JERSEY CITY, N.J. — Many MAAC schools have a certain campus culture to them. Something that draws alumni back and entices students to enroll. At Saint Peter’s, many of the students enroll out of convenience and commute from home to the Journal Square-adjacent strip of buildings known as the campus.
It’s why it’s so hard for Saint Peter’s to pack Yanitelli Center. It’s part of why SPU doesn’t resonate as much to the Jersey City community as say, Marist does in Poughkeepsie, or Siena in Albany. But Jersey City is a city of over 300,000 people. And it only takes 1/300th of that to truly make Run Baby Run Arena one of the loudest and rowdiest venues in the conference.
In front of Saint Peter’s largest home crowd since Bashir Mason’s first game three-plus years ago, the Peacocks showed up and ignited the Jersey City faithful with a loud performance on ESPNU. It was complete with momentum-swinging runs, huge dunks, and the trademarked Saint Peter’s physicality, as SPU moved back into a tie for first place, defeating Mount St. Mary’s 66-58.
Mason thinks that the crowd helped wake up his team.
“My guys didn’t necessarily have the greatest of energy,” he said. “I thought guys were tired, it’s normal this time of year, but that crowd right there certainly gave us the push that we needed to win.”
But the crazy thing about the crowd is that the announced attendance was just 1,112. Being in the building, it felt like more than that – especially if we’re considering 3,200 to be the capacity of the gym – but if it truly was just around that number, it shows how far a slightly bigger crowd goes.
At the Yanitelli Center, there is no baseline seating. It’s just the two sideline sections, but both were mostly packed at least two-thirds of the way up on Friday night, and the fans were loud. With the low-ish ceilings, the noise bounces off the top of the gym and comes back down. Even some of the games with small crowds at that venue, I’ve thought have been loud relative to some other schools.
Friday was different. It wasn’t just a great crowd for the number or for Saint Peter’s; it was just a straight-up hostile environment. The Peacocks did enough on the floor to keep the people coming back.
“You win, and your people show up,” Mason said.
In the final minutes of the first half, the Mount finished a kill-shot run to take a five-point lead, but the Peacocks came back with some big momentum threes.
Adetokunbo Bakare made two threes, and Bryce Eaton made one, and it gave Saint Peter’s a 32-30 lead with 10 seconds left in the half, flipping the game on its head.
“We got a really good shooting team when we shoot good ones,” Mason said. “We’re probably a better three-point shooting team than we are from two. But I thought it was the fight, it was the resilience.”
Even though Arlandus Keyes came down the floor and stuck a go-ahead triple from way downtown at the buzzer, the Peacocks had swung the energy just enough to allow it to tip from there in the second half.
The crowd stayed engaged, and the game stayed close. Saint Peter’s has been switching defenses between zones and man-to-man throughout the year, and it finished out this game with its zone. It flustered the Mount’s offense, especially after Arlandus Keyes fouled out with seven minutes to go on a controversial call.
“We wanted to look through the zone and find areas that we could attack,” Mount head coach Donny Lind said. “The short corners, so that’s diagonally across and then into the middle, and unfortunately, we missed it. We weren’t able to touch the paint enough and then go finish.”
His team attempted to break the zone with passes over it to the baseline in those short corners, but failed to make their way back to the basket for an efficient shot attempt on many possessions.
Mason has exhibited terrific feel all season in determining when the right times to zone are, and he showed that once again on Friday night.
“Just a little trigger,” he said. “I felt like our guys, when we start out in our man, they get locked into their matchups and they take their matchups personal. Now once we get a little bit of a lead, we can switch into the zone, but they’re already in an aggressive mindset.”
Between Eaton responding to being benched for the final 18 minutes against Merrimack with a strong performance, and Shaedon Simpson coming off the bench for 20 strong minutes after barely playing in the last month, the Peacocks got exaclty what they needed from their guards.
“Today’s game was a reflection of what our team is,” Mason said. “Our guys we anticipated playing really well, like Jahki and Lucas, who’s been playing really well, they didn’t have good games, and then we pulled Shaedon off the bench and you get seven points and four rebounds. It’s strength in numbers. Program is a reflection of the world. Do your job every day, if not, somebody else will.”
And Saint Peter’s had the crowd at its back. The Peacocks are undefeated on their home floor in MAAC play. A perfect 7-0.
But now, six of the final nine games on Saint Peter’s slate are on the road.
“This time of year, if you wnt to be one of the top teams in the league, you gotta be road warriors,” Mason said.
Fairfield 71, Iona 70: Fairfield’s last win at the Hynes Center before Friday is old enough to drive and vote. It turned 19 earlier in the month. Now, the Stags finally have an encore. Chris Casey’s team won its third consecutive close game, inching past the Gaels 71-70 thanks to 27 points from Braden Sparks. Fairfield collected 21 offensive rebounds, seven from each Brandon Benjamin and Halon Rawlins, in order to grab the win. The Stags are .500 in the MAAC with a matchup against Quinnipiac – who is just one game ahead of them – loading.
Sacred Heart 98, Quinnipiac 91: This was the second straight game that Quinnipiac had chances in the final minute, but went cold at the end and couldn’t convert. This time though, it comes at home. For the Pioneers, it’s the fifth win in a row, and one that validates this surge from 1-6 to 6-6 as for real. The last three SHU wins came against Canisius, Rider, and Niagara, but those are bookended by road wins at Quinnipiac and Siena. And its no surprise that Mekhi Conner is playing his best ball of the year as Sacred Heart is doing the same. His stats during the winning streak? 11.8 points, 10.6 assists, 5.0 rebounds, 2.2 steals, and 1.8 turnovers per game while shooting 38% from three.
Manhattan 95, Rider 90: The good news for Manhattan is that the Jaspers followed up their second-worst offensive performance of MAAC play with their best offensive game of the year. John Gallagher’s team did enough to snap a four-game losing streak and move back to 5-7 in the league. The bad news is that the Jaspers allowed Rider – which has the No. 347 ranked offense in the country – to score 1.34 points per possession. It is wroth noting that the Broncs have put together three 1.1 PPP games over the last five after not having a single one until January 14.
Marist 88, Canisius 86: You never know what can happen on the Buffalo trip. A game that I had pegged to be played in the 50’s or low-60’s go into the 70’s in regulation and nearly to the 90’s in overtime. John Dunne dialed up his alley-oop SLOB to tie the game on the final possession of regulation, with Rhyjon Blackwell playing the role of Trevis Wyche or Isaiah Brickner. He, Justin Menard, and Elijah Lewis all scored 20-plus points. Notably, Canisius got a season-high 17 points from freshman Javante Edwards, who needs to play like that if the Griffs are going to make the MAAC Tournament.
Siena 82, Niagara 79: Niagara has made ten triples four times this year. The Purple Eagles are now 1-3 in those games. They lost despite shooting 14-26 from three, as Siena was completely unstoppable inside the arc, 76%. It’s Siena’a second 75+% 2P performance in the last three games, and the Saints have scored 1.3 PPP in each of them. Siena is averaging 78 points per game over the last five.
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