Iona needed a win over Fairfield Friday night in order to capture their first regular-season MAAC title since 2001.
Thanks to Sean Armand, they got it.
Armand scored all 17 of his points in the second half to lead the Gaels to a 77-72 victory at the Hynes Center.
Iona, which lost in the conference tournament final to St. Peter’s last year, earned the top seed in next weekend’s MAAC Tournament in Springfield, Mass.
Shabazz Muhammad is headed to visit Kansas after putting on a magnificent performance in the state championship game.
The 6-foot-6 swingman scored 30 of his game-high 36 points Friday night to lead Las Vegas Bishop Gorman to a 96-51 victory over Reno Hug High School in the Nevada 4A state championship game.
Muhammad outscored Hug, 30-25, and only missed one shot in the first half en route to leading Gorman to its third state title in four years.
“The first half was quite a display,” Gorman coach Grant Rice told the Las Vegas Sun. “Shabazz will be the first to say, he gets the spotlight because of his scoring, his highlight dunks and his rankings, but we don’t win this championship without all these guys. We don’t even come close.”
Count Roger Federer among the growing legion
NEWARK — Seton Hall coach Kevin Willard was hired two years ago to clean up the mess left by Bobby Gonzalez and to rectify the program’s sullied image.
To Gonzalez’s credit, on his way out the door he did leave Willard arguably the team’s three best players in Jordan Theodore, Herb Pope and Fuquan Edwin.
Now, nearly two years since Willard was brought aboard an unsteady ship, he has the Pirates on the brink of their first NCAA Tournament since 2006 and the man who hired him says Willard is well ahead of schedule.
As if Mike D'Antoni doesn't have enough
Villanova coach Jay Wright declined to comment on Temple’s imminent addition to the Big East, but says his school supports anything that’s “good for the conference.”
“We’re in support of any expansion that’s good for the conference, that’s all I can say right now,” Wright said Thursday. “Whatever direction the Big East does go by, I’d be glad to comment after they make the move but I don’t want to comment about any schools until it’s a done deal.”
Villanova had long been opposed to Temple joining the conference because both schools share the Philadelphia market, but the Big East desperately needs an eighth football team in 2012 to replace departing West Virginia.
Rutgers coach Mike Rice saw St. John’s make the NCAA Tournament last season in Steve Lavin’s first year at the helm.
Now it appears it could be in-state rival Seton Hall’s turn in Kevin Willard’s second year.
Rice, who is also in his second year running a program that hasn’t gone dancing since 1991, concedes he is a little bit envious of his local Big East rivals.
“The motivation to turn this thing around and get to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in maybe 20, 21 years, yeah, we look at St. John’s last year and maybe Seton Hall this year and look at a little bit of envy and how their upperclassmen seniors are leading them to where they want to go,” Rice said Thursday.
