This off-season was a time for a change for the Iona men’s basketball program. After being eliminated from the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championship tournament in the final, the team fired second-year head coach Tobin Anderson. To replace him, Iona hired Dan Geriot, who was most recently the assistant coach for the New Orleans Pelicans but also has had head coaching experience with the Cleveland Charge.
But, much like when Anderson came in and Rick Pitino before him, Geriot’s arrival signals a time of change for the program, with a brand new roster facing a brand new set of challenges for Geriot’s first year as a head coach at the college level.
Iona’s roster this season sees two players return for Geriot’s first season. One of them is Luke Jungers, a senior forward who averaged five and a half points in 18 and a half minutes last season, and Connor Horan, a walk-on who redshirted his freshman season last year.
Geriot also brought in 14 new players for the upcoming season. Five are freshmen, one is a sophomore, four are juniors, one is a senior, and three are graduate students.
Out of all the new players, the three additions that fans should be looking forward to are freshman forward Deondrea Lindsey, graduate forward Toby Harris and graduate guard KeShawn Williams.
Lindsey, a six-foot, eight-inch forward from Knoxville, Tennessee, held offers from major colleges and was ranked as a four-star recruit by 247Sports, being ranked 117th nationally and Iona’s second-highest ranked recruit, after Norvel Pelle. A defensive-minded big, he’ll be an anchor for the Gaels on the defensive side of the ball this season.
Harris, a six-foot, eight-inch forward from Durham, North Carolina, graduated and transferred from Division III school Brandeis University. In 24 games for the Judges last season, Harris averaged 18.8 points per game, five and a half rebounds, and about two assists on 48.5% from the field, 40.4% from three, and 84.7% from the free throw line. If his scoring abilities can transfer over from the D3 level, he can become a very important piece of Iona’s offense.
Williams represented Iona men’s basketball at the MAAC Basketball Tip-Off alongside Geriot, and is a graduate transfer from Colorado State. Last season for the Rams, Williams averaged around five points and almost two rebounds on 50% from the field and 37.3% from three. A two-way athletic guard, it’ll be interesting to see if Williams can return to the form he had when he played for Northern Illinois, where he was a double-digit scorer.
Some other notable additions to the team are Alliou Fall, who averaged a double-double in Sweden’s Basketettan last season, Oscar Hourrutiner Jr., who was a member of DME Academy’s “Fantastic 4 Boricuas” last season, American East All-Rookie team member Khalil Badru, Lamin Sabally, brother of WNBA All-Star Satou Sabally, and Denver Anglin, who averaged almost 9 points for Rice last season.
The main concern for the Gaels this year is a lack of chemistry due to the insane amount of roster turnover, similar to the problems for the past two seasons. With high-profile games during non-conference play like Princeton and St. John’s and a stacked MAAC schedule, the team will have to figure out that problem quickly, if it is one at all.
