Albany
This is where the Iona men's basketball team expects to be. Every March. Right here, playing for a championship.
The Gaels are on familiar ground once again. Iona, the fourth seed in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament, earned the right to play for a title after beating No. 9 St. Peter's 65-62 in a semifinal game Sunday night at Times Union Center.
Another title, that is.
Iona has advanced to the championship game for the sixth straight year. The Gaels have won three of the last five, including the last two. All-time, the Gaels have the best MAAC Tournament overall record (51-26) and 10 titles.
The Gaels will play Fairfield, the sixth seed, in Monday's championship game, which starts at 7 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN. The Stags beat No. 7 Quinnipiac 74-64 in Sunday's second semifinal.
"It is the expectation that our program has," Iona coach Tim Cluess said of Iona's recent trips to the title game. "I don't know if that is a smart one or not, but it is definitely what we hold our standard to, and we try to get there every year."
Getting to this one wasn't easy. The scrappy Peacocks, who had upset top-seeded Rider to get to Sunday, appeared to be on the brink of pulling another shocker. St. Peter's led for just about all of this one, 32 minutes and 38 seconds to be exact. St. Peter's could not get all the way home as Iona roared back from a 14-point deficit with 15:28 left in the second half.
"We were so confident," St. Peter's coach John Dunne said. "But you're not going to blow Iona out, not in the conference tournament. That is just not going to happen."
Junior guard Schadrac Casimir made sure the Gaels (19-13) got another night in the Capital Region as he scored 16 of his game-high 24 points in the second half. It also helped Iona that the Gaels started making all kinds of shots. After shooting a dismal 27 percent from the field (eight of 29) in the first half, Iona couldn't miss in the second half.
Iona was six of nine from 3-point range and 14 for 22 from the field (63.6 percent).
"We have so many guys who can score," said Iona guard Zach Lewis, who had 12 points, nine in the second half.
It also helped that the Gaels took care of the ball. Iona only had five turnovers, three in the final 20 minutes. St. Peter's committed 15 turnovers.
Iona took its first lead with 3:14 left on a three-point play by Casimir. Of the last 13 points Iona scored, Casimir had eight and E.J. Crawford five. Three of Crawford's points came on a well-timed 3-pointer with 1:24 left. That gave the Gaels a 61-56 lead and came right after St. Peter's Davauhnte Turner, the second best free-throw shooter on the team (nearly 80 percent), missed three foul shots.
"We came out a little flat," Casimir said of Iona's slow start. "The run we made came off our defensive energy. We took charges. We got steals."
Iona outscored the Peacocks 45-32 in the second half.
Quinn Taylor led St. Peter's (14-18) with 19 points.
"(Iona) just made a lot of shots when they needed to," Dunne said. "Until they get beat, they are going to be the champions. We were confident coming in that we were going to beat the best. It was a heckuva game."
Fairfield 74, Quinnipiac 64: Fairfield advanced to its first championship game since 2012. Fairfield (17-15) has won the MAAC championship three times, the most recent coming in 1997 when the Stags were the eighth seed. Ferron Flavors Jr. led the way with 21 points and 11 rebounds, his second double-double of the season. Tyler Nelson added 19 points and Jesus Cruz had 11. The Stags upset No. 3 Niagara in the quarterfinals to get to the semifinals.