Superlative Guard Play Continues to Leave its Mark on the MAAC
By: Sean Brennan
If you’re an avid follower of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference or even if you’re simply a basketball aficionado, you already know the MAAC has been the home of great guards ever since Army travelled down to New Rochelle to face Iona on Jan. 2, 1982 for the first-ever MAAC men’s basketball game.
Since then, almost four decades later, many talented guards have come through the MAAC and dazzled fans with their on-court wizardry. Names like Keydren (KeeKee) Clark of Saint Peter’s, one of only eight players in NCAA history - and one of two in the MAAC - to ever surpass the 3,000-point plateau. From the Iona trio of Steve Burtt Jr., Sean Armond, and A.J. English to Manhattan’s Luis Flores and Jason Wingate to the Marist’s tandem of Chavaughn Lewis and Jared Jordan, every program in the conference has seen its share of greatness in their backcourt.
Rider had its all-time scoring leader Jerry Johnson wowing crowds from 2002-05. Siena fans remember Doremus Bennerman posting a 51-point night in the 1993 NIT Final Four at Madison Square Garden, while up in Western New York, Niagara had Tyrone Lewis’ and Antoine Mason’s back-to-back stints with the Purple Eagles to savor in the 2000s, and the Canisius faithful were fortunate enough to have four years of Frank Turner from 2007-2010.
And how much fun did Monmouth fans have watching Justin Robinson perform as he captured back-to-back MAAC Player of the Year awards in 2016 and 2017.
But, while it’s nice to stroll down memory lane, it’s nicer still to know the current crop of guards in the MAAC is every bit as good as its predecessors. Don’t take my word for it. Just listen to the ones who have to game plan for them on a nightly basis. But as you do, you’ll see a trend developing as one name is mentioned before all others.
Niagara’s Kahlil Dukes.
“You start with Dukes at Niagara. He’s terrific,” Iona head coach Tim Cluess said. “That kid is as offensively gifted as any kid in the MAAC in the last 10 years. He can really score the ball in a lot of ways. He can shoot it from really deep, he can score off the dribble or off pick-and-rolls. He just breaks you down. He’s just a really tough matchup and I think he’s the best guard in the league right now. There are some other really good ones but I think he’s the best.”
Dukes, and his Purple Eagles’ sidekick, Matt Scott, were also high on the list of Saint Peter’s head coach John Dunne.
“The guys from Niagara can really go,” Dunne said. “Kahlil Dukes and Matt Scott, they’re fantastic. In my opinion they are the best 1-2 combo in the league. They’re as good as it gets for our league.”
Manhattan coach Steve Masiello is another fan of Dukes, who is second in the MAAC with a 21.0 scoring average. But Masiello also made it clear that there is a deep pool of talented backcourt players not named Dukes in the conference.
“I think the guards in the league right now are very good,” Masiello said. “I think there are some guys who are difference makers, similar to years past. Guys who can go make a play late in the game and take the game over for you. Guys who can get a bucket when the game is on the line, and guys who can make free-throws. I think we have a good group of guards that have those characteristics. I think this crop of guards is as good as we’ve had. I think the bar is right there. You look at guys like Dukes, Scott, (Iona’s) Rickey McGill and (Canisius’), Isaiah Reese. I just think there are good guards on each team.”
Niagara’s Chris Casey is the one coach fortunate enough to scribble the names Dukes and Scott into his lineup each night. But his dynamic duo are not simply scorers, he said. They are the quintessential team-first players.
“I think Matt (Scott) and Kahlil (Dukes) are both having terrific years and they have both worked extremely hard to have the years they are having,” Casey said. “And I think the thing that stands out most about them is that they both function in a team concept. They’re not a two-man show. They do a great job of picking their spots and involving their teammates, too.
But like Cluess, Masiello, and Dunne, Casey believes he is not the only coach in the MAAC to enjoy great guard play. There is a truckload of talent spread throughout the conference.
“I’ve been around the MAAC on and off since 1991 and its always been a really good guard league.” Casey said. “And I think the current group of guards in the league are very good. I think there are good guards on every team, top to bottom. If you polled every team, there would always be a guy you’d want to add to your team from somebody else in the league because everybody’s got good guards.”
Another name that popped up often was Fairfield’s Tyler Nelson. Nelson, who currently leads the MAAC in scoring at 21.8 points per game, also recently became the Stags’ all-time leading scorer after he breached the 2,000-point plateau.
“He’s a good player. I think he’s a very good scorer,” Cluess said. “Nelson can really knock down shots.”
Dunne was even more effusive in his praise of Nelson, even mentioning the Stags’ senior guard for the conference’s highest honor.
“He’s right up there in Player of the Year contention,” said Dunne, now in his 12
th season at Saint Peter’s. “Tyler Nelson is fantastic. He’s got a very good all-around offensive game, but his catch-and-shoot game off the move is as good as I’ve seen in the MAAC in all my years. He can also shoot off the dribble and he’s really clever off the bounce. He’s right there with Reese for Player of the Year.”
Reese would be Canisius’ superlative sophomore guard, Isaiah Reese, who is seventh in the MAAC in scoring (16.8), fifth in assists (4.7), second in free-throw percentage (88.3%) and first in steals with 68.
“He’s probably my MVP and he’s only a sophomore,” Dunne said. “He’s just doing it all. He’s in the top four or five of so many offensive categories in our league. But he also rebounds the ball well as a guard and he defends.”
Rider goes into the weekend tied for first in the MAAC with Canisius and the Broncs have reached those heights due to the play of their young core of players, led by stellar sophomore Stevie Jordan. Jordan is averaging 14 points a game but it’s his MAAC-best assist totals - he averages six a game - that catches the eye of opposing coaches. But Jordan’s teammate Dimencio Vaughn, as well as a pair of Iona guards and a come-out-of-nowhere Quinnipiac senior have also impressed Casey.
“I think Stevie Jordan at Rider is having a great year,” Casey said. “Isaiah Reese is having an outstanding year at Canisius. Cameron Young at Quinnipiac is having a really good year. At Iona I think Rickey McGill is very good and Schadrac Casimir is playing very well of late, too. There is just a bunch of great guards in this league.”
Cluess, too, is a fan of the Rider tandem. which has the Broncs as possibly the team to beat in the MAAC this season.
“Those Rider kids, they’re both having really great years,” Cluess said. “They’re both really scoring the ball well, they’re both athletic and very explosive. They’re doing a really nice job there.”
Dunne looks at Jordan as the fuel that runs the Broncs machine.
“Stevie Jordan at Rider is a really talented guard,” Dunne said. “He’s kind of the engine that makes them go.”
But it’s Young who has surprised conference coaches this year after he appeared as a bit player in just six games a year ago.
“To tell you the truth I wasn’t really sold on him until he came in and kicked our butts.” Cluess said. “He had like 30 points against us. (Young had 31 points and 11 rebounds in Iona’s 87-82 OT win over Quinnipiac on Feb. 2). He went from a kid who didn’t play at all as a junior to having a tremendous senior year. Obviously, he’s gotten a lot better and really worked at his game. He’s a really tough matchup.”
Young also has another admirer in Dunne.
“Cameron Young kind of came out of nowhere,” Dunne said. “He didn’t even play last year as a junior. He doesn’t shoot it great from the three, but he can really score. He really impresses me.”
There are other gifted guards throughout the league, guys like Rich Williams and Zavier Turner at Manhattan, freshman phenom Takal Molson at Canisius, sharpshooter Brian Parker at Marist, Nick Griffin at Saint Peter’s, and Monmouth’s Deion Hammond and Micah Seaborn, who missed several games with a hamstring injury but came back to drop a career-best 30 points on Rider at the Hawks’ Senior Night Thursday evening.
There is clearly no shortage of talent at the guard spot in the MAAC, as 22 of the top 30 scorers in the conference come from the backcourt.
“That’s not surprising in this league because we play such small ball,” Masiello said. “Every team basically plays small. It’s just a guard league.”
The names may change but the one constant in the MAAC is superlative guard play; from that day Army marched into Iona back in 1982 until present day, you can bank on the MAAC being home to some of the best backcourt talent around.
“I think this group is just as good as any I’ve seen in my time here,” Dunne said.