Friday they finalized their decision on where they will go by joining their former head coach Joe Mihalich at Hofstra. The school officially announced Green and Tanklsey joining the Pride along with Jamall Robinson, who received a release out of his letter of intent at Niagara, who will also join Mihalich at Hofstra.

“We’re in the business where we need to get good players and that’s what we did,” Mihalich said of the additions.

Juan’ya Green (left) will transfer from Niagara and join Joe Mihalich at Hofstra

Green and Tanksley will come in as juniors and will have to redshirt and sit out one season before they can play during the 2014-15 season. Robinson will be eligible to play to start the fall.

Green won the MAAC Rookie of the Year Award in 2011 and finished on the first-team All-MAAC as the Purple Eagles won the regular season championship. Tanksley averaged 11.3 points per game last season and started every game for Niagara.

Mihalich said that Green and Tanksley contacted him after receiving their release from Niagara and he ran it by Hofstra athletic director Jeff Hathaway prior to taking on the two Niagara transfers.

“He’s going to know everything that’s going to happen here just like I do that’s the way I’ve always done it,” Mihalich said of his contact with Hathaway. “I’ve always felt like the communication you got to work hand in hand with your athletic director. Believe me a big reason why I’m here is because of Jeff Hathaway he’s a terrific AD, he’s one of the best in the whole country.”

Mihalich said he has known Green and Tanksley for the last four years, having recruited them out of the Philadelphia area to play for him at Niagara for two seasons.

“You can’t help but get close to these guys,” Mihalich said. “You develop a relationship. It’s hard to put into words because it’s not just the two hours a day you’re on the practice court, it’s study hall, it’s the traveling, it’s all that stuff. It’s when there’s a special relationship there.”

Hofstra also added former Niagara commit Robinson who contacted Mihalich after he received his release from the MAAC school.

“Jamall Robinson is a winner, he’s a versatile guy,” Mihalich said. “He can play a couple of different positions. He’s physically ready to play right now even though he’s a freshman. He’s got a good body good size and strength.

“He can probably score a little bit better than people give him credit for, but he’s a good player. We’re excited about him he’s going to help us.”

Green, Tanksley and Robinson join Chris Jenkins and Eliel Gonzalez in coming to Hofstra under Mihalich. The incoming freshmen will join the team in late June for workouts during summer session.

Now with nine spots filled, seven of whom will be eligible to play next season with Green and Tanklsey sitting out per NCAA rules, Mihalich said that they will work on adding two more players, a point guard and a scoring combo guard.

“We just want to get the right guys,” Mihalich said. “Some people say it’s hard to fill up a roster, that’s not true. It’s easy to fill up a roster if you don’t really pay attention to getting the right players and the right people.”

“It’s easy to fil up a roster, but its hard to fill up a roster the right way and that’s our challenge right here is to get some good guys.”

Hofstra has had players visit campus and Mihalich said that he’s been able to sell the opportunity to play.

“We’ve had a couple kids who that were concerned about that, concerned about the lack of people here, but that’s okay,” Mihalich said. “That means that we don’t want them. We want kids that want to make an impact, kids that want to play right away. We want kids that like this situation so any kid that didn’t like it, that’s fine that’s good by us because they don’t like the situation then it’s not right for them. That’s fine they can go somewhere else.”

Having four scholarship players when Mihalich took over the job, he said he would like to make up for lost time when he gets the team together for workouts during the summer sessions.

“Can’t wait to get going,” Mihalich said. “We lost the spring. There’s everybody who was doing stuff with their guys we lost it. First of all we only have four guys here so didn’t do any team stuff, we couldn’t do anything.”

Mihalich said they will look to bring in two more players but said “it would have to be somebody pretty special” to take in another transfer.

“We’re open to anything,” Mihalich said. “We’re open to anything and everything.”

Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo. For more on Hofstra’s non-conference schedule, check out the non-conference schedule tracker.

The Gaels went on a roller coaster ride of a season. Prior to the season, incoming recruit Mike Haynes was killed in Chicago and to start the season a team filled with nine newcomers started slowly with a 6-6 start. The Gaels then won eight of their next nine until they ran into a string of bad luck, losing six of seven games each decided by fewer than three points.

Cluess’ Gaels put that behind them when March started with wins to finish the regular season against Loyola (MD) and Siena, while following up with three wins in Springfield to clinch Iona’s first MAAC tournament championship since 2006.

“We went through a lot of rough times,” Cluess said. “Right from Mike [Haynes] being killed in August, all the way through the injuries, illnesses and the tough losing streaks. The kids never gave up. They kept working hard. They came back and figured out a way to put a nice run together to finish up and get to the NCAA’s so I was really proud of them.”

A season of 20-14 and an NCAA tournament berth was a third straight successful one for Cluess at Iona and their second straight NCAA tournament appearance. The begging was a challenge at first because Cluess and his staff had a difficult time installing their offensive and defensive schemes with a group of nine new players.

“We had so many new guys and I don’t know how much of those losses were because we had guys out during those games or just the lack of execution at certain times in games,” Cluess said of what they didn’t do well this season. “I’m going to sit there and say it’s probably a combination of both, but I think we have to have our bench more ready for those type of situations.

“We play with so many different lineups it wasn’t an easy task for our players to know what the role was going to be because it was changing because different guys were getting injured and out from game to game. I think defensively we’d like to shore up that end and become a better rebounding team because I thought a lot of our inadequacies were from not rebounding the ball and that led to other problems.”

In January at Rider down 63-60 with 16 seconds left, Broncs guard Anthony Myles missed two free throws but Iona’s failure to box out let Myles grab his own rebound and get an easy layup for an eventual 67-62 victory.

Cluess said he and his staff worked on simplfying what they did throughout the season and he said that simplicity may have been a detriment that he plans on not repeating next season.

“I think we oversimplified this year and I think that cost us,” Cluess said. “We didn’t have some certain things in that we would have liked to have used when we were unfortunately holding ourselves back to let some of the guys try to catch up. We have to do a better job of getting them up to speed quicker, however we have to do that whether its breaking down more individuals on the defensive end of the ball , a lot of the times individuals are offensively motivated, but we may have to look at that this year we have some certain guys that are struggling that way and try to get them to understand that a little bit better because I think that’s what cost us a little bit that we couldn’t run certain defenses we didn’t have certain rotations right because we held back because certain guys weren’t picking it up and almost to a fault we were overly patient.”

Iona loses MAAC Player of the Year Momo Jones; however, they retain the vocal leader of the team in Sean Armand and will look to find a complement for Armand.

“Momo was a nice complement to Sean and we’re going to have to find someone to step in and be like that,” Cluess said. “Obviously Momo’s game talked for itself, I don’t think we’re replacing that by one person. We’re going to have to do that by committee.”

Cluess said he and his staff are looking to fill five spots on the recruiting trail, who commits to play for them next year will make Cluess feel better about the potential of going for a third straight NCAA tournament appearance.

“If we’re able to finish this recruiting period strong and finish off our roster strong, I’ll be very excited about what next year could bring,” Cluess said.

Rutgers transfer Mike Poole has committed to play for the Gaels, but Cluess could not comment on him until all of his paperwork is complete to transfer. Marshall transfer Kelvin Amayo is expected to join the roster as well to go with November signee Isaiah Williams.

The Gaels will have a non-conference schedule that includes a trip to Kansas as well as Nevada and Norfolk State. Cluess said the expansion in the MAAC schedule to 20 games helped his team because it adds a home game, something that has been tougher for him to find when scheduling games prior to conference play.

“We have enough non-league games that we have to run around and chase and for us it was very difficult to get any home non-conference games, so we were on the road quite a lot, so I think it gives us an extra home game,” Cluess said.

Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.

Casey reached out to his predecessor, Joe Mihalich, who took over at Hofstra for advice and information the weekend before being announced by athletic director Tom Crowley.

Casey and Mihalich both joked that they would trade houses as Casey will move from LIU Post based in Brookville and Mihalich will move close to Hofstra based in Hempstead.

“He’s going to buy mine, I’m going to buy his,” Mihalich joked of Casey. “He lives about a mile from here.”

“That’s what I said to him,” Casey said when he talked to Mihalich on the phone. “I live a mile from Hofstra and he lives a mile from Niagara. Why don’t we just trade homes?”

Other than joking about home swapping, Casey had the opportunity to pick Mihalich’s brain about Niagara prior to officially being introduced as the 21st head coach in school history.

“Joe’s been great, he’s been very helpful,” Casey said. “[He] always offers to have me call him anytime, so I’m sure I’ll have constant conversation with him throughout the summer.”

Mihalich said they talked a lot about the players Casey has on the roster.

“We just talked a lot about Niagara,” Mihalich said. “It’s a place that I really like. I love Niagara. I’ll always be rooting for them. I’ll always want them to do well.”

“Chris will do a great job there. He’s a hard worker and he’s a good coach. He’ll do a great job there.”

Casey spent the last three seasons proving his worth at LIU Post. In his first two seasons his teams made back to back NCAA tournament appearances at the Division II level with consecutive East Coast Conference championships. This season his team averaged 78.1 points per game.

When Casey took the job at LIU Post, he reached out to his predecessor – Tim Cluess. Casey took over when Cluess took the head coaching job at Iona in 2010. Cluess said Casey asked him about the job and the players returning at Post and Cluess said he helped get him up to speed on the job.

“I think Niagara got themselves a great coach in Chris,” Cluess said. “He took over for me at C.W. Post and did a phenomenal job there.”

“He asked me about the job, what we had there, who was coming back, what players I was recruiting. Helped him with some of the players that were there to make sure they stayed and let them know they were going to be in good hands. Helped them with some of the recruits.”

“I liked Chris from the moment I spoke to him. He’s a professional and he’s a good man.”

Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.

The coaches at Columbia are gearing up for their two sessions of Elite Camp that will be run June 14-18. During that long weekend head coach Kyle Smith and his staff will work with a number of players and also look for future members of the team. Seven of the current players on the Lions’ roster attended Elite Camp.

It’s not just for Columbia. It’s also a recruiting tool for other elite academic athletes that are hoping to continue playing basketball, including potentially attending a Division III school. There will be about 40 Division III coaches (both head and assistant) working with Smith and his staff this summer.

You can find out more about the camp here.

Columbia is also running a day camp for kids from 2nd through 7th grade. It’s open to both boys and girls. There are four one-week sessions throughout the month of July.

I know many of the area school are doing camps for younger athletes. If you’re out on Long Island, consider attending Steve Pikiell’s camps at Stony Brook. They’re for kids going into 7th grade and below and run in June and July. You can find more information here. There’s also information about Wagner’s camps for 1st through 7th graders with Bashir Mason available here.

Marist is going to have an elite/prospect boys camp (grades 7-12) from June 24-28, and camps for grade school boys July 1-5, July 15-19 and July 22-26. You can find more information here. The elite camp will be high schoolers’ first chance to get to work with new Marist head coach Jeff Bower.

If you’ve got more information on camps let us know in the comments or contact us and I’ll update the page.

This was not Rice’s first introduction to the conference. In his two seasons at Monmouth, he has scrimmaged Marist and Manhattan in the preseason as well as played Rider during the regular season. However Rice was introduced to the conference first in 2008 when he was an assistant at Vanderbilt and was dealt an 83-62 loss to 13-seeded Siena.

In Springfield at the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinals, Rice and Callahan took a seat on press row, media guide and pens in hand to write notes on the eight teams they would see in the quarterfinals. Rice said they were watching for tendencies and left with an eye opening experience about the league.

“The physicality of that league was very eye opening to me,” Rice said. “I’ve seen those kids. I know those kids, but the league it just seems like a bigger more physical league so we just tried to take as many notes as we could on teams. More tendencies what the coaches seem to be doing, who’s going to be coming back, how big are they because we definitely don’t want to come into the league with a size disadvantage.”

Rice said the top teams in the Northeast Conference such as Robert Morris, LIU-Brooklyn and Wagner have athletes to match up well with the MAAC, but they need to recruit towards their new league.

“We’ve seen some teams in our league that I think fit in that league, fortunately for us we’re moving to it,” Rice said. “I think it will be good for us, but we need to recruit to that league and we need to have a great summer in the weight room and just keep trying to get bigger and stronger guys.”

One of the problems Rice and Monmouth have had adjusting to the league is recruits don’t know that they will begin in the MAAC in 2013-14 after being added on December 12, 2012.

“I don’t think people understand that we’re in it yet because you call kids and then you say ‘Hey we’re in the MAAC’ and then they say ‘Oh, wait you’re in the MAAC?’ and obviously that league is really respected,” Rice said. “Kids see that league as a bigger league also so we’ve had a good response. I’m glad I’ve got the MAAC standing behind me because kids are drawn to that league.”

Rice said he would be looking to fill one more scholarship in recruiting. While Marcus Ware will graduate and transfer, Rice said there is still lingering uncertainty with his roster moving into next season.

“There’s still some kids thinking about some stuff,” Rice said. “We still might have a couple of people move.”

However Rice has added a strong recruiting class thus far to come in and start MAAC play right away with commits Zach Tillman, Greg Noack and Josh James to go with another verbal commitment yet to be finalized in the spring signing period.

“I’m excited about all of them. All of them will bring something to the table for us,” Rice said. “Zach Tillman is a big body and very physical so he’ll help us just because we’ve been a smaller team. Greg Noack can be a stretch four, he really runs well and shoots it well. He’s just really skinny so it might take him a little time.”

“Josh James I think could have played anywhere, I think he’s a much higher level kid. I think he’ll fit perfectly in the MAAC, I think he could’ve possibly even played in the higher leagues than that so I’m expecting big things from him.”

After two seasons in the NEC, Rice said he feels his players will have something to prove when they reach MAAC play.

“We’ve been a physical team in some aspects, some people just call it too much fouling,” Rice said. “I like to say we’re physical. We’re having a great spring in the weight room. We have kids that want to show that they could have played in the MAAC right out of high school.”

“Our kids are excited, our staff is excited, our whole university, we feel like we’re taking a big step up and we’re just trying to do everything we can to prepare for it.”

Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.

1) Kyle Vinales, Central Connecticut
2012-13 Season Statistics: 21.6 ppg, 2.0 rpg, 3.8 apg, 1.4 spg
Destination: To be determined. Interest at URI, Buffalo, La Salle, Kent State, and Xavier.
Player Breakdown: Vinales was a transcendent talent at the NEC level, and had a reasonable shot to shatter several CCSU scoring records barring injury. The 6’1” shooting guard bypassed that opportunity though, illustrating his commitment to winning over individual accolades. Taking one more stab at a NEC title with Hunter alongside could have paid dividends, yet you can’t blame Vinales for leaving a low mid-major conference to seek out a better opportunity to play in the Big Dance.
Team Impact: Devastating. This is the kind of move that can set a program back a few years, and unfortunately for Blue Devil fans, they’ll find out if their team pays a long-term price. With Vinales, CCSU would have been a trendy sleeper pick in the NEC. Now, the Blue Devils could be lucky to make the playoffs in the 10-team league. And that’s assuming Matthew Hunter doesn’t follow his buddy’s lead and utilize his final season of eligibility elsewhere.

2) Coron Williams, Robert Morris
2012-13 Season Statistics: 9.1 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.2 apg, 42.3% 3PT%
Destination: Wake Forest
Player Breakdown: The sharpshooting Williams is one of the latest players to jettison from the NEC, and it was quite a surprise. Due to NCAA rules, Williams is immediately eligible to play for the Demon Deacons as a soon to be fifth year senior who has already acquired his undergraduate degree. His situation is comparable to that of Maryland’s Logan Aronhalt last season. The 6’3” guard left Albany to serve as Maryland’s best perimeter shooter by a mile, as he drained 43.4% of his shots from behind the arc. Could Williams provide the same impact on an ACC squad that hit an uninspiring 34.5% of their three-pointers and just lost C.J. Harris? As long as Williams isn’t asked to create his own shot, we absolutely believe so.
Team Impact: Moderate. With Williams’ departure, the pressure falls squarely on Karvel Anderson, and his surgically repaired wrist. Andy Toole may have a talented group of freshmen coming in, led by Britton Lee and Kavon Stewart, but Anderson must serve as the veteran long-range threat in order to properly balance Robert Morris’ offense attack. The NEC will be crowded near the top, so the incoming class and Anderson’s performance becomes that much more important for the Colonials if they wish to win back to back NEC regular season titles.

3) Umar Shannon, St. Francis (PA)
2012-13 Season Statistics: 11.2 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 3.3 rpg, 1.4 A/TO
Destination: To be determined.
Player Breakdown: The 2012-13 Red Flash was supposed to be Shannon’s team, and in a way it still was. The 5’11″ junior led the team in points and assists per game, yet he never captured the potential and promise he had displayed before his knee injury. He appeared to be fine physically, but Shannon struggled clearing the mental hurdle of trusting his body. Now with one year remaining, a healthier Shannon will try his luck elsewhere. If he shows the promise he flashed sophomore year, a Division I team is going to have one heck of a combo guard on their hands.
Team Impact: Moderate. Obviously, losing your leading scorer and senior is a big blow, but let’s be brutally honest here. The Red Flash weren’t winning a NEC title next season, so perhaps it’s best that young bucks like Ben Millaud-Meunier, Greg Brown, and others will have more playing time in Loretto. The latest departure still stings however, because if everything went according to plan, the Red Flash would boast a veteran lineup of Chris Johnson, Scott Eatherton, and Umar Shannon for the upcoming season. Call me crazy, but that would probably be good enough for a top five NEC finish and a respectable run at a title. So much for that.

4) Adonis Burbage, Central Connecticut
2012-13 Season Statistics: 10.3 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 36.4% 3PT%
Destination: Morehead State
Player Breakdown: Burbage appeared to be in a nice situation for someone of his skill set. As a player who made his living shooting threes, playing 30 to 34 minutes per game while sharing the court with playmaking slashers like Kyle Vinales, Matthew Hunter, and Malcolm McMillan seemed to be the perfect gig. But clearly it wasn’t meant to be, with the Orlando native deciding to use up his final two seasons of eligibility at Morehead State. Why he decided to leave is unknown, since he’s only 33% closer in terms of distance between his future college and hometown. I don’t see much of a difference between 800 and 1,200 miles.
Team Impact: Unknown. On a roster that was miserably thin to begin with, Burbage leaving New Britain hurt CCSU’s depth. It remains to be seen if his departure was the final straw that broke the camel’s back for Vinales leaving, but if it was, then Burbage’s decision was a cruel catalyst for Howie Dickenman.

5) Kelvin Parker, Mount St. Mary’s
2012-13 Season Statistics: 5.3 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 0.9 spg
Destination: To be determined.
Player Breakdown: Parker has intriguing athleticism, but he simply couldn’t garner it into consistent production on the floor. As a result, Parker was relegated to a bench role most of the time, which obviously led to his decision to transfer with two seasons remaining. For another low mid-major program, Parker is worth the gamble. Especially if he improves his focus and ball handling in his sit-out season.
Team Impact: Moderate. Parker leaving may not hurt much for the 2013-14 season with Rashad Whack, Sam Prescott, and Julian Norfleet each getting 25-30 minutes per game, yet he could have played a pivotal role in the Mount’s mayhem attack in his senior campaign if he grew under Jamion Christian’s tutelage. He didn’t, of course, and our guess is the Mountaineers will be just fine moving forward with the extra scholarship this offseason. If Christian’s second team suffers though, we’ll know why.

6) Eric Fanning, Wagner
2012-13 Season Statistics: 6.9 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 37.8% 3PT%
Destination: Boston University
Player Breakdown: The 2012 Mary Kline player of the event (I bet you forgot that, didn’t you?) found his way into Bashir Mason’s doghouse, so much so that he was suspended for the final eight games of the Seahawks’ season. It was a shame, since the talented Fanning showed some promise early in the conference season by scoring in double figures for four consecutive games.
Team Impact: Moderate. With Valpo tranfer Jay Harris joining the club next year and another year of development from Dwaun Anderson, it’s likely that Wagner does just fine without one of the last players Dan Hurley signed in Staten Island. Still, Fanning’s scoring prowess raised his overall ceiling, but now we’ll never know if he would have thrived as a Seahawk.

7) Neofall Folahan, Wagner
2012-13 Season Statistics: 3.0 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.5 bpg
Destination: To be determined.
Player Breakdown: With Mason at the helm, Folahan’s minutes went down despite his impact defensively near the rim. On the other end, the slender 6’11” center was a liability and may have ultimately led to his paltry 14.6 minutes per game in his junior season. With one year left, it’s unknown whether a Division I program would tie up a scholarship for two seasons (remember he has to sit out one year) on a limited player. He is tall, so I guess you never know.
Team Impact: Minimal. If anything, Folahan’s exodus slots more minutes to the athletically gifted, yet inconsistent Mario Moody. It’s unknown why Moody’s playing time dwindled during the second half of last season, especially when you consider his 107.6 KenPom offensive rating coupled with his block percentage of 8.6%. Mason loves using advanced statistics as a coaching tool, so what gives?

8) Josh Castellanos, Mount St. Mary’s
2012-13 Season Statistics: 4.3 ppg, 1.2 rpg, 3.2 apg
Destination: Gardner-Webb
Player Breakdown: I couldn’t help but think of Jamion Christian as a player when I heard about Castellanos’ departure, even if it’s far from a perfect comparison. After serving as the Mount’s starting point guard as a junior, Christian was pushed to the pine by new coach Milan Brown. A similar thing happened this past season to Castellanos, but only because of the emergence of NEC rookie of the year Shivaughn Wiggins.
Team Impact: Minimal. With all due respect to Castellanos, the Mount shouldn’t skip a beat without the cerebral floor general moving forward. He simply wasn’t your typical mayhem guard that could score the basketball with any regularity.

9) De’Aires Tate, Sacred Heart
2012-13 Season Statistics: 3.7 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 52.9% FG%
Destination: To be determined. Will likely play next season at junior college.
Player Breakdown: Tate made for a nice story, which made it all the more difficult for this fan to watch him leave. Realistically, the offensively raw Tate would’ve had difficulty finding playing time behind Mostafa Abdel-Latif and Tevin Falzon at the “5”, and that along with his desire to move closer to home was enough for the freshman to ask for his release.
Team Impact: Minimal. The Pioneers are built for small ball the next two seasons with a foursome of junior guards patrolling the backcourt. With Louis Montes at the “4” for 25-30 minutes per game, there’s limited time for the young frontcourt to make an impression.

Other transfers: Erik Raleigh (CCSU), Xavier Owens (Mount St. Mary’s), Christian Crockett (Mount St. Mary’s), Patrick Matthews (Bryant)

Ryan Peters covers Northeast Conference men’s basketball for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @pioneer_pride

First a few graphs. Here are histograms that break every team’s four factors on offense (blue) and defense (green) into buckets in order to give us a sense of the continuum of college basketball.

What do all these graphs tell us? All sorts of interesting stuff. The most interesting one? The standard deviation for offensive and defensive rebounding and free throw rates are rather different. For offensive rebounding teams are smushed together on the defensive end. On the other end, there’s a wider variety of free throw rates on the defensive side of the ball. The variance on free throw rate is huge.

What teams were particularly large outliers (>3 standard deviations above or below the mean) last season?

• Offensive eFG%: Creighton (58.2%)
• Offensive TO%: Grambling (26.7%), Savannah St. (27.2%)
• Offensive OR%: Minnesota (43.8%), Rice (19.2%)
• Offensive FTR: Villanova (50.6)
• Defensive eFG%: no one
• Defensive TO%: VCU (28.5%) – Louisville is right on +3 standard deviations
• Defensive OR%: no one
• Defensive FTR: Southern Utah (57.0), Morehead St. (59.4)

Most of these are explainable. Grambling’s offense was historically awful. VCU’s Havoc system is designed to just create turnovers. Creighton had Doug McDermott. Rice didn’t have any players. Minnesota’s offensive rebounding is an absolutely mind-blowing accomplishment. To play in the Big Ten and that consistently get offensive rebounds is super impressive. Villanova’s ability to get to the free throw line is also rather impressive. It went up during Big East play to 52.1, so this isn’t like they went to the free throw line a bunch against teams that were overmatched athletically.

I’ll be diving into more data in the future.

Several other underclassmen played significant roles on the rebuilding Red Flash, with more than 75% of the team’s available minutes falling to a freshman or sophomore. Perhaps due to the youth movement in Loretto, the inexperienced Red Flash dropped 19 of their first 20 contests, en route to another disappointing and ultimately uncompetitive season.

Injuries surely deserved part of the blame, with team star Umar Shannon failing to recapture his old magic a season removed from an ACL tear. As is the case for several athletes recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, Shannon had difficultly clearing the mental hurdle of trusting his knee when competing at full speed on the hardwood. It led to an inconsistent junior season, although Shannon will return next season to provide the senior presence Krimmel so desperately needs on this roster.

In addition to Shannon’s struggles, senior Anthony Ervin, arguably the second most valuable player of the 2011-12 season behind Scott Eatherton, saw limited playing time due to a nagging groin injury. His condition improved for the second half of the season, and not surprisingly, so did the Red Flash’s performance. They won four of their final nine games, which included a grueling double overtime loss at Central Connecticut that could have easily gone St. Francis’ way.

Best Moment – After slogging their way to a miserable 0-11 start, the Red Flash stunned the community by upsetting Central Connecticut, 67-60, in Loretto for the NEC opener. In the victory, Earl Brown corralled 25 rebounds, the most by any Division I player since the 2009-10 season. If Brown wasn’t the focal point of the opposition’s game plan before the victory, he certainly was now.

Worst Moment – As much as the Red Flash lost in the 2012-13 season, nothing really paled in comparison to the tumultuous offseason the program had to endure previously. Therefore, it remains perfectly logical to cite the Red Flash’s past offseason as their worst moment. In a span of two weeks last spring, St. Francis had parted ways with head coach Don Friday and budding star Scott Eatherton. Those chain of events essentially guaranteed the Red Flash would go through yet another rebuilding season, if not more.

Saying Goodbye

Anthony Ervin – On a team that sorely needed leadership, Ervin struggled to get healthy in his senior season. When he finally was effective for the second half of the season, however, Ervin averaged 7.1 points and 3.5 rebounds per game, while shooting 45.4% from behind the arc. His graduation leaves a leadership void that will be transferred to Shannon, as the only senior who could receive meaningful minutes next year. (24 games, 4.5 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 0.8 apg)

Looking Ahead to the 2013-14 Season
With many assuming the Red Flash will once again struggle for relevancy, it remains plausible that Krimmel could begin to reap the benefits of having one of the youngest rosters in D-I basketball last season. By next November, Shannon will be two years removed from his knee surgery and could return to the form he once displayed as a promising sophomore. The soon-to-be-sophomore class of Ronnie Drinnon, Greg Brown, Mosley, and Millaud-Meunier will have another offseason to improve their game and provide an impact. Brown could emerge as the league’s best rebounder and double double machine with more work. It all adds up to an intriguing second year under Krimmel. With a little bit of luck in the injury department, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Red Flash sneak into the NEC playoffs for the first time in three years. A return to the upper echelon of the conference, however, is highly unlikely, even in a basketball climate full of parity.

Offseason – Leaving:

• Dallas Anglin, 6-1, G, Fr., Hofstra
• Taran Buie, 6-2, G, Jr., Hofstra
• Kentrell Washington, 6-3, G, Fr., Hofstra
• Eric Fanning, 6-4, SG, Fr., Wagner
• Naofall Folahan, 6-11, C, Jr., Wagner
• Mitch Farrell, 6-3, G, Fr., NJIT
• Ky Howard, 6-3, G, Fr., NJIT
• Ryan McCoy, 6-9, PF, Soph., Manhattan
• Skylar Scrivano, 6-9, C, Soph., Columbia — RIDER
• Jeff Short, 6-4, SG, Soph., Fordham
• Luka Zivkovic, 6-7, F, Soph., Fordham

No surprises here. Hofstra’s coaching upheaval caused some movement in personnel. (This list really doesn’t do it justice. New head coach Joe Mihalich has a lot of work to do.) Fanning was suspended for a violation of team rules at the end of the season and was assumed to be transferring. NJIT loses student-athletes because of the nature of the bottom of Division I. A little turnover is likely. The biggest surprise to me is Scrivano transferring to Rider, but he could be a valuable asset for the Broncs. He’s a sold front court player who should be able to make the rotation in the future if he stays healthy.

Offseason – Coming:

• Mike Poole, 6-5, G, Jr., Rutgers — IONA

Obviously a huge get for the Gaels. Here’s a good take on the move.

Midseason – Left:

• Paul Bayt, 6-4, G, Fr., Manhattan – INDIANA (WALK-ON)
• Devon McMillan, 5-10, G, Soph., Fordham

Inside The Hall was all over the Bayt news back in December. Bayt is originally from Indiana.

Bower left his job as the top assistant at Marist for the opportunity to become an advance scout in the NBA with the Charlotte Hornets. He said his goal was to learn about the pro level and then bring that experience back to a college environment.

“At that time when I left Marist, my initial goal was to go to the NBA and learn as much as I could about the NBA game with the hopes of coming back to college in two or three years as a coach who’d learned a lot more ideas and concepts,” Bower said. “I took an advance scouting position where my main duties initially was to scout opponents and prepare game plans. That was a great great way to learn the NBA and how teams play and what is expected of NBA players at each position so that was a great learning experience for me.”

“I always planned to go back to college after a short time doing that, fortunately for me things just grew and developed over the course of time and I was given opportunities to take on different roles moving on from the advance scouting position so as a result I never really came back to college.”

However that return to college basketball was stalled as Bower built a 15-year career around the NBA, specifically with the Hornets organization. Bower advanced in the organization and wore titles of Director of Scouting, Assistant General Manager, Assistant Coach, Director of Player Personnel, Director of Scouting, General Manager and Head Coach over 15 years in the same organization.

From the day Bower was hired he talked about maximizing the resources of the school to get the Marist basketball program to its first NCAA Tournament since Bower was an assistant in 1987. Given Bower’s NBA background, he will look to replicate some of the technology and resources in that he’s had in the NBA at Marist.

Bower said the renovations to the McCann Center and the basketball offices have shown the school’s commitment to the sport and he said he would like to tap into the academic power of the school as well.

“The interaction between the different departments on campus particularly from information technology is something that I think can really benefit our program,” Bower said. “I think we have the ability to really tap in to the computing power and the analytics opportunities that we can develop here are challenging and can be very rewarding.”

“I’m looking forward to working closely with the academic side in these areas, not only to develop ideas, but to also utilize their manpower in helping us craft a total comprehensive approach to our basketball program.”

Bower said he watched individual tapes and edits on Synergy Technology, which is used by all 30 NBA teams and hundreds of college programs and international pro teams, to break down Marist. Bower said that Marist’s basketball offices already have high end video that he will look to augment.

“We’ve got very high end video capabilities here and we’ll continue to look to add to that,” Bower said. “I am just in the process of reviewing all of those, the exact things that are available to us. What we have here is a high end video system that is capable of doing everything that we did at the NBA level and moving forward it’s a tremendous resource for us.”

“The school has made a tremendous investment in basketball program over the last couple years and the new basketball complex that is up now and running is at the highest end as far as quality and capabilities. That was, to me, a big part of why I think we can move forward and be successful with building the program.”

Bower said he will look to duplicate the resources he used in the NBA, but also dip into using analytics and technology the program has to push his players to improve.

“I’ll be following a format that I’m used to working in,” Bower said. “Whether that’s through use of technology, use of computers, the use of video, the use of analytics, the use of individualized approach to players, the individualized creation of player video for them to view and format that they’re comfortable with, the access to locker rooms and player lounge to view video and other web-based activities.”

“These are all things that we’ll have in place from a programming standpoint that I think our players will greatly benefit from. Everything is here for us to really build a first class program that will measure player’s progress, will measure their improvement, will measure the processes that we have in place in order to help them become better, more efficient athletes as well as basketball players.”

Meanwhile, Bower will also be building the manpower behind his operation; his basketball staff. Bower said he has done his homework on researching and taking calls on potential assistant coaches. However, Bower said he was not ready to commit to adding any members to the staff yet.

“We’re looking at trying to assemble a group that has a wide cross section of skills,” Bower said. “We’re moving along with that, but not ready to conclude anything at this point.”

Assistant coach Paul Lee who led the transition between staffs after head coach Chuck Martin was fired is under consideration to remain on the staff, Bower said.

Ryan Restivo covers Stony Brook, Hofstra and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo.