In hindsight, Iona junior guard Daniss Jenkins said it was a necessary loss.
The Gaels staggered out of MVP Arena on Jan. 27 after a 70-53 defeat to Siena in a battle for first place in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
“I think we needed that as a team,” Jenkins said. “We needed that because it made us come together. I think we were a little together before, but after that game, as a team you can go either one of two ways. You can go downhill or you can learn from that and never look back.”
Iona chose the latter. The Gaels haven’t lost since that night.
Led by Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino, Iona returns to MVP Arena on a 14-game winning streak entering an NCAA Tournament first-round game at 4:30 p.m. Friday against the fourth-seeded University of Connecticut.
The 13th-seeded Gaels (27-7) are coming off a 76-55 victory over Marist in last Saturday’s MAAC championship game in Atlantic City, N.J. It was Iona’s record 14th MAAC title.
“I’m so proud of them for what they’ve given us this year,” Pitino, in his third season at Iona, said during the postgame news conference. “But we’re just starting this. We have firm belief that we can go on and play good basketball (in the tournament) … I told the guys three weeks ago, ‘If you fall anything short of 27-7, I’ll be very disappointed.’ And they did it.”
Jenkins said the team is happy to come back to MVP Arena for a game only about 150 miles from its New Rochelle campus.
“We love the location,” Jenkins said. “It’s a great spot for us. We don’t have to travel far. Hopefully, our fans will come out and pack the game out. … We’ve just got to go into the game with a lot of confidence.”
Jenkins, a first-year transfer from Odessa College in Texas, earned second-team all-MAAC honors and tournament MVP. He averages 15.6 points per game and leads the…
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