Iona was in Springfield, Mass., looking to book a second straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. Preparing for the 2013 MAAC Tournament, Iona was practicing at nearby American International College, where an under-recruited Armand once worked out for the Division II team.
Iona coach Tim Cluess then heard something he knew, but it still made him smile.
“The coach comes up to me and goes, ‘Can you believe it? Sean Armand came up here and I didn’t offer him a scholarship,’ ” Cluess recalled.
The high school senior nobody wanted became the college senior every coach hopes to have.
Long overshadowed by the talented teammates that surrounded him in his first three seasons — Scott Machado, Mike Glover, Lamont “Momo” Jones — Armand steadily has grown from role player to star.
The sweet-shooting swingman from Brooklyn has led the Gaels (5-2, 2-0 MAAC) to four straight wins and ranks 15th in the nation in scoring (22.1), while shooting 44.4 percent on 3-pointers and 64.4 percent inside the arc.
“He’s not even the same kid,” Cluess said. “His overall grasp of the game on both ends of the court, understanding what really happens in the game of basketball, he’s such a smarter player from where he was. The game has slowed down for him so much.”
Even Armand — Iona’s all-time 3-point leader — didn’t envision this ascension.
As a 5-foot-3 high school freshman, people laughed when he said he wanted to play varsity basketball. As a sophomore, his mother wouldn’t let him play because of poor grades.
Even after a nine-inch growth spurt during his junior year, he didn’t think Division I basketball was realistic. Playing at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School in Manhattan, a PSAL Class B school, Armand’s successes were shrugged off as a result of inferior competition.
“I could have 40 points every game, but I’d be playing against nobodies,” Armand said. “I understood that. I wasn’t one of these freak athletes, I wasn’t a known guy, I wasn’t someone who was looked at it, so I had to just keep working hard. That’s what I did.”
Wanting to go away to college, Armand passed on the only Division I offer he received — from St. Francis of Brooklyn — and went to a prep school in New Jersey.
Jared Grasso, who worked at Fordham, saw something in the skinny kid most people thought couldn’t do anything but shoot.
“He wasn’t a kid that blew me away, but there was something about him that I really liked,” said Grasso, now an assistant coach at Iona. “Sometimes you just watch a kid and you have a feeling. He was under-recruited, but he was very confident. … He’s way overachieved where I thought he would be because I didn’t realize the work ethic he had.”
Armand was set to go to Fordham until the school decided not to retain Grasso as head coach after an interim stint. When Grasso came to Iona, the secret about the sharpshooter was out and Armand was planning visits to interested schools, such as Memphis and Houston.
“The day after I got the job, I told Tim there’s a kid we need to get,” Grasso said. “First time I called Sean, he said, ‘I’m not going to Iona. I love you, but I’ve never even heard of Iona College.’ ”
But since the two had developed a very close relationship, Armand figured he would make a quick visit to New Rochelle since it was nearby.
Intrigued by the chance to play in an up-tempo offense with a solid returning core, Armand decided to take a chance on the school, just as Grasso had taken on him.
“I trusted him,” Armand said. “I was an unranked player, a nobody playing Division B basketball. For him to come out to a game and take a chance on me, I really respected him for that. He saw something in me and I appreciated that.”
And the school has been equally appreciative, going 75-36 in his three-plus seasons.
The vocal leader long before he became the go-to guy, Armand is amazed how much has changed, referring to himself as the new Scott Machado, someone who wants to be the example his younger teammates can look to for guidance.
The unwanted player met the unknown school and everything changed. Sometimes it’s about luck. And sometimes, it’s about rolling the dice.
“He didn’t know about the school when he got here, but now everybody’s heard of it,” Cluess said. “We’ve been to two MAAC championship [games], two NCAA Tournaments. … Without him, we wouldn’t be in the position that we’re in.”