Iona signings
-
- April
- 16
The Iona College men’s basketball program sent out a press release to announce the signings of three players: Trinity Fields of Cardozo, Scott Machado of St. Benedicts, and Derek Wolfley of Attica Central H.S. They join incoming freshman Kyle Smith of Don Bosco and Keon Williams of Hackensack, and transfers Kashif Pratt (Rice/Seton Hall) and 7-footer Jonathan Huffman (Lousville).
That’s a very solid incoming class for the Gaels and second-year coach Kevin Willard, who made big strides this past season with a predominantly young core of players, and without Alejo Rodriquez. The former Mount St. Michael star, who’ll be a sophomore, sat out the whole season after injuring his back.
Why is this being brought up? There are a few reasons.
My main point is that Iona is going to be a major factor in the MAAC this season (and maybe the favorite the next) and could win 17 or 18 games. It’s also to raise a question I never seem to get an answer to: If some of the best players in the CHSAA and PSAL and Jersey all want to go to Iona, why don’t any from Westchester?
I know, Dexter Gray of Mount Vernon just finished there. But remember that Dexter originally spurned Iona and went to St. John’s, which was a reach for him. Greg Jenkins, another Mount Vernon grad, went there, which was four years ago now. Where are the rest?
Trinity Fields is a stud. He’s a 6-2 point guard who had interest from the Big East (Providence) and ACC (Boston College, Maryland, Clemson, Virginia Tech, South Carolina), Atlantic 10 (St. Joe’s, Rhode Island) and notable mid-majors (George Mason, Hofstra). Yet he chose Iona.
Scott Machado, a 6-2 guard, comes from a powerhouse program at St. Benedicts, which is a top 5 team in the country. He wasn’t quite as high a prospect as Fields, although he had interest from Rutgers, which would love to land a kid in-state. Yet Machado chose Iona.
I cannot remember the last time a local player other than Devon Austin even mentioned Iona in a list of schools they were interested in. He went to Manhattan. One kid a few years ago actually said “I might end up at Iona” when we were discussing bigger schools showing interest but not offering scholarships. He made it seem like a last resort.
Perhaps some kids feel Iona is too close to home and want to get away for college, who knows? But if there’s some sort of bias local players have against Iona, they should get over it really quick because the Gaels are clearly back on the upswing.
A high school coach who I really respect told me this season something interesting about recruiting: a kid from this area, unless he’s a McDonald’s all-American, should look at the list of schools recruiting him and go one conference lower. If he’s getting Big East interest, go to the Atlantic 10. If he’s being looked at by the A-10s, go to the MAAC. If you barely a Division I player, go Division II. He believed too many kids from this area get overhyped or become “program recruits” and go to schools beyond where they’re capable of playing.
I totally agree. Why go to a school where you could eventually play instead of one where you could eventually be a star?
As Iona makes its gradual return to prominence, Westchester basketball should take note.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 10:25 pm by Kevin Devaney Jr..
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One Kid= Geoff McDermott, Lol What you think of the Keno Davis hiring?
sorry but siena is gona own the maac again next year and probably the year after that
Kevin,
Interesting thoughts. I think the situation you explain of the lack of local kids on Iona’s basketball team can be explained in two parts.
One, like many MAAC schools, Iona is able to recruit NYC, both the CHSAA and PSAL, as a “close to home school” for many city kids (not “too close to home” as it can be for some Westchester kids). Iona has recruited dozens of top CHSAA players for decades and seems to have been doing well in the PSAL since the days of Jim Valvano. NYC is probably the top recruiting area in the country for colleges, so with Iona being such an attractive option for NYC kids, the Westchester kids may get less of a look because they’re comparatively less highly recruited than top NYC players. Westchester produces maybe an average of 3-4 DI basketball players a year. NYC probably produces 40. Its understandable that Iona recruits far more kids from NYC.
Secondly, if you look at it over time, I think there definitely has been a decent number of local players at Iona. Before Gray and Jenkins, John McDonald went from MV to Iona (via Loyola). John Estick from Brewster played at Iona in the early 90’s. Two O’Gorman brothers from Stepinac played at Iona in the early 80’s. Two kids I can recall from Iona Prep played at Iona in the 80’s – Foley and Saljanin. Kevin Bass from Hamilton in the 70’s became one of Iona’s all-time leading scorers. Kevin Cooper who was big time high school player out of New Rochelle in the late 80’s played at Iona as well.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/weiss/
The main reason the past 8ish years why no local kids went to Iona is because Ruland is a complete dope as a coach.I hate to be that blunt, but the new man in charge will use his resources in Section 1 and utilize it. Willard will not be here long,Pitino pushed for him at Providence and hes gonna pull a Ford and jump at his first big offer. If Iona has the year they should next year( it will probably be between them and Siena) Willards gone
Couldn’t agree with you more Riley. Ruland alienated not only the entire Mt. vernon program, but others in Westchester as well. Hopefully with this idiot gone, more local players will start to look the Gaels way again.
I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ruland personally either. I don’t remember the story of how he alienated Mt Vernon or more particularly coach Cimmino. If anyone knows, please fill me in. Though didn’t Ruland have a MV guy, Galgano, as an assistant at Iona? I could be wrong about that – not sure.
While I agree it may seem that there is a lack of local players at Iona, I don’t think looking at the numbers, there is that much of a stark difference between who they’ve had and how many one would expect them to have from this area. Another important factor is style of play. Under Ruland, Iona played an uptempo style that was probably more fitted to city kids, with the exception being MV. If you look at the past ten years, there have probably been around 70-80 total D1 players from Westchester at the most. This is all off the top of my head, so if my numbers are way off, please correct me. Maybe 15 of the 80 went to major schools (Coburn-MV, Mitchell-MV, Lowe-MV, Kilpatrick-WP, Kevin Jones-MV, Mookie Jones-PK, Donnie McGrath-Kennedy, Ben Gordo-MV, Melquan Bolding-Stepinac, Tony Taylor-Stepinac, Keith Benjamin-MV, Geoff McDermott-NR, Hilton Armstrong-PK, Taj Finger-Fox Lane, Willie Shaw-Tuckahoe). Of the remaining 55-65, how many of those were truly MAAC level players? Maybe 25-30 at most. The recent MAAC players I can think of are Jenkins, Gray, Justin Jackette Iona Prep/Manhattan, Nick Delfico Iona Prep/Fairfield, Kyle Walsh Stepinac/Fairfield, Ryan Schneider-Lakeland/Marist, Tydrayll Coleman-Valhalla/Manhattan, Devon Austin-WP/Manhattan, Dave Ryan Eastchester/Siena, Rishawn Johnson-WP/Canisius, Quentin Martin-WP/St peters, Jared Johnson-Salesian/Manhattan, Darren Johnson-Lincoln/Manhattan – thats 13 players, I’m sure there are more though. Keep in mind, several of these other MAAC players may have had nice careers at other schools, but there style of play wouldn’t have worked well in Ruland’s system. There have also been a handful of mid-major caliber players who went to schools outside of the MAAC – Kevin Hyland-Stepinac/Holy Cross, Rashard Turner-Kent State/Peekskill, George Skrelja-Hastings/E. Kentucky, Markus Austin-WP/E. Michigan, Mohammed Lo-Toledo, Jomo Belfor-James Madison). Of the 20 or so players I mentioned as MAAC players or other mid-major players, I can only name three that I think reasonably could’ve or should’ve been big-time targets for Iona’s program under Ruland – Markus and Devon Austin, Jomo Belfor. Considering they landed Dexter Gray and Greg Jenkins, thats 2 recruits of the 5 possible recruits who stick out to me as great fits for Iona’s system. 2 out of 5 isn’t too bad in recruiting circles considering Markus Austin committed very early and Devon Austin signed with Manhattan which is the other most logical/geographical MAAC choice for local kids. Also, I believe Melvin Calhoun out of Portchester committed to Iona a couple years ago, but never got his grades together so he never played there.
Many local D1 players have gone to lower D1 schools, below the mid-major MAAC (i.e. John plenty-St. Francis, PA, Sleepy Rollerson-St. Francis, NY, Terrence Parkes-Delaware St., Aaron Williams-Del St., Kareem Washington-UMBC, Kenny Horton, Tyrell Thompson, Chris Diasparra-Citadel, Mike Koch-Penn, Bryan Evans-Hartford, Kirk Williams-Longwood, Jamal Webb-Wagner, the Detmer brothers at Colgate, Lehigh and Lafayette, respectively, Kris Ibezim-MV/Quinnipiac, etc.) – thats 16 right there, I’m sure there are more in that category. While these players are all excellent ballplayers, I wouldn’t think many of them were main recruiting targets of Iona.
Galgano was an Assistant to Ruland for many years.
Hoops Fan,
For what I was told, Ciminno and Ruland were the best of friends. I have not heard that their relationship has changed.
Nice article on Jonathan Mitchell. Check out this link.
http://njmg.typepad.com/zagsblog/2008/04/mitchell-coming.html#more
There are links to the static that Ruland and Cimmino had. One of the major reasons why Section 1 kids didnt send there kids to Iona is bacause they knew Ruland couldnt coach. He let the inmates run the asylum( I mean this literally and figuratively) and there was little growth in the players.Hoopsfan, great post about Iona,however, Ruland didnt run the last two Jenkins years. They had Solliver, Burtt and Mccullogh and they kept pounding the ball to Jenkins. When he graduated and they ran, they won.
Didn’t Cimmino get pissed off a few years back when the Iona booster club, or whatever the alumni group is called, did not want MV players attending their parties. I think I remember a news story reporting that MV and Cimmino would no longer recommend its players to Iona because of the insult…