The champs spent the offseason in the shadows.
After Iona had made two straight NCAA Tournament appearances and lost last year’s conference player of the year — Momo Jones — its luster had been lost.
Then, when rival-Manhattan won 11 of their first 13 games, it looked like the MAAC title would be going from the suburbs to the city, validating the preseason predictions of the Jaspers league favorites.
But on Friday night, the Gaels reminded everyone the MAAC crown still resides in New Rochelle.
Meeting for the first time since last year’s championship game, Iona captured the latest round of the conference’s best rivalry, defeating Manhattan, 85-73, in a back-and-forth battle at a sold-out Hynes Center.
With their fourth straight win, Iona (12-8, 9-2) moved into a first-place tie with Canisius, while Manhattan (14-6, 7-4) dropped back-to-back games for the first time this season.
“We want to be where they went. We want what they’ve had,” Manhattan coach Steve Masiello said. “We’ve got to take it from them. I’ve said it all year, Iona’s the defending champions. Someone has to dethrone them and it hasn’t been done yet. We didn’t show we could do that tonight.”
Manhattan failed to win an up-and-down race with Iona in the first half, trailing 39-34, but the Jaspers’ deep lineup seemed better prepared for the second half, opening on an 11-0 run, with Rhamel Brown dominating the paint with 15 points (6-of-7 shooting), eight rebounds and three blocks.
Iona’s fast-paced attack found an immediate surge and went on a 21-8 run, with A.J. English breaking a tie at 50 with back-to-back 3-pointers with less than 11 minutes left and never trailed again.
With Mike Poole scoring a career-high 19 points for Iona, the Gaels got another big, but unexpected boost from the talented, but frustratingly inconsistent David Laury, who tied a season-high with 21 points off the bench.
“We found him, he found himself,” Cluess said — with a huge smile. “I’m really proud of the effort, especially in the second half. He kept the intensity all throughout the end of the game.”
Even after the huge win, Iona senior Sean Armand was still aware — a member of a Gaels squad that won a regular season MAAC Championship and lost in the conference tournament in 2012, and then won a conference tournament as a No. 4 seed last year — it will all come down to one long weekend in Springfield, Mass.
“You just got to win three games in March,” Armand said. “You want to be first place regardless, I want to win everything we do, but who gets through the door first, it doesn’t matter. Honestly, this league you got to win three games. That’s it. We want to be No. 1 at the end of the year.”