On the surface, Manhattan’s loss to Siena on Sunday in The Bronx was just the latest for a struggling Jaspers team that fell to 7-14.
Not to head coach Steve Masiello.
Instead, Masiello used the defeat as an example of what’s wrong not just with his team, but with his squad’s generation as a whole.
Asked about Manhattan’s inability to overcome a slow start at home against the Saints, Masiello went on quite the rant.
“We’re a fraudulent society from top to bottom,” Masiello said in his postgame press conference. “Our society’s fraudulent.”
He was just getting started.
“Everything about our society is edited,” Masiello continued. “Everything about our society is prearranged, so this generation is a fraudulent generation. And what I mean by that is they put their Instagram picture the way they want. They put their tweet out the way they want. Nothing is interactive. Nothing is real.
“So when things don’t go the way people want them to, people really struggle with — if it’s not 75 degrees and sunny and the stars aren’t aligned, if it’s not exactly 4 p.m., they didn’t get exactly eight hours of beauty sleep and the pasta … young people today struggle with it. Our society struggles with that, and for me — I can’t speak for other coaches — I see it more than ever. When adversity comes in, people struggle.
“They’re not bad kids. This might be one of my favorite groups I’ve ever had. They struggle with adversity. They struggle with — that’s a byproduct of our society today, so I think we’re a reflection of our culture a little bit, not to get too deep.”
Too late.
The 39-year-old Masiello led Manhattan to consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances in 2014 and 2015. In between those seasons, he agreed to become head coach at South Florida, but it was later learned he had not graduated from Kentucky, where he had played as a walk-on for Rick Pitino and Tubby Smith.
He ended up staying at Manhattan, got his degree and got the Jaspers back to the tournament. He is now in the midst of a second straight subpar season at 2-8, in the MAAC.