WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. — A.J. English and Iona weren’t quite ready to hand over the regular season MAAC title to Monmouth just yet – or even a ticket to the Big Dance, for that matter.
The Gaels, who have been the league’s top seed in the MAAC Tournament three of the last four seasons, including each of the last two, now find themselves just one game back of Monmouth (22-6, 14-3 MAAC) in the conference standings after a resounding 83-67 win on Friday night.
Iona (16-10, 13-4 MAAC) controlled the 10 p.m., nationally televised affair from start to finish, using a 19-0 run midway through the first half to silence the crowd of 4,522, a single-game attendance record at the Multipurpose Activities Center.
English led the way with 31 points, 7 rebounds, and 5 assists in front of a half-dozen or so NBA personnel. It marked English’s 12th career 30-point game and his ninth in the last two years, tied for second in that span with National Player of the Year favorite Buddy Hield of Oklahoma.
“A.J’s one of the top players in this league, has been for a couple years, lot of respect for him,” said Monmouth head coach King Rice, who saw English go off for 45 firsthand last month in a 110-102 Monmouth win. “I think that young man, with all the heat that’s been on him, has carried himself and represented Iona College top, top shelf-on and off the court. Nothing but respect for A.J. English.”
English’s main competition for both MAAC Player of the Year and the Haggerty Award, Monmouth’s 5-foot-8 point guard Justin Robinson, finished with a team-high 21 points on 6-of-12 shooting. But his teammates combined to shoot 17-of-63 (27 percent), highlighted by an 0-for-6 from Je’lon Hornbeak and an 0-for-7 by Collin Stewart.
Monmouth trailed by as many as 22, its largest deficit all season, and never got any closer than 11 the rest of the way after a season-low 25-point first half. The Hawks shot 30.7 percent from the field, their worst mark since January of 2015.
“I thought [Iona coach Tim Cluess] had their guys extremely ready to play,” Rice said. I did not have my guys ready for the intensity of this…Tonight we got lumped by a better team.”
Once it was clear Monmouth was going to suffer its first home loss of the year, putting an end to an eight-game winning streak, all focus shifted to the postgame handshake line. Back on January 15th, following a win up at New Rochelle, Monmouth’s Chris Brady was slapped in the face by Iona’s Jordan Washington, resulting in a two-game suspension for Washington.
Despite the buildup surrounding the incident leading up to the rematch, the only real altercation Washington had was occasional back-and-forth ribbing with Monmouth’s student section, and no postgame fireworks ensued.
“We acted cool in the handshake line,” Rice said. “Everybody was good both ways, gave some hugs, everything was good.”
As far as the Hawks’ NCAA Tournament at-large resume is concerned, Monmouth finds itself in a delicate position after recording its fourth loss to a team outside the RPI-Top 100. Entering the Iona game, Monmouth was projected as a 10-seed by ESPN’s Bracketology and a 9-seed per CBS Sports. But their RPI jumped from 38 to 48 following Friday’s loss, and any room for error that may have previously existed now does not.
Far more concerning, though, is how Monmouth played in its first game without Deon Jones, out indefinitely with a broken right hand that he suffered Monday against Manhattan College. Jones, the only senior on the roster and a tri-captain, is the Hawks’ third-leading scorer at 11.3 points per game and second-leading rebounder at 5.2 rebounds per game. After playing small forward for much of his career, Jones has posed as a matchup nightmare for opposing teams when sliding over to power forward often this season.
“No excuses tonight,” Rice said, when asked if Jones’ absence factored in heavily to the 16-point loss. “Deon is not playing. We have to play better. Usually for one night, your team will step up and play better when you have a guy injured-for one night. Tonight was not that night for us.”
Monmouth has three games to figure out life without their veteran leader prior to the MAAC Tournament, which starts on March 3rd. Rice, however, seems very confident that Friday was much more fluke than premonition.
“We got beat by a better team tonight,” he said, placing a major emphasis on that last word. “We are still the best team. Just look at the records. Don’t get it twisted, we lost a game. We are still a game up with three to go.”
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