I certainly wasn't particularly impressed with Manhattan. Masiello may have had a very good year last season, but this year his team isn't doing well (1-4 with their only win against Binghamton, ranked 331st by rpiforecast). Indeed rpiforecast predicts a ranking of 225 for them and 219 for us by the end of the season. And they made the same sort of knucklehead passes to no one in the second half that we made in the first half. They suffered a long stretch of empty possessions toward the end of the first half, a characteristic that we've exhibited many times this year. So how much of improvement is Masiello likely to bring to the table?
Manhattan has lost to Florida State, UMass, Northeastern (picked 1st in CAA), and George Mason. I'd only count one of those as a really bad loss. They also lost their top 3 scorers from last years team.
The 4 seasons before Masiello was hired, Manhattan had gone 3-15, 4-14, 9-9, & 5-13 in conference. In Masiello's first year they went 12-6, and by year 3 they were MAAC conference champs giving #4 Louisville a close one (60-60 w/under 2 minutes before a certain crafty white guy went off for the Cardinals).
To be fair, I didn't see the Manhattan game, was watching football instead. I did see them in the tournament and they looked solid. I'd roll the dice on a guy with that resume over 4 seasons.
