MAAC tournament brings D-1 basketball to Albany
By: Kyle Spencer
Staff Writer
The Times Union Center hosted the MAAC men’s basketball tournament for the 20th time this past weekend.
The 2019 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament is the postseason men’s basketball tournament for the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for the 2018–19 NCAA Division I men’s basketball season.
11 teams in the conference participants in the tournament. The top five teams received byes to the quarterfinals. Teams were seeded by record within the conference, with a tiebreaker system to seed teams with identical conference records.
With the tournament concluding on Monday night with Iona beating Monmouth, the six seed, by a demolishing score of 81-60. Iona, being the number one seed, took the MAAC tournament by storm. Dominating every team they faced with an exception of St. Peter’s, the nine seed, with the score 73-71.
Iona also beat Siena 73-57. Iona scored the game’s first seven points, took a 16-point lead in the first half. MAAC Rookie of the Year Jalen Pickett had 15 points, all in the second half, to cap a remarkable freshman season. Pickett is very confident about his odds next year and believes that Siena will take home the tidal next season.
The biggest upset of the tournament being Monmouth taking down Quinnipiac, the three seed, then taking down Canisius, the two seed. Unfortunately, they could not finish the Cinderella story on Monday, losing to Iona.
Iona will now play in the NCAA March Madness tournament. This is the fourth time in a row that Iona has won the MAAC and will be returning to the NCAA.
The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, also known and branded as NCAA March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring. It currently holds 68 college basketball teams that compete in seven rounds for the national championship. Iona has a strong five and could very well be a Cinderella story team for this tournament.
A total of 68 teams qualify for the tournament played during March and April. Thirty-two teams earn automatic bids as their respective conference champions.
Of the 32 Division I “all-sports” conferences (defined as those that sponsor men’s and women’s basketball), all 32 currently hold championship tournaments to determine which team receives the automatic qualification in the MAAC’s case being Iona.
The event was held at Times Union Center and was great for Albany. It pools in money especially when Siena did well.
The last time the NCAA tournament was held here was in 2003 when Syracuse won it all. Times Union Center was selected as a host site for men’s NCAA Tournament first and second round games in 2020.
NCAA Tournament regional in 2019. The arena previously had been selected to host an NCAA women’s regional in 2018, too.
They wouldn’t hold the tournament here because there wasn’t enough room the last time they had it in 2003 but now with more hotels being built in the Capital Region.