STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Aaron Goldstein had all of last season to get used to wearing the bull\u2019s-eye.<\/p>\n
The College of Staten Island junior guard averaged 10 points per game as a freshman, then 12 a game last year as he started playing a lot more minutes and getting a lot more defensive attention from opponents.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a huge difference when an entire team (is) trying to stop you,\u201d CSI coach T.J. Tibbs said of Goldstein just before this season started. \u201cI know he\u2019ll adjust well to that this year after seeing it, and he\u2019s improved. He worked really hard over the summer. He\u2019s a lot stronger. And he\u2019s leading a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tibbs\u2019 remarks have proven to be prophetic.<\/p>\n
The Dolphins are 9-4 overall and 2-1 in the East Coast Conference as they hit the Division II holiday break. Goldstein is scoring 21.2 ppg, tops on the team and the ECC and 18th nationally in Division II. <\/p>\n
This week, Goldstein, an Island native who played at Xaverian HS in Brooklyn, was selected the Met Basketball Writers Division II\/III men\u2019s player of the week for the first time in his career and the ECC\u2019s player of the week.<\/p>\n
The 6-foot guard averaged 28.0 points and 5.5 assists in helping the Dolphins (9-4) secure a pair of homecourt victories last week — a 93-88 win over Wilmington and a 104-95 win over Holy Family.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m never surprised by anything he does,\u201d Tibbs said Tuesday. \u201cHe has the freedom to make plays within our offense at all times. Everyone sees the points, but he has really begun to make strides as a playmaker, which has enabled us to have team success.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, the guard combo of Goldstein (4.0 assists per game) and JJ Chestnut (5.2 apg) has turbo-charged the Dolphins on offense lately. The Dolphins have won five of their last six games, scoring 100 or more three times and getting 90 or more twice.<\/p>\n
Goldstein in two games last week shot 58.3% (14 of 24) from the field, including 56.5% (13 of 23) from three and made 15 of 16 free throws. He had 23 points and six assists against Wilmington and 33 points (with eight triples) against Holy Family.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s very comfortable right now as the focal point of scouting reports,\u201d Tibbs said. \u201cHe is playing with a level of poise that speaks to his preparation and ability to take last year\u2019s experience and grow from it.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
NOTES: Racky Kane of the CSI women\u2019s team was named ECC player of the week and was among several players to receive Division II-III honorable mention recognition last week from the Met Writers. Kane averaged 17.7 ppg and 8.0 rebounds per game in CSI\u2019s wins over American International and Pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Aaron Goldstein had all of last season to get used to wearing the bull\u2019s-eye.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-79768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}