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

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.

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.