happy? Oh yeah, very happy to be at Manhattan,” Masiello said. “Being a part of that community is great and it says a lot about the administration’s commitment. We’ve done a lot of good things on and off the court and we want to continue to take those things to the next level and continue to build our brand.”

Masiello wasted little time in beginning to prepare for next season. On the very day Iona College was taking on Monmouth University for the MAAC title, Masiello was already back at Draddy Gym putting his returning players through their paces.

“The Monday of the [MAAC] championship game we were doing individuals [workouts] and I told our guys, ‘Listen, we should be playing tonight. So you’re working toward next year and we will be playing next year at this time and it’s going to start today, ’” Masiello said. “That’s what I want our goals to be. That’s what we did in my second year after we came up short in the MAAC championship game and we’re going to get right back to that blueprint.”

Reloading begins

And while Masiello will no longer have the services of Shane Richards — Manhattan’s all-time three-point shooter with over 300 threes — and RaShawn Stores, his coach on the court, he has already begun the process of reloading the Jaspers for next season. Reloading, not rebuilding.

“I’m very optimistic about the guys we have coming in next year,” Masiello said. “I’m very optimistic because we’re also returning three of our top for players from this year [in Rich Williams, Calvin Crawford and Zane Waterman]. I’m very optimistic about who we had sitting out this year, not only Zavier [Turner, a transfer from Ball State University who was the Mid-American Conference Rookie of the year after his freshman season] but guys like Sammy Usilo [a 6-4 sophomore guard] and Ak Ojo [a 6-10 freshman center]. Both players missed this season due to injuries.

“My second year we had injuries, and that really hurt us,” Masiello said. “Now in my fifth year we had injuries and it hurt us again. So I think there is a bright optimism in the program but that being said maybe with the exception of Rich [Williams] and Tyler [Wilson], in my eyes no one had accomplished anything on this team. I think if you asked the team that they would say the same thing.”

New faces

Two of the new faces Masiello is high on for next season are guards Nehemiah “Bud” Mack and Aaron Walker. Mack spent this past season at Baltimore’s Mount Zion Prep School after a three-year career at Susquehanna Township H.S. in Pennsylvania where he scored almost 1,200 points while Walker is considered arguably the best player in the Public School Athletic League [PSAL] this season while starring at Cardozo High School in Queens for legendary coach Ron Naclerio.

The 6-2, 205-pound Walker has earned a reputation as a staunch defender and deft shooter who averaged 19 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists as Cardozo earned the top seed in this season’s PSAL playoffs. One area coach was so impressed by Walker that he said he could play at a higher level than the MAAC.

So with a solid core of players returning from this season’s team, along with a recruiting class brimming with talent and the return of some key players from injury, there is reason to believe the Jaspers will not be innocent bystanders next March when 2017 tournament season arrives.

“Some things I’ve always admired about programs are their ability to have a lot [of talent] walk out the door and they stay at a high level and that’s something we want to do,” Masiello said. “We’ve now lost six 1,000-point scorers in three years and that’s a lot no matter what level you’re at. That’s a lot to walk out of a program so we want to make sure we’re staying relevant with what we have. So there is a lot to be excited about but also a lot to be concerned about, too. There is a lot of motivation for us now. This is the first time we haven’t played in the championship game in three years and it’s the first time we haven’t been in the postseason after being in the last two years. I think about how we could be in the tournament and we’re not far from that. We’ve been there, we’ve tasted it and now you want to get back there and have some success.”