COLONIE — It's nearly impossible to overstate how miserably terrible the Siena men's basketball team was in the season that just ended.
Yes, the 4-28 record tells a dire story all on its own. But within those many defeats were 10 games in which Siena lost by at least 20 points and five when they lost by more than, gulp, 30. On too many occasions, the Saints were just completely overmatched, even when playing schools — Cornell, Mount St. Mary's, Rider — that aren't exactly known as basketball powerhouses.
So you probably weren't shocked that coach Carmen Maciariello was binned soon after the season ended. In truth, it would been shocking had the Shen graduate managed to hang on after, as my colleagues over in Sports noted, the worst single-season record in the program's 86-year history. Even coaches who are good guys, as Maciariello seems to be, can only get away with so much losing.
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"Obviously, this year was an abysmal year, and I’m paying for it with my job," said Maciariello, 45, who also described his firing as "a business decision to make sure the fan base was energized."
With due respect, the decision was obviously a basketball decision, and an eminently justifiable one. But it is true that local fans need energizing, as anyone who watched the Saints in a quiet and largely empty MVP Arena this season can attest.
In short, the glory days of Siena men's basketball feel a long way off, at least for the dwindling number of people who remember them. Consider that the Saints haven't tasted March Madness since 2010, which, not coincidentally, was also Fran McCaffery's last year in charge. Ever since, it's been false hopes, dead-ends and, ultimately, failure.
That's more than a shame, because Siena basketball, when good, is one of this region's few unifying forces. It's the closest thing we have to sports significance. Or at least it was.
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Maybe the next guy in charge, whoever that person may be, will bring back the glow. Presumably, Siena remains highly desirable for any dreamer with ambition and a whistle around his neck. Heck, Rick Pitino wanted the job, so it must have legitimate appeal.
Yet after so much mediocrity, you begin to wonder if our beloved Siena just isn't cut out for this world of one-year players, ceaseless recruiting and transfer portals — despite playing in an arena that supposedly wows kids hoping for a taste of the big-time at a mid-major. It is a brutal business, college basketball, particularly for schools wanting to place ethics on some sort of par with winning.
Who does a local fan root for as March Madness starts this weekend? Alas, the pickings are slim.
With Dwayne Killings coaching the team to another grim season, the University at Albany men are missing from the tournament, of course, although the Great Danes did manage to wallop Siena by 35 points back in November — more evidence of the Saints' utter woefulness.
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"They kicked our butts," Maciariello said afterward. "This is embarrassing. We should be embarrassed."
Yup, he had that right.
Perhaps area fans hoping for a taste of tournament fun should turn their forsaken eyes toward the Colgate men's team, although, with a Friday game against top-ranked Baylor, the Raiders will almost certainly be eliminated before you read this. (Update: They were.)
Or perhaps we could root for the University of Vermont, who made the tournament and will play ... checks bracket ... oh frig, Duke. (Update: A shocking upset there was not.)
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Well, at least we can anticipate next weekend's arrival of the women's tournament, which could, fingers crossed and hope to die, bring Iowa phenom Caitlin Clark to downtown Albany and the arena where the Siena men so often lose. (The Siena women's team had a decent season, at 18-12, played on the Loudonville campus.)
It is hard to know whether Clark's slight connection to the halcyon days of Siena men's basketball — she's dating McCaffery's son — offers a happy hint of better times or a depressing reminder of how poorly things have gone since the coach left town. Or maybe it's just creepy to care who college basketball players are dating.
In any event, next weekend's games should offer a taste of what Albany's big arena can be when fans are, to use Maciariello's word, energized. There will be noise and fun and tickets that cost more than they should. There will be a buzz about basketball.
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It won't be a Siena buzz, alas, but still.
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