Setters Surprise Adelphi in the Home Opener
Jack Laffey in the Setters’ home opener last Wednesday.
When the Northeast-10 Conference released its annual preseason coaches’ poll last week, it was apparent the Pace University men’s basketball team didn’t get very much respect.
The Setters were picked to finish dead last this year in the NE-10’s Southwest Division.
But last Wednesday night in the home opener at the Goldstein Fitness Center, the Setters stepped onto the hardwood and made the coaches’ forecast look foolish. Facing an Adelphi team expected to finish much higher in the standings, the Setters got a game-high 22 points from junior forward Greg Poleon and 21 more from freshman guard Brandon Jacobs as they came away with a surprising 102-96 victory.
“I just think we’ve got a great group of kids that work really hard,” said Setters head coach Matt Healing after seeing his team take the lead with just under 13 minutes to go and never relinquish it. “It’s just a testament to the work they’re putting in. They come to practice every day, they improve every day, they buy in all the time. So I’m just proud of them for a great team win. Six guys in double figures and that’s pretty much what we’re all about.”
A year ago, the Setters dropped 18 of their final 21 games. So maybe it shouldn’t have been much of a shock when the coaches around the conference thought so little of their 2017-18 prospects.
“We were picked last in the league and I think there’s two reasons for that,” said Healing. “No. 1, they don’t know a lot of our incoming players and the returners that we had. Maybe they don’t think that much of them because we struggled, especially the last half of the year. But no one sees how much work they’ve put in since last March to get better, to get bigger, to get stronger, to get faster, to improve their shot, whatever it might be.”
The Panthers of Adelphi became the first NE-10 team to witness the fruits of the Setters’ labors. They never led by more than five points all evening, and once Peyton Wejnert made a pair of free throws to give Pace a 69-68 lead with 12:51 remaining were forced to play catch-up the rest of the way. Two foul shots from Ray Montilus with 3:40 to go gave the Setters their largest lead of the game, 96-85, and it wasn’t long before they were celebrating their first win of the new season after starting off with a pair of heartbreaking losses earlier in the week in Bridgeport.
“We had a tough weekend,” said Healing, “a couple of close games that didn’t go our way. So it’s great for us to get this learning experience of these close games early on, slowly but steadily just starting to learn how to win these games.”
Pace was trailing 27-22 midway through the first half before an 11-0 burst, sparked by seven points from Jacobs, one of three freshmen already making a big impact, gave the Setters their largest lead of the opening 20 minutes. When Adelphi soon answered with its own 9-2 run to grab a 49-45 edge, the Setters closed the half with a 3-pointer from Wejnert and back-to-back buckets in the lane from Poleon and Jacobs to grab a three-point halftime lead.
“We brought them in with the intention that they would play right away and they’ve done so well that we’re starting some of them,” said Healing about his talented freshmen recruits. “I know what these guys can do and they believe in themselves. Maybe not a lot of other people know their names yet, but they will soon.”
The lead changed hands half a dozen times in the early minutes of the second half, but the free throws with just under 13 minutes remaining by Wejnert, a 6-7 sophomore who finished with 15 points and nine rebounds, put Pace in front to stay. A layup by Doug Chappell moved Adelphi within 81-78 with eight and a half minutes left, but the Panthers never got any closer the rest of the evening.
Two free throws with 15. 3 seconds on the clock by Poleon, who made 10 of his 16 shots from the field, sealed the outcome. Jacobs added a steal and layup with a couple of seconds remaining for the Setters, who shot an impressive 61 percent from the floor in the first half and finished the night 39 of 69.
Every game it’s gonna be a different guy,” said Healing. “We saw that opening weekend, we see it again tonight. Just a lot of interchangeable parts and I think we’ll be hard to scout. We have a very unselfish team that moves the ball a lot.”
According to Healing, just three games into a new season, there’s already been plenty of signs of progress for his Setters.
“I really like how much we’re improving,” he said. “I think we’re a very new team, collectively, that’s trying to mesh together. From October 15th, when practice started, to our first scrimmage, we improved. And from the first scrimmage to now, we’re just continuing to improve all the time. So I feel like it could be scary to see where we are in another month or two and how much we improve.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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