The Manhattan Jaspers begin the 2022 school basketball season in a dozen days. Sounds like a good time to fireside your head coach. And that’s precisely what occurred in The Bronx (sure, Manhattan College 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 staff within the closing yr of his contract. In 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 recognized his personal private stakes in a contract season, growing his roster to finest make a run at an NCAA Tournament look. All these offseason exercises and preseason tinkering simply to be informed you’re not a part of the rebuild. The New York Post later reported Masiello needed a contract extension, which was denied by the college, 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 recreation towards VCU. Manhattan was picked to complete second within the MAAC preseason coaches ballot. The staff’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 probability he modifies course and stays in NYC. Perez informed The Post he believes a number of, if not all, of his teammates will be a part of him in exiting the college.
Here’s an announcement from Manhattan’s Athletic Director Marianne Reilly, displaying no regard for a doable profitable staff that’s already on the college:
“We thank Coach Masiello for his service and wish him well. As we look to building successful teams for the future — and with the signing period approaching — we determined that it is time to begin rebuilding from the top down.”
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It’s fully honest to assume Masiello didn’t deserve a contract extension at this level in his tenure. He’s failed to guide the Jaspers to the NCAA Tournament since 2015, and in his 11 seasons in The Bronx, he’s solely guided the staff to 3 postseason appearances, two in The Big Dance. Manhattan College hasn’t had a profitable report 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 report. However, preseason hype was on the rise, with the promise of Perez. It seemed to be an important sink or swim state of affairs in a one-bid league.
Transferring at this level within the yr and hoping for speedy enjoying time is silly, as most Division-I colleges 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, that means speedy eligibility can be arduous to get even when Perez and different Jaspers had been to search out touchdown spots elsewhere in Division I. The gamers themselves may petition the NCAA to waive sitting out a season, however the group truly granting speedy eligibility, and reversing its personal insurance policies, is extraordinarily unlikely.
It’s particularly tough for Perez, who has one yr of faculty eligibility remaining. Unless the NCAA provides him an olive department, he both has to return to Manhattan beneath interim coach RaShawn Stores — an assistant beneath Masiello — or one of the crucial promising mid-major gamers in America gained’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. Last week, he was selling Perez’s choice because the convention preseason participant of the yr. Since final Thursday, his tweets have been imprecise affirmations comparable to “The more you love your decisions, the less you need others to love 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 college’s most, and solely, worthwhile staff beneath the bus throughout Arthur Avenue. What participant would place confidence in an athletic division that decides to alter the route of this system proper earlier than you begin significant video games? All the free swag and good on-campus exercise gear 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 must 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.