A Year Later, Iona’s Jones Returns to the Big Dance

Of all the stories in this year’s NCAA Tournament, few can rival that of Lamont “Momo” Jones.

One year ago, Jones helped Arizona make a run to the Elite Eight before the Wildcats were felled by Kemba Walker and eventual national champion UConn.

Now, exactly one year later, Jones is headed back to the Big Dance, but he’s going as a member of the surprising Iona Gaels.

“You know, it’s March,” Jones, a native of Harlem, N.Y., said on a conference call following the surprising announcement that Iona (25-7) had made the NCAA Tournament and would compete in a West Region play-in game against BYU (25-8) Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio.

“Everybody has to be at their peak and everybody has to bring their A game. So this is what we live for. It’s March Madness.”

Jones said he spoke to Arizona’s Kyle Fogg Sunday morning “just to tell him how much I loved him and how proud of him I was.” Jones also got a call from fellow New Yorker Kevin Parrom of Arizona after Iona was selected and Arizona was left out. (Arizona was later selected for the NIT.)

“He called me and congratulated me and stuff like that,” Jones said of Parrom. “I mean, I feel for them [the Wildcats]. I know how it feels because I was there with them when we didn’t make the tournament my freshman year…I just hope that whatever tournament they do compete in..they go out with a bang.”

Jones, who averaged 16 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists this season, said he felt redeemed because after parting ways with Arizona last year, he took a lot of heat from critics.

Jones and Arizona coach Sean Miller had their issues and Arizona had point guard Josiah Turner coming in for this season. (Ironically, Turner has now been suspended indefinitely for a violation of team rules.)

Most importantly for Jones, though, he wanted to be closer to home to be with his ailing grandmother, and in October he was granted an NCAA waiver to suit up immediately at Iona.

“It feels extremely great,” said Jones, who last month scored 43 points in a win over Canisius. “I think the main reason it feels great is because when I made this decision to come to Iona, a lot of people kind of down-played the situation, a lot of people had a lot of things to say, about me, about the decision, and questioned why I was coming back home.

“It was a lot of questions out there why Momo Jones left Arizona and how stupid of me it was. And I think just making it shows everybody that it wasn’t a bad decision and it was a great decision. And to come home to be with my family, I think that I was rewarded in that. And I think I was rewarded  with a great coaching staff and a great team to go along with being the kind of person that I am…

“To kind of be home, to hear that at home in New York City is unexplainable.”

Iona coach Tim Cluess added Jones during the offseason to form a Big Three with point guard Scott Machado and forward Mike Glover. 

Machado was named the MAAC Player of the Year, Glover made First-Team All-MAAC and Jones landed on the Second Team.

“[Jones] has always been telling us how happy he was with the decision, how the right thing it was,” Cluess said. “He’s never been happier, he’s close to his family, he loves our school, our program and all that.

“But now the kid is going back to the NCAAs with another school, knowing he came home to do the right thing by his family first, I’m just really, really thrilled for him.”

Beyond the unique storyline, Jones may actually be able to provide some scouting insight on BYU because Arizona played them twice during the Jimmer Fredette Era.

“They’re a different team from when we played them my freshman and sophomore year when they had Jimmer Fredette,” Jones said. “But they return a lot of players in the big guy and some of the role players….It’s going to be a grind-it-out game, is what it’s going to be and we just have to play Iona basketball.”

Iona’s selection surprised a lot of people.

After the Gaels were ousted in the MAAC Tournament semifinals by Fairfield, it appeared they wouldn’t go dancing.

An at-large team from the MAAC hadn’t made the Big Dance since Manhattan in 1995.

But Jeff Hathaway, chair of the NCAA Selection Committee, said the Gaels deserved an at-large bid over a team like Drexel  from the CAA because of their strength of schedule.

“They had avery good non-conference strength of schedule,” Hathaway said. “They were a 44. I know a lot of people are going to try to compare them to Drexel. Drexel was well over 200.

“They had some good top-100 wins, very good basketball team. Very good on offense. We think we got that one right and obviously a lot of people will debate it and that’s what makes it fun.”

Jones pointed to the brutal month of December, when Iona didn’t play a single home game, and traveled to places like Buffalo, Denver, Marshall and Hofstra for games. Iona went 6-2 during that stretch, losing at Marshall and at Hofstra.

“It was a constant grind,” he said. “It was from one city to the next, one state to the next. It was different weathers, different climates. It was getting sick because you’re not used to those kind of weathers and the traveling that we did. So it was a lot of things that we had to fight through that a lot of people don’t understand.”

Given all that the Gaels have been through, Jones said that while some may have doubted Iona’s chances on Sunday, the former Arizona guard had no doubts at all.

“I was 100 percent sure when I made my decision to come here that we would make the NCAA Tournament,” he said. “It’s kind of weird the way it all went down but we made it either which way.”

Photo: Daily News