Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: The following program is brought to you in living color on dailyGazette.com or wherever you get your podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: The Daily Gazette Company presents the parting Shots podcast. Now here's your host, Daily Gazette sports editor Ken shot.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Thank you, Scott Geesy, and welcome to the Parting Shots podcast, available wherever you get your podcast. Subscribe today. Thanks for joining me from the parting Shots podcast studio in Schenectady, New York. What a wild weekend of college basketball women's NCAA tournament here at MVP arena in Albany. And then followed on Tuesday by the announcement of a Sienna college men's basketball hiring Jerry McNamara as its new head coach. Adam Schindler and Mike McGaddon were busy down that Albany and doing a great job covering the NCAA women's tour. We're going to talk with them about that weekend and also talk to them about the new hire at Sienna men's basketball. So we're coming up. We'll have Adam Schindler and Mike McGaddam talking about the NCAA women's tournament. You're listening to the parting shots podcast.
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[00:02:29] Speaker A: Hello, this is John D. Augustine, the.
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[00:02:33] Speaker A: You're listening to the parting Shots podcast.
[00:02:36] Speaker D: With Bailey Gazette sports editor Ken Schott.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Welcome back to the podcast and a wonderful time in Albany with the NCAA women's basketball tournament. Of course, also some local news when college basketball Sienna hiring Jerry McNamara as their new men's head basketball coach. We'll talk about that a little bit, but let's get through the look back at the NCAA tournament sweet 16 elite. My colleagues Mike McGadam and Adam Schindler were there all weekend covering and great job, guys. And what was your impression of the weekend? The excitement with Caitlin Clark coming in, LSU, the reputation they have. South Carolina undefeated. Just what kind of a weekend was it?
[00:03:19] Speaker D: It was a ton of fun to cover, that's for sure.
I wasn't leaning close enough to the microphone. That's how fun it was.
When the brackets came out, it was widely concluded that Albany really lucked out with the strength of the teams that got sent here. And the undercurrent with that was that Caitlin Clark was, you know, and the Iowa Hawkeyes were going to be among them. And certainly everybody was kind of sort of praying first that they would win their first and second round games to get here, which wasn't, you know, a little difficult for moments. And then once they did get here, everybody was just absolutely salivating over the potential for LSU Iowa rematch of last year's national championship game. And that happened, too, from our standpoint. They had sellout crowds every day. We got to see some great basketball. We got to see Caitlin Clark, not to sell her overall team short, because Iowa's team is just a blast to watch.
They try to score 90 points every time.
So all in all, it was a tremendous weekend. You know, Albany put on, you know, was ready for its close up, despite what Rebecca Lobo said.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: And we'll talk about a little bit later.
[00:04:38] Speaker D: I bet we will.
But they lucked out with the teams that they got, and they lucked out that the teams that they wanted to reach the elite eight games made it. So, you know, not really. Too many things didn't go wrong.
[00:04:52] Speaker E: There was very much this sense of things built over the course of the five days that we were there. You got this sort of nice appetizer on Thursday. We had press conferences, but Friday, Notre Dame, Oregon State, South Carolina, Indiana were this nice kickoff. Saturday you got Caitlin Clark playing for the first time. You got LSU playing for the first time. They kind of set the stage for their matchup. Sunday you got South Carolina, Oregon State, and then kind of everything built up to the incredible hype that surrounded LSU Iowa on Monday night. And very few times have I been a part of a sporting event, and I could say I've been a part because Hailey Vanlith of LSU did throw a pass that hit me right in the hands on press row, have been a part of an event that had that much hype and that lived up to its hype the way that game.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Did I was there Monday night for the game in the LSU Iowa game. That's the loudest I've ever heard. Times Union center. It's incredible.
[00:05:54] Speaker D: Somebody estimated that it was 70%. It was like a 70 30 split between Iowa people, which doesn't take into account just all the capital region people that had tickets to the game. I mean, visually, you could tell clearly that was a dominant black and gold Iowa Hawkeye crowd in there. And they're used to being really, really loud and packing gyms that they have all season, probably Caitlin Clark's entire career, as far as I know. And they showed up and that that was a component that really added to it was just how ear splittingly loud it was every time Iowa did something good, which was frequent.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:34] Speaker E: I mean, and you had a first half of basketball, and especially a first quarter of basketball that was as beautifully played, a ten to 20 minutes of basketball as you will ever see anywhere. I mean, those two teams offensively just looked like on a complete different level than just about anything you see.
[00:06:55] Speaker D: And really, the only fly in the ointment was Angel Reese flying out of bounds and crashing into the photographer row and having to leave. And she was only out for, I don't know, a minute and a half of actual game time. And clearly she was compromised for a little while there. And she rolled her ankle when this happened and declined to say that it had any impact. And so who knows? It probably did. But other than that, the first half, it was tied 45 45 at halftime. It was bananas. You had a hard time keeping up with the action. It kind of reminded me when I used to cover the fram McCaffrey Sienna games, and I would hand write every basket and some other plays on a notebook and keep a running play by play myself. And I can't tell you how many times I actually literally missed seeing a basket because Sienna would it off a make, would run and be down the court with Ronald Moore as a point guard and would be scoring 2 seconds later, and I'd be writing down one play and looking up and they're scoring. The first half of that Iowa LSU game kind of reminded me of that.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Cause I was like, I was behind the LSU bench, so. And I saw Caitlin Clark's first three pointer, and she's like, I watched it just magnificent just being able to see her make that shot. You see it on tv, but to be up close and personal like that, I was like, wow, she's good.
[00:08:13] Speaker E: Yeah. There was this unbelievable with her over the two games that she played that 29 points and 15 assists on Saturday against Colorado. And there's the sense, aside from some of the most ridiculous precision passes that I have ever seen on a basketball court, that we did not get the full Caitlin Clark experience.
And when she started letting fly in the third quarter and pulling up from, as Ryan Rolco pointed out and as you and I sort of went back and forth on social media from various thruway exits, she started pulling up, starting.
[00:08:53] Speaker D: Disconnectedy and then moving westward.
[00:08:56] Speaker E: Just incredible. There was one, and I mean, there's the shot that kind of got memed on social media a little bit when she lets him fly and Hailey Van lynch just throws her hands up, what the heck am I gonna do with this?
[00:09:10] Speaker D: The photographer who got that shot and that's being used, in fact, somebody said, I'm using this next time my boss tells me to do something and I have no idea how to do this assignment. It was like Hayley Van Lyth facing the camera, goggle eyed and like almost like she knew which camera she was supposed to be looking at with her hands up in the air. And Kayla and Clark kind of sort of lurking in the background after having devastated Haley fan one more time.
[00:09:35] Speaker E: But there was. But there was one. There was one in the third quarter during her hot streak. She pulled up from the M or the a in march at the half court logo and it didn't go down. If she had made that shot, I'm not entirely sure MVP arena would have structurally made it.
[00:09:53] Speaker D: Well, and speaking of structurally making it, she shoots as if this three point stripe doesn't even exist, which means that the little snafu they had with the three point arc being mismeasured out in Portland, they could have sent that one to Albany because they didn't really need any stripes measured correctly in Albany because she just jacked it wherever she felt.
[00:10:13] Speaker E: Like she hit a point in the third quarter where she does something that a handful of people I've ever seen in basketball do. Steph Curry, probably the most among them is she'll be like four to 6ft inside the three point line, dribbling the ball, and then seemingly she will just teleport to about 4ft behind the three point line to get herself an open shot and drain it. There's a confidence to make that shot and to take that shot that I want to know what it's like to be a human being that confident.
[00:10:45] Speaker D: And she's like the matrix. Like, her handle's so good. You know, this has been going on for years, people complaining about, oh, that person's carrying and they don't call carries anymore. Her handle's so good. Like she's one person that basically can dribble wherever she wants to and she doesn't look like she's carrying the ball. She's that good. Now. She said after the game, too, you mentioned that singular play, but she much prefers shooting off the dribble than she does catch and shoot. And so that's why I was just like, okay, give it to Caitlin. Let her dribble around for a little while until she finds her comfort spot, even if that's in Schenectady county jacket, likelihood of it being good is pretty high, which, and she was nine for 23 point in that one game.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah, you mentioned about the carrying. I mean, I was, the LSU fans were behind me. They're on press row and they were complaining she's traveling all the time. No, it was times Kim Mulkey will give the traveling signal. I was like, no, I don't think so. But you speak of Kim Mulke. The Washington Post story broke on Saturday, last Saturday before, you know, before their game. And what was the mood like in that press conference afterwards?
[00:11:55] Speaker D: She shut it down pretty quickly, which kind of predicts she didn't read it, by the way, but called it trash.
[00:12:01] Speaker E: Yeah, it was, it was, there was a tension that kind of, on Friday got shut down very quickly before the piece had been, because the first two questions for her were about it. And the folks in the room basically said, no more questions about this Saturday.
Yeah, she very much, Saturday they played and she kind of, everyone would have expected that she would not have been able to read the piece, which she as said, she hasn't by then. But then, of course, she ends up going off on another piece, which when you read the two pieces going off on the Washington Post piece that I think most people can agree largely just rehashed a lot of it was a profile.
She called it a hit piece weeks.
[00:12:48] Speaker D: Before when she was her big, long statement.
[00:12:51] Speaker E: It was a profile that very much rehashed a lot of things that were more or less known about her and had been reported and used a lot of things. Like one of the biggest sources for that profile was not an interview with Britney Greiner but Brittney Griner's book that described her relationship with Kim Mulke.
But then obviously the LA Times column really, really got her. And this one, I would say rather rightfully so.
[00:13:23] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely.
[00:13:23] Speaker E: To a point. To a point that it forced an apology from the LA Times and the LA Times writer and an edit.
[00:13:30] Speaker D: Yeah, they chopped a lot of. A lot of it out of.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Do you want to say what the word was? We want to say what the words were.
[00:13:36] Speaker D: Dirty debutantes.
That was a description that the author used for the LSU. It was like this, just poorly constructed and conceived hit.
This was a hit piece, and it was like this. Trying to cast this good versus evil storyline between and in this case, UCLA had nothing to do with Iowa, although I probably could have done that, too.
UCLA being like the good side in LSU because of all their trash talking and their kind of behavior, being the bad guys.
So the concept was pretty flimsy to begin with, but it crossed into sort of like borderline racist overtones casting, you know, the lily white UCLA team against predominantly black LSU Tigers. You know, you could kind of read between the lines. Something was going on.
[00:14:35] Speaker E: It got way too close into Don Imus territory. Did not need to.
[00:14:40] Speaker D: And we don't need to repeat what he said, although we certainly remember it well.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Angel Reese, as we're taping this on Wednesday, has announced she's declaring for the WNBA draft.
The press conference Monday was highly charged because I think a question was asked about Angel's teammates, what she meant to them, and it was very emotional what they said, because I think angel, she's cast on social media as a villain, some things that she's done, but I thought the way that teammates defended her was incredible.
[00:15:17] Speaker E: There's a circle of social media that has decided to cast her as a villain, which is entirely inappropriate. She's a basketball player. She's a basketball player and a personality who, through this weekend, did nothing but conduct herself incredibly well. People don't.
The idea that and the idea of problems with trash talk was brought up many times. It's sports. It's one of the few points that I can truly say I agree with Kim Malkian. They're trash talking on a basketball court. We don't have a problem when a single player in the NBA does it. Why should we have a problem when women's college basketball.
[00:15:55] Speaker D: He made reference to an exhibition game between the US Olympic team featuring Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing against some NBA all stars, including Larry and Magic back in 1984. And she said the crap that came out of their mouths, I was in heaven. So this is like shortly after sports were invented. Trash talk, probably. You know, I don't know if it was like two cavemen, you know, criticizing each other's club side.
[00:16:25] Speaker E: I mean, what that game was. And is Angel Reese a trash talker?
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:16:29] Speaker E: You know, who the justice. Just as big a trash talking about.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: Not more Caitlin Clark. Correct. Now, they clearly toned it down and, you know, I don't know how much of it was a conscious effort to just concentrate on the game, but there was absolutely no sideshow to the Monday game at all. I mean, Caitlin Clark let her guard down one time when she made a big three with less than five minutes left in the game. I think they went up by eleven or so and looked at, specifically at the Iowa crowd up into the stands and kind of screamed, let's go. And they got loud and everything. And she grabbed her jersey, maybe pounded her chest or something like that. That was it. That was the extent of it, which, compared to last year, it was a complete contrast. So that element didn't even really exist. It was just a hard fought game. The Caitlin Clark show in the third quarter got them kind of the upper hand by double digits, and then they sort of maintained that throughout the fourth quarter. LSU never quit and was valiant all the way. Didn't play as well as they can. Probably.
They'd probably be the first ones to admit that their lack of depth kind of showed up a little bit and then ultimately the better team won.
But, you know, the whole, if there's any anticipation for trash talking or any kind of like, circus antics or anything like that, it was just good, hard fought basketball game, lost in a shuffle.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: This was. South Carolina was here. Undefeated. South Carolina, they rolled. They're going.
[00:17:55] Speaker D: I literally just wrote like ten minutes before we started this podcast. In the midst of a kind of another.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they just sort of. It's sort of like, okay, that was the opening act for what we see, but South Carolina is pretty damn good.
[00:18:09] Speaker E: Yeah, they are.
In a season that was very much defined, that has been very much defined by star personalities in college basketball. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese. Juju Watkins at USC. Paige beckers at UConn. South Carolina is this team that has many, many great players, but is probably greater than the sum of its parts. I don't know if there's a single superstar. I mean, Camila Cardoso is going to be a very high WNBA draft pick in about ten days time, but they're a team that just ate nine deep, and everyone contributes, and Dawn Staley has them as a machine. They're exactly what they were last year. They're undefeated, going to a Final four for the second straight year. And, you know, we just had the most watched women's college basketball game in history played in Albany on Monday night. There's the potential that could get topped twice this weekend with both LSU, with both Iowa Yukon on Friday night. And if we get Iowa and undefeated South Carolina on next, look out. Oh, my goodness.
[00:19:14] Speaker D: I brought that up with Bob Belbert, the general manager of MVP arena right after the game on Monday. I said, everyone's, you know, you guys who can't wait to see what the ratings are for this game tonight. But let's not forget that 360 South Carolina and Don Staley, who's a wonderful, charismatic, popular, great interview, coach in person, walked out of here and there on their way to the Final four and it was like, does anybody remember that? He goes, yeah, how crazy is that? And good luck to anybody that plays them because they're really good.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: How would you say MVP Arena Albany did this weekend?
[00:19:53] Speaker D: They knocked it out of the park. And I said, so, you know, again, referring to the article that I'm currently writing, you know, off of the bell Rick conversation, I didn't see any glitches or anything that really turned into an issue. They had a game plan. They stuck to it. Everybody knew what their job was. And you not just talking about the arena staff, they coordinated with the county and the city and the PD and the state police and all the community people and all the escort, you know, shore services. It had get people back and forth between hotels and things like that. So, you know, whatever Rebecca Lobo said, you know, gets a lot of attention and sort of, you know, it's sort of like an umpire that, you know, they're doing their job well when you don't hear about them or notice them. And you could kind of say the same thing about the arena and the city and the county, how they pulled everything off. I didn't really see any, I didn't hear about anybody having any issues or problems or anything.
[00:20:51] Speaker E: Yeah, it really seemed like, you know, we had that, we had the men's tournament here last year and it seemed like this did run, even that ran well. This ran smoother, I think partially helped by the fact that there were no multiple sessions. And if there's something that MVP arena could have an issue with, it's with an event ending and an event beginning and having to get people in and out of, especially that atrium because you can get a little bit of a bottleneck there.
[00:21:15] Speaker D: I did that last year. And in the comments tournament, this was.
[00:21:18] Speaker E: There were no, there was no double admission for these. So everything seemed to really move, you know, extremely smoothly. You know, coaches can say what they want about, about the hotel situation. Rebecca Lobo can say what she wants.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: What made her say it?
[00:21:35] Speaker E: I think it was a funny error.
[00:21:37] Speaker D: It popped in her. It was one of those where the filter in your mouth isn't working and you think it because it's funny and it's a knee jerk answer. And I think she said what she thought and didn't consider the impact of her words.
[00:21:51] Speaker E: Is Albany a modern, cosmopolitan metropolis? Maybe not for these schools that are coming from those highfalutin towns like Iowa City and Columbia, South Carolina and Baton Rouge and Corvallis. You know, I don't understand the complaint. I understand the only complaint I could possibly understand.
These regionals are picked very far in advance.
Could you have easily justified putting this game in a 20,000 seat NBA arena? Certainly.
[00:22:28] Speaker D: And, you know, the coaches were asked about this during the week and gave genuine, honest answers. Mulkey was one of them. I think Lisa Bluder for Iowa was the other one. Somebody asked about just the overall concept of having, you know, two super regionals and, you know, sending eight teams to two different sites, and both coaches sort of preface what they said by saying, well, I don't know how far in advance these bids go out, suggesting that, like, you know, the women's game has grown so much since Albany was, you know, secured their bid however many years ago. It was probably four or five years ago that they, you know, that they announced that NCAA would be coming here in 24. And in the interim, the game got so big that maybe it has even outgrown Albany to some degree, if they keep the format the same way.
But there's nothing wrong with sold out crowds. But when they prefaced their remarks about, well, I don't know how soon these bids go out or how far in advance, they were referring to the hotel quality and abundance. And, you know, proximity to the arena is not nearly the same as it would be in a city like Seattle, which I already mentioned is the city that Lisa Bluder brought up. But Albany is never going to be Seattle. And under the current iteration of the women's tournament, you know, it's a perfect site.
A couple years from now, who knows if it will be. Maybe the women's game will continue to grow and will outgrow places like Albany just based on logistics and hotel accommodations. You know, they're going to give the better hotels to the more high profile teams, which means somebody's going to get a hotel that is a lesser grade and lesser quality and maybe not as close to the arena in a city like Albany. And, you know, I don't know that that's ever going to change or maybe.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: They go back to the format where we have four regional.
[00:24:18] Speaker E: Well, that was brought up, too, and certainly would not surprise me if we go to, back to a four regional format. This, I believe only the second year.
[00:24:27] Speaker D: They'Ve done the sequence was in 21. They were all in one spot because of the pandemic. And then they went to the super regional in 22 two sites. So it was sort of an offshoot of the pandemic, you know, format that was forced on everybody and then they just stuck with it. And again, probably because, you know, they package these bids and, and they have to go out, as, you know, in whatever year the 24 bids were approved. Maybe it was even the pandemic year. They couldn't see far enough.
[00:24:57] Speaker E: If I, if I remember the other sequence correctly, this Albany's bid for a regional was actually a, they had gotten it, I believe, for 21.
[00:25:07] Speaker D: Oh, so they, this was a make good. Yeah. Yeah, right. Which, you know, same as the men was last. There's a lot of weird adjustments that had to be made. I know Bellver, when I had, did a big interview with him over the winter time because he's going to be retiring and he hit his 30 years down there on South Pearl street, mentioned that, you know, they really crave getting the Mac tournament back, basketball tournament at their gym here, which has done very well for years, but it's been in Atlantic City. And he said he actually conceded that because Atlantic City was supposed to have it, the pandemic year, and the whole thing got canceled, he was okay with it. He's like, you know what? That guy down there, he deserves to have it because they, you know, they got kind of screwed by the circumstances of the pandemic and everything. So the pandemic kind of threw a monkey wrench into a lot of the normals go out and how they're accepted.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Well, again, guys, great job on that. Hopefully a couple years we'll cut the COVID some more, so we'll see what happens.
[00:26:05] Speaker D: But, you know, the way the women's game has been changing, you know, I think the NCAA was probably.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's take a break and we're going to talk some local college basketball with the hiring of Jerry McNamara as a CNN men's basketball coach, you're listening to the parting shots podcast.
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Hi, this is RPI men's hockey coach.
[00:27:13] Speaker C: Dave Smith, and you are listening to.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: The parting shots podcast with Daily Gazette.
[00:27:18] Speaker D: Associate sports editor Ken Schott.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: Welcome back to the podcast. And on Tuesday, the day after the women's basketball tournament wrapped up at MVP arena, there was a press conference down there and Jerry McNamara is named the new head coach of Sienna men's basketball. Jerry, a longtime Syracuse player, assistant coach under Jim Behaim, finally gets a chance to run his own team. Mike, and you were down there as well as Adam. Your take. Adam, first of all, let me ask you, because you. Let's go to the Syracuse. Yeah, let's go to the Syracuse guy.
[00:27:48] Speaker E: Yeah. Jerry McNamara is a jerry, and I weirdly go a long way back, so I decided to go to Syracuse University the morning of the 2003 national championship game. That night he goes out and hits six three pointers. Big part of that win over Kansas. I'm there on campus for his last three years, including, most famously, the 2006 Big east tournament and Jim Boeheim's not ten bleeping games rant. And obviously, he's a fixture of Syracuse basketball, one of the most beloved college basketball players in a single program that you'll ever find, and seemed pretty clear, especially when you see that not really a whole lot of other names ever came out in terms of a shortlist at Siena, that this was the guy that this program wanted, and based on his press conference, seems ready to take that leap. He's 40 years old, got four kids. He's been in Syracuse essentially longer than he was, longer than he ever was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he grew up.
This was. Got the sense that he was ready to kind of fly the coop and go out on his own.
[00:29:01] Speaker D: And, you know, I kind of did a wiseacre move when Sienna hired Jamie on Christian six years ago, where I showed up for the exact same, you know, press conference, you know, and I actually kept a running tally of how many times the word excitement or some form of it was used, and use that in my column, and I can't remember what the number was. It was probably like 15 or 20 or something like that. And I kind of jokingly said, oh, I guess I'm going to have to do the same thing. This time, but I didn't. But I can tell you just anecdotally, I don't remember the word excitement being used once. Not because there is an excitement, but if you were keeping a scoreboard, the word win came up way more than the word excitement. And he really got passionate toward the end of his prepared comments, which were about ten minutes long and was like, I almost was waiting for him to pound his fist on the podium. He was like, really? You saw this gradual buildup, and the buildup was to the fact that I'm here for one reason and that's to win. And there's no possible message that could resonate better with Sienna fans in the wake of a 428 season. Then hearing that word as many times as possible, followed by the word immediately, he's not waiting around. He's not trying to, like, ease into this whole head coaching thing. He wants to win right away, and there's no message that could possibly have been welcomed more willingly by Sienna fans than that one.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Let me ask the Syracuse grad here, why didn't he get the job when Jim Boeheim resigned, retired, this seemed like.
[00:30:29] Speaker E: And again, there were basically, it was probably, I would assume, between him and Adrian Autry, who ended up getting the job. Adrian Autry is the senior assistant, the guy who I think the athletic department had probably groomed for that spot.
There's speculation that Bayheim had kind of grew McNamara for that eventual spot, but given that it wasn't, at least at the exact moment when Jim Boeheim decided to retire or was told, you are retired now, all semantics.
It was essentially, by the end of that day, it was known that Adrian Autry was going to be taking over, and there were questions if McNamara would stay last year, I don't believe there was any, like, oh, I was spurned, I'm leaving now. If there was, he would have been gone last year. I think this is the sense of, he's 40 years old. He's been an assistant for a graduate assistant, then an assistant coach, then the associated coach. He's been in the coaching realm at Syracuse for 15 years. If he was ever going to become a head coach, he had to do it now. And if he was ever going to become the Syracuse head coach at this point, he probably had to leave.
[00:31:42] Speaker D: And he very graciously mentioned that he and Adrian Autry are very good friends and he took a lot of value out of, you know, whether he felt like he was spurned or not, I don't know that, but whether that was the case or not. He used that one year as the associate head coach under his friend as a valuable experience to kind of see the process. Because don't forget, Adrian Autry is a first time head coach as well, and they won 20 games and did some pretty good things. And so he sort of had a chance to observe what a first time head coach would do. And he said on Tuesday, I'm going to use a lot of that in this experience for me. So it was valuable to him.
So he sounds like a resourceful, observant person who's going to soak in whatever experiences and moments that he can to help him in his new role, and that was one of them.
[00:32:40] Speaker A: He expects to win. You said problem is, team coming off a four and 28 with three quarters of the teams in the portal, how's he going to win?
[00:32:47] Speaker E: Well, when you're four and 28, do you really worry about the fact that you're not going to have three quarters of the roster that went four and 28?
[00:32:55] Speaker D: He could be five and 27. That's improvement.
[00:32:59] Speaker E: Obviously they lost. Sean Duergordon stepped into the portal the day before McNamara's press conference, which means the grand total of players on his current roster, I believe, is five. I believe it's.
[00:33:14] Speaker D: I think three of them were at the press conference.
[00:33:16] Speaker E: Conference, yeah, it's Brandon Coyle. Michael Ojo actually might be four. Braylon Smith, Michael Evagaro and Mosey Clayton, who's a freshman. Walk on.
He did get a commitment the morning of Tuesday morning. Miles Wilmoth, six nine forward, transferring from Hofstra, where he redshirted last year, previously played a butler.
He's going to be building a roster of. He's going to get not somewhere between nine and 14 players in there, because who knows how many of these freshmen opt to stay or not stay after their conversations.
It's the way mid major college basketball is. This is not unusual at all. Most of these mid major schools are going to be replacing, I would say, at a minimum, a third to three quarters of a roster of non graduating players every single year. Because players are either going to be, if they're successful, they're going to go to a higher level where they can get better, nil if they're not successful, or if they're not playing, they're going to go somewhere where they think they can get playing time.
[00:34:24] Speaker D: Which means your approach to recruiting is substantially different now. And he's been like, recruiting has been one of his things at Syracuse for a long time now. So he, you know, clearly has like a pool of people out there that, that, you know, it reminds me of miracle when Kurt Russell says, oh, I gotta call Craig Patrick. I'm sure he's making phone calls left and right to people that he already has established relationships with. You know, the kid, the kid from Butler in Hofstra. That didn't take long. So I'm sure, you know, we're going to kind of see this parade over the next few weeks. You know, one thing he emphasized was we get good in the summertime, which means he has to build the roster in the next one and a half to two months.
And I think there's just so. He has so much groundwork laid. You know, maybe clearly Syracuse is recruiting different players than Siena is, but he's, he's got a pool and he has relationships with people and it's going to be interesting to see who he brings in here.
[00:35:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to ask about his name. Obviously he's out there, so, I mean, how much does that help Sienna?
[00:35:28] Speaker D: It doesn't hurt.
[00:35:29] Speaker E: Yeah, he is, he is. He is a college basketball name. He also has recruiting connect. He recruits, he knows the north, he knows the northeast recruiting scene. And nowadays he knows people who he recruited and didn't go to Syracuse or people who he, or he knows someone who knows someone. The full, his full staff has not been announced yet. The, the name that's been out there most and has been confirmed by or reported by by a number of sources is Ben Lee, who was on Mike Hopkins staff at Washington. Mike Hopkins was one of Jerry McNamara's mentors at Syracuse. Ben Lee played at Union College from 2015 to 20, 1927 years old, considered just from reading, one of the rising division one young assistants in the country, and yet another guy who has Albany city Rocks connections, which would be big for a program that kind of did not recruit the city rocks over the last four or five years under car Massarello.
But this is a really interesting thing. One other thing he did not talk about or was really not asked about was playstyle. And when you got a guy who comes from a Syracuse system for 20 years, you've got to wonder, is the two three zone coming?
[00:36:42] Speaker D: Which reminds me of one of my favorite Bill raftery moments when he used to start every game call by saying, and so and so starts in miniman. And he was interviewing Boeheim before Syracuse game.
And Boeheim said, I hate to do this to you, Bill, but when we start our game today, you're going to say, and Syracuse starts in a two three zone. So that would be very interesting to see how much he pulls from his behem years and how much the Sienna teams that coached by McNamara Mirror what we're used to seeing out of Syracuse. One other thing that wasn't mentioned, at least not to my ears, was, did anybody ask him if JG three was going to be on his staff? That's kind of like the funny Twitter thing that's out there.
[00:37:24] Speaker E: I would assume that Joe, who just finished up at Clemson, will probably try a professional, professional career, either in the.
[00:37:33] Speaker D: US or overseas, right, shooting for somebody.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: Now, when we talked after the Carver Massarella firing, we said how important this was for Sienna to get this hiring right. Did they get it right?
[00:37:44] Speaker D: I think they did. And I asked athletic director John Darjennio, who, by the way, has gotten a lot of heat from Siena fans for his previous four hires and at least how they've worked out.
The only box that Jerry McNamara appears not to have checked off is the lack of head coaching experience. He's got everything you're looking for, including fan appeal like Sienna. Fans really needed this one just for the pure concept of hope.
And, you know, we've talked about a little bit already. When, you know, at a mid major like Sienna, it's difficult because if you hire the guy that works out terrifically, he's only going to be there three years and you're going to move on to bigger and better things. Or if you're stuck with somebody for like five or six years, it probably isn't working out the way exactly that you wanted it to. So I think they got this one right for all the right reasons, including fan appeal, which isn't, you know, the top of the list. But I think it's certainly something they needed to hit out of the ballpark to a certain degree. Their attendance was down over 1000 average per game. You know, nobody wants to go see a four in 2018, but you have to look at stuff like that. Really, the only box that he didn't check was head coaching experience, and I think you can live with that, especially when you're a mid major like Sienna.
[00:39:01] Speaker A: Well, how important is it gonna be for the fans to be patient next year as Jerry builds this?
[00:39:06] Speaker E: Yeah, I mean, it's extremely important. With any new coach, I think you get, especially a new coach with a name value that he brings, you'll probably get a little bit of a honeymoon period.
I wonder how long that honeymoon. My guess is that honeymoon period lasts exactly until the Albany cup. And if the Albany cup goes for Sienna, as it went last year, the honeymoon might be cut short a little bit, but it's a mystery. I mean, Sienna completely rebuilt its team this past year that was an almost entirely rebuilt roster from 2022 23 to 23 24. There was some hope early in that season that very quickly went away. And we'll have to see you basically until October, November. You are looking at highlight videos of guys in other places and have no idea how they look together.
[00:39:58] Speaker D: And it's a fascinating mystery because after last year's, like, I'm not sure what level of success Sienna needs to hit this year to kind of get the bad taste of last season out of their mouths.
But also, we already mentioned the honeymoon with Jerry McNamara. He's going to have, I think, a pretty long leash, Albany cup or no Albany cup, you know, at least with the fans, you know, for a lot of reasons, including the fact that he doesn't have head coaching experience and they're going to want to let him get his feet under him and figure things out from that vantage point. But it is going to be fascinating to watch how the Sienna men do next year. And we don't even know who's on the team.
[00:40:42] Speaker A: Guys, I appreciate a few minutes talking college basketball, epic last few days here in the capital region. A lot of stuff.
[00:40:51] Speaker E: Let's take a deep breath after this.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Yeah, we have nothing to come up to with all my sting, right?
[00:40:54] Speaker D: I'm gonna be on my. Well, yeah, there's that, too. I'm gonna be on my couch Friday for those women's games. I don't even know who's in the men's fight.
[00:41:02] Speaker A: Four teams, guys. Thank you very much. All right, we're back to wrap up the podcast and as the latest winner in the daily gazettes auto racing contest, in just a moment, you're listening to the parting shots podcast.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Meet Andrew Waite. He's a dedicated journalist with a passion for research and a commitment to getting all sides of the story, whether it's.
[00:41:45] Speaker G: A local issue or an upstate trend. I do the stories and interviews that shed light on what's important to you.
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Stay informed. Read Andrew waite in the Daily Gazette.
[00:41:55] Speaker G: It's my job to offer commentary about what's happening in our community and what it means to our readers.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: The gazette reporting based on accuracy and integrity.
[00:42:04] Speaker G: It's who we are. It's what we do.
[00:42:07] Speaker E: Hi, this is union college women's hockey head coach Josh Schiba.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: You're listening to the parting shots podcast with Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Schott.
Back to wrap up the podcast, the week's seven winner in the Daily Gazette's auto racing contest was Gary Delugas of Amsterdam with 75 points. Gary wins a dollar 50 gift card. Congratulations, Gary. The VIP winner is Scott Lusher of capital land GMC with 50 points. I'll announce the auto racing contest winner's name and that winner's name will appear in Saturday's Daily Gazette. To play, go to dailyGazette.com and click on the auto racing contest banner.
Just because COVID-19 mandates are easy, that does not mean you should relax, be vigilant. If you have not gotten vaccinated or received a booster shot, please do so. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, and do it for your friends. That wraps up another edition of the Party Shots podcast. I want to thank my Gazette colleagues Adam Schinder and Mike McAdam for coming on the show, and I'm trying to line up an interview with new Sienna men's basketball coach Jerry McNamara for next week's podcast. If you have questions or comments about the podcast, email them to me at shot. That's sch o t tailygazette.com. Follow me on x and threads at slapshots.
The views expressed in the parting shots podcast are not necessarily those of the Daily Gazette Company. The Parting Shots podcast is a production of the Daily Gazette Company. I am Daily Gazette sports editor Ken Schott. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time from the party Shots podcast studio in Schenectady, New York. Good day. Good sports.
