Manhattan hoopsters turn heads as tourney begins

When the coaches of the 10 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference teams conducted their annual poll of which spot teams would finish this season, the Manhattan College Jaspers were picked eighth. 

Man, were they wrong about Manhattan. 

The Jaspers finished the regular season 20-11 overall, 12-6 in the MAAC, compared to a 6-25 finish last year. The turnaround is the biggest in the NCAA Division I this season and marks only the 11th time in the school’s 106-year basketball program that they have won 20 games.

With the MAAC tournament running from Thursday, March 1 to Monday, March 5, the Jaspers are being viewed through an entirely different lens. They enter the tournament, at the MassMutual Center, in Springfield, Mass., ranked third. A narrow 62-60 loss to Loyola in the Bronx on Feb. 26 ruled out a second-place ranking.  

There is a lot of credit to go around for Manhattan’s stunning reversal of fortunes this season. No small portion of it goes to four Bronx boys, each with different life stories but similar amounts of grit.

Michael Alvarado is a guard whose family lives in Kingsbridge. He was named to the All-MAAC Rookie Team, ranked first on the team with 82 assists and was second in scoring. 

Emmy Andujar, a freshman forward, played for four years at Rice High School. He was second on the team this season with 5.3 rebounds per game and averaged 3 assists and 8.3 points per game.

Kidani Brutus, a senior guard who attended Wings Academy, led the Jaspers this season with a 40 percent shooting mark from beyond the three-point arc. He also had 13 double digit games, including a career-high 25-pointer.

The three players agree, however, that the person — with strong attachments to the Bronx — most responsible for changing the culture of the Jaspers is first-year head coach Steve Masiello.

A 2000 graduate of the University of Kentucky, Masiello played for the Wildcats for four years under coaches Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith. As a player, he went to the Final Four twice and was on the championship team in 1998.