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The Manhattan Jaspers begin the 2022 faculty basketball season in a dozen days. Appears like a good time to fireplace your head coach. And that’s precisely what occurred in The Bronx (sure, Manhattan Faculty is in The Bronx, recover from it), as Steve Masiello was dismissed from this system simply wanting beginning his twelfth season on the helm of the crew within the closing yr of his contract. Within the 24 hours because the firing was introduced, no wrongdoing or private causes have been hooked up to eradicating Masiello. Sounds solely like tone-deaf timing.
What state of affairs performed out the place this pink slip couldn’t have been given after the season? Or on the finish of final yr? Masiello should’ve identified his personal private stakes in a contract season, creating his roster to finest make a run at an NCAA Event look. All these offseason exercises and preseason tinkering simply to be instructed you’re not a part of the rebuild. The New York Put up later reported Masiello needed a contract extension, which was denied by the varsity, inflicting the overreaction of terminating him. Deadspin has tried to contact Masiello to no avail.
Masiello’s sudden exit has put the Jaspers’ roster in flux lower than two weeks earlier than its season opener, a street sport in opposition to VCU. Manhattan was picked to complete second within the MAAC preseason coaches ballot. The crew’s finest participant, Jose Perez, was picked because the preseason participant of the yr. He’ll by no means put on a Jaspers jersey once more as he’s entered the switch portal and has obtained curiosity from a number of big-time applications together with Arkansas, Louisville, Missouri, Kansas State, Oregon and Texas. There’s no likelihood he alters course and stays in NYC. Perez instructed The Put up he believes a number of, if not all, of his teammates will be a part of him in exiting the varsity.
Right here’s an announcement from Manhattan’s Athletic Director Marianne Reilly, exhibiting no regard for a doable profitable crew that’s already on the college:
“We thank Coach Masiello for his service and need him properly. As we glance to constructing profitable groups for the long run — and with the signing interval approaching — we decided that it’s time to start rebuilding from the highest down.”
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It’s utterly truthful to suppose Masiello didn’t deserve a contract extension at this level in his tenure. He’s failed to guide the Jaspers to the NCAA Event since 2015, and in his 11 seasons in The Bronx, he’s solely guided the crew to a few postseason appearances, two in The Huge Dance. Manhattan Faculty hasn’t had a profitable file since its most up-to-date journey to the Tourney seven years in the past. In his 11 seasons main the Jaspers, he has a 162-177 file. Nonetheless, preseason hype was on the rise, with the promise of Perez. It gave the impression to be a fantastic sink or swim state of affairs in a one-bid league.
Transferring at this level within the yr and hoping for instant taking part in time is silly, as most Division-I faculties locked within the 13 scholarship gamers suiting up months in the past. A training change isn’t a part of the NCAA’s exemptions for the switch portal, which means instant eligibility can be laborious to get even when Perez and different Jaspers have been to seek out touchdown spots elsewhere in Division I. The gamers themselves might petition the NCAA to waive sitting out a season, however the group really granting instant eligibility, and reversing its personal insurance policies, is extraordinarily unlikely.
It’s particularly troublesome for Perez, who has one yr of faculty eligibility remaining. Until the NCAA affords him an olive department, he both has to return to Manhattan beneath interim coach RaShawn Shops — an assistant beneath Masiello — or some of the promising mid-major gamers in America received’t play basketball this season. As of Wednesday afternoon, Masiello nonetheless hasn’t eliminated the point out of him being Manhattan’s head basketball coach out of his Twitter bio. Final week, he was selling Perez’s choice because the convention preseason participant of the yr. Since final Thursday, his tweets have been vague affirmations similar to “The extra you’re keen on your selections, the much less you want others to like them.”
Firing a coach lower than two weeks earlier than the beginning of a season with out trigger is at finest horrible timing. At worst, it’s throwing the varsity’s most, and solely, worthwhile crew beneath the bus throughout Arthur Avenue. What participant would think about an athletic division that decides to vary the course of this system proper earlier than you begin significant video games? All of the free swag and good on-campus exercise tools don’t imply shit when the individuals who present it show their loyalties aren’t with you. The query isn’t if the Jaspers survive this, the establishment will outlast this horrible transfer. The extra logical thought is what number of video games Manhattan should forfeit this season for not having sufficient eligible gamers. Will we see open tryouts at MC within the subsequent few weeks? Manhattan reaps what it sows.
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