NEWTON, Mass. – It has been seven years since Mount Ida College men's basketball has hosted a playoff game at the Athletic Center. That wait will come to an end tomorrow night when the fourth seeded Mustangs entertain #5 Saint Joseph's Maine in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference (GNAC) quarterfinals at 7:00 pm.
This year's team (16-9, 12-6 GNAC), already holding the most conference wins and among the winningest overall in program history, will try to collect the school's first ever GNAC playoff victory and the first postseason win since 2001, a team that went on to win the program's only North Atlantic Conference (NAC) championship.
To do so, they will have to beat a Monks team for the third time this year, having swept the season series for the second straight season.
Postseason and Opponent History
This is the sixth trip to the GNAC postseason since joining the conference in 2007-08, and the third straight under fourth year Head Coach Ben Davis.
At 13-12 (10-8 GNAC), Saint Joseph's Maine is making their tenth consecutive appearance in the GNAC tournament, having won a title in 2009.
Mount Ida is 6-11 all-time against the Monks, who had won four straight and eleven of the last twelve before the 2015-16 season. They defeated them 69-66 just six days ago in Newton to clinch home court advantage in this game, and were 72-61 winners in Standish, Maine on January 16th of this year.
The teams met in the 2011 quarterfinals in Standish, with the Monks emerging as 82-71 victors in that contest en route to a championship final appearance. They were paired up again in the same round the next year, and the Monks were again victorious on their home court.
How They Got Here
In the two month span between November 22 and January 21, the Mustangs went 12-2, including a program record six-game winning streak, to put themselves among the top teams in the conference. Along the way, they defeated Johnson & Wales University for the first time since 2013.
Saint Joseph's won four of their first five conference games and then, in January, knocked off both Lasell and Albertus Magnus to cement themselves as a playoff contender. Despite a rocky stretch to close the regular season, the Monks had separated themselves enough to grab the top road spot of the final eight.
Players to Watch
It is a balanced offensive attack for Mount Ida, who has four players averaging in double-figures, led by Ethan Dujon's (Warwick, R.I.) 16.1 points per game, and the shooting of Joey DeFillippi (Bristol, Conn.), whose 85.2% free throw mark leads the conference. Mount Ida shoots a conference-leading 36.7% from behind the three-point line and averages 80.4 points and 8.5 steals per game, both in the top-three of the conference.
Junior guard Jayson Clark (Austin, Texas) leads the league with 5.2 assists per game and is second with 2.2 thefts per contest while also scoring 10.7 points per game, an offensive number matched by Errald Jordine (Stamford, Conn.).
Scoring has been spotty at times for Saint Joseph's, who averages 71.0 points per game, led by just over ten points apiece from Marc Corey (Londonderry, N.H.) and Quinn Richardson-Newton (Saco, Maine). That tandem also paces the squad with 5+ rebounds per contest, with Corey shooting 41.5% from behind the three-point line. Ian Mileikis (Auburn, Maine) does a little of everything, dishing out 3.3 assists, grabbing 1.1 steals and averaging nearly 10 points and five rebounds a contest.
How To Watch
The GNAC quarterfinal game will be live streamed on Stretch Internet, https://portal.stretchinternet.com/mountida/
Live stats will be available within the portal and on mountidamustangs.com
Play by play will be provided by the voice of the Mustangs, Jake Parris.
