ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. \u2014 Gavin Doty scored 23 points, Brendan Coyle and Riley Mulvey posted double-doubles and Siena clinched an NCAA Tournament berth by beating Merrimack, 64-54, in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Championship game Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
Led by second-year head coach Gerry McNamara, the former Bishop Hannan and Syracuse Orange legend, the Saints (23-11) are back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n
After his playing career ended, McNamara spent 15 years at Syracuse, starting as a graduate assistant in 2009, before being promoted to full-time assistant in 2011, then associate head coach in 2023, following the hiring of Adrian Autry to replace Jim Boeheim.<\/p>\n
McNamara, who had his jersey number retired by Syracuse on March 4, 2023, is Syracuse\u2019s all-time leader in 3-point field goals (400), free-throw percentage (.888) and minutes (4,799), and helped lead the Orange to the National Championship as a freshman in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been around so many wonderful people, to go to a place like Syracuse and to learn with coach (Boeheim), and for him to bring me back and kind of get my feet wet in this industry \u2026 I fell in love with the developmental process,\u201d McNamara, 42, told ESPN in a courtside interview after the game. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of how I still coach. It\u2019s been a long journey \u2026 I\u2019ve had some great mentors, great people in my life who have helped me along this path.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got my own thing now, my own culture and they helped me create it. This is what you get when you create something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doty scored 18 points after halftime, Mulvey scored 11 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and Coyle scored 11 and grabbed 10 rebounds. Francis Folefac added 10 points on a night both teams struggled shooting.<\/p>\n
Siena shot 38% (21 of 55) compared to 29% (17 of 58) for Merrimack (23-11).<\/p>\n
Folefac and Mulvey each played 40 minutes with Coyle, Doty and Holy Redeemer graduate Justice Shoats playing 38 minutes. Christian Jones was the only reserve McNamara used off the bench.<\/p>\n
Ernest Shelton scored 17 points, Kevair Kennedy scored 15 points and Todd Brogna 12 for the Warriors.<\/p>\n
Siena built a 24-9 lead in the first 10\u00bd minutes before the Warriors responded by outscoring Siena, 21-9, over the back end of the first half and drew within 33-30 at intermission.<\/p>\n
The Saints emerged from the break with a 12-0 run to extend the lead to 45-30. Merrimack regrouped and got back in it, outscoring Siena, 17-6.<\/p>\n
But after Merrimack\u2019s Kennedy made two foul shots to get within 51-47, Doty scored Siena\u2019s next six points and the Saints created safe space from there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. \u2014 Gavin Doty scored 23 points, Brendan Coyle and Riley Mulvey posted double-doubles and Siena…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2300,178,180,179,726],"class_list":["post-135532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-college-sports","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}