The Weave: A rough week for the Capital Region's Division I basketball teams

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stan Hudy

Siena's Jayce Johnson, center, looks up at the basket after a free throw attempt, defended by Niagara's Aaron Gray, left, in the first half Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023, at MVP Arena in a MAAC contest.

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Well . . . it certainly wasn’t a banner week for the Capital Region’s Division I basketball programs.

Both men’s programs went winless, with Siena losing to Manhattan and Niagara, and UAlbany getting dropped by UMass Lowell and Vermont. The women’s teams both went 1-1, winning midweek contests against conference cellar-dwellers before tough losses over the weekend — Siena at home against Mount St. Mary’s, UAlbany on the road against Vermont.

This week, the Siena men make their first MAAC trip to Mount St. Mary’s on Friday before returning home Sunday to host Marist, while the UAlbany men host Bryant on Wednesday and visit Binghamton on Saturday. On the women’s side, UAlbany travels to Bryant on Wednesday and hosts Binghamton on Saturday, while Siena is set for home games on Thursday against Manhattan and Saturday against Niagara.

Michael Kelly, Adam Shinder and Will Springstead cover college basketball for The Daily Gazette, and each week set the scene for the upcoming action.

AWARD WINNERS

The only award winner this week was a familiar name, as Siena’s Teresa Seppala won the MAAC Rookie of the Week for women’s basketball for the fifth week in a row and seventh time overall this season.

Seppala averaged 16.5 points and 9.5 rebounds last week, including her first career double-double on Saturday, when she put up 15 points and 11 rebounds in the Saints’ loss to Mount St. Mary’s.

Between Seppala and Elisa Mevius, Siena has won 10 MAAC Rookie of the Week honors this season, the most in program history. Seppala’s seven wins trail only the nine won by Margot Hetzke in 2014-15 for most weekly awards won by a Siena freshman.

TAKEAWAYS FROM THE LAST WEEK

EVERYONE IS IN A FEBRUARY FUNK

None of the four area teams came away from the last week happy with their results. The Siena and UAlbany women both won games, but Siena’s came against winless Saint Peter’s, and UAlbany struggled mightily against 2-19 UMass Lowell. While it was only the first week of February, there’s deceptively little time left in the season and relatively few opportunities left to really get on the right path to ensure ideal positioning for conference tournaments — or, in the case of the UAlbany men, to even get into the conference postseason.

SIENA COULD REALLY USE ITS GUARD BACK

For a bit there, it seemed like the Siena men could survive and just keep right on winning games without Javian McCollum (back) available in its lineup. The Saints found ways to win games without their leading scorer for a while, but that changed in a hurry this past weekend. Siena’s point guard returned for 14 scoreless minutes in this past Friday’s overtime loss at Manhattan and clearly wasn’t able to play to his usual standards. Then, he sat out Sunday’s loss to Niagara, a game that saw the Saints score only 54 points as they fell from first place in the MAAC standings to third.

THE SIENA WOMEN KEEP DOING WELL DESPITE THEMSELVES

The Saints had a 1-1 week, easily handling Saint Peter’s before losing a back-and-forth overtime contest to Mount St. Mary’s, in which they committed 23 turnovers. In 10 of their 23 games this season, they’ve committed at least 20 turnovers. Yet they lead the MAAC in offense and in assist/turnover ratio. Currently in fifth place in the league, imagine if they could just consistently clean up the turnovers problem.

QUESTIONS FOR WHAT’S AHEAD

AFTER A ROUGH WEEK FOR ALL FOUR PROGRAMS, WHO HAS TO PUSH THE PANIC BUTTON THE MOST?

Shinder: I’ll throw out the Siena women, who actually won a game last week and went to overtime in the other, and the UAlbany men, who have been free-falling for a while and probably should’ve mashed the panic button weeks ago. Given the injury situation with the Siena men, I’ll go with the UAlbany women, who despite a 1-1 week have not had a game where they’ve really looked like the peak version of themselves for 40 minutes since their 73-54 win over NJIT back on Jan. 14. That’s a three-week rut the Great Danes need to pull themselves out of — and quickly.

Kelly: It’s the UAlbany women’s team, which has played two big games on consecutive Saturdays and lost both of them. In both defeats, too, the veteran Great Danes struggled in an uncharacteristic — and alarming — way during crunch time. In the Great Danes’ Jan. 28 loss at Maine, UAlbany couldn’t get a shot off on its final possession in the one-point loss. Then, this past Saturday at Vermont, the Great Danes faced a two-possession disadvantage in the final half-minute, and . . . very patiently . . . took their time before missing a 3-pointer with a few seconds to go, essentially a meaningless attempt after a possession that lacked the urgency required.

Springstead: I’m picking the Siena men. Head coach Carmen Maciariello and the players are clearly unhappy about being 0 for 3 in sweeping conference teams so far, but what works against the Saints is that those losses have happened three different ways. And until you break through and win one, I don’t care who you are, it’s in your head. That’s not something Siena needs as it tries for a good seed in the conference tournament.

THANKS, SPRINGSTEAD, FOR SETTING THIS ONE UP: HOW MANY SWEEPS DO THE SIENA MEN EARN THIS UPCOMING WEEKEND?

Kelly: I’ll go with two because I think the Saints are good enough to beat Mount St. Mary’s and Marist, regardless of if Javian McCollum plays these games. Siena handled both of these teams relatively easily earlier this season, but it’s worth noting that McCollum did play against Mount St. Mary’s.

Springstead: Despite what I said above, I’ll say two because the looks on the faces of Carmen Maciariello, Andrew Platek and Jackson Stormo after the Niagara loss were shock and disgust. A long trip to Maryland is never easy, but something tells me that the Saints will be hyper-focused on sweeping the first team it sees this week. I think Marist will be a tougher go, but again, it’s home, it’s your league rival and you didn’t protect the house last Sunday, so I think that will spur them on.

Shinder: Yeah, this seems like prime-time to go 2-for-2 and finish season sweeps of both these teams. On paper, Mount St. Mary’s is the tougher game — especially considering the long road trip — but even considering last weekend’s struggles, this Siena team has usually been at its best this season at times when it’s backed into a corner. That’s the position the Saints are in this weekend, and I expect them to find another way out of it.

IT SEEMS THAT ALL THE LOCAL TEAMS HAVE HAD INJURIES HINDER THEIR PROGRESS AT SOME POINTS. FOR NOW, WHICH TEAM GOT IT WORST?

Springstead: It’s oh-so-tempting to go with the obvious answer in the UAlbany men, as losing Justin Neely early on for the season, and Ny’mire Little for the season after nine games was definitely a gut punch. Instead, I’m choosing a longer shot and saying the Siena women. Only three players of their regular rotation have played all 23 games, and it just seems like when someone has a good game, she’s out the next one or two. The Saints have played a lot of games with a thin bench, and as much of a surprise as they’ve been, they could be even better if they’d had the full complement of players.

Shinder: Will, you made my point in your very first sentence. It’s the UAlbany men. Neely was last year’s America East Men’s Basketball Rookie of the Year and was going to be the focal point of this year’s Great Danes team. His season lasted a grand total of 25 minutes before his torn ACL against Siena. Throw in the season-ending injury to Little and Will Amica’s recurring health problems, plus extended absences for Trey Hutcheson and Malik Edmead, and this is a no-brainer.

Kelly: So, I’ll go back to the question, though, and the UAlbany men maybe don’t qualify here? Given what’s happened to them on the injury front and on the court, I’m not sure if they can be classified as hindered. They’ve been stopped, perhaps before they ever got started. So, for me, right now, it’s the Siena men, who were rolling right along and this injury that won’t go away for Javian McCollum — the team’s leading scorer and the Saint capable of creating for himself off the dribble — has, yes, hindered them. Other area teams have a greater quantity of long-range injuries going on, but no team’s more affected RIGHT NOW than the Siena men as they await for the full return of their lead guard.

NUMBERS TO KNOW

351.1

Miles between Siena College and Mount St. Mary’s. The Saints have to travel to Emmitsburg, Maryland. on Thursday for a Friday night game before returning home to face Marist Sunday.

347

Where the UAlbany men rank nationally in the KenPom.com database, placing the Great Danes in the bottom-20 nationally out of 363 Division I men’s programs.

17.8

Points per game averaged by Siena’s Teresa Seppala over her last five outings, in each of which she’s scored at least 15 points.

‘THEY SAID IT’

“Right now, going into this game, it’s like, ‘Who do we want to be?’”

— UAlbany men’s basketball head coach Dwayne Killings, reflecting on the team’s state of mind Tuesday heading into Wednesday’s home game against Bryant.

“We’ve got to improve our league game execution. Now I thought it was better, at least schematically, than Manhattan. And now here at home, you know, crowd was behind us, we make a run, you know, you’ve got to be able to finish the job.”

— Siena men’s basketball coach Carmen Maciariello, following the Saints’ loss to Niagara last Sunday.

“You know, a screen, I may get hit by a screen, but he’s not beating me to the basket. That’s never happened. I promise.”

— Siena men’s sophomore Jared Billups’ response to teammate Andrew Platek’s claim that he’d gotten the better of him in some practice matchups.

FULL COURT PRESS ROW

On the latest episode of the “Full Court Press Row” podcast, Adam Shinder, Will Springstead and Michael Kelly go in-depth on the stumbling blocks that all four Capital Region squads have hit recently, and preview an important weekend for Siena men’s basketball. “Full Court Press Row” is available on all major podcast providers.