Siena head coach Gerry McNamara cheers along with his team as a basket is scored late in the second half against Bucknell.
Fred Adams | For Abington Journal
WILKES-BARRE TWP. — Nearly 19 years after he thrilled a sellout crowd with his play on the court, Gerry McNamara was back in northeast Pennsylvania on Nov. 30 showing off his coaching skills.
The night was a sentimental one for McNamara and his second-leading scorer, Justice Shoats from Holy Redeemer High School in Wilkes-Barre, but it was also one that showed off the Lackawanna County native’s abilities in his current profession.
McNamara, in his first season as a head coach, guided an underdog Siena College team to a 71-58 victory over Bucknell University before 3,079 at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza.
The Saints improved to 4-4, already matching the win total from last season despite having to replace their top seven scorers from a year ago.
Two decisions, one involving personnel use and the other more strategic, helped Siena get there by breaking a four-game losing streak.
McNamara not only inserted Shoats, a transfer from Lock Haven University into the starting lineup for his homecoming, but he stuck with the 5-foot-11 junior guard for all 40 minutes when he excelled in the setting.
“When you lose four straight, you start to evaluate things a little bit,” McNamara said. “We’ve gotten off to really bad starts. We didn’t want to dig a hole. It was an opportunity for me to kind of mix things up and do what I was leaning toward anyway.
“But coming home, getting a chance to start him in front of his hometown, in front of his family and friends was a pretty easy decision. Playing him the amount of minutes I played him was completely up to him.”
Shoats scored 19 points on 8-for-15 shooting from the floor and 3-for-4 from the line. He also shared the team lead in defensive rebounds with four and came up with an important block of a 3-point attempt to help shut down a comeback bid by the Bison.
“When he’s got that look, trust me, he’s not coming off the court,” McNamara said.
Any nerves that may have been present did not impact Shoats.
The same could be said for McNamara.
“I told the guys before the game that I’m nervous like the first game I coached against Brown because it’s the first time I’ve coached in front of my mother and father,” he said. “It was special in that regard for me.”
McNamara won a Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association state title and was the state Player of the Year for Bishop Hannan in Scranton, which is now part of Holy Cross High School in Dunmore. A year later, McNamara hit six, first-half 3-pointers in the
final to help Syracuse University to a national title. He had been serving as the top assistant coach at Syracuse before making the move to Siena in the offseason.
Bucknell coach John Griffin III, whose father once held the job McNamara now occupies, praised his opponent.
Siena not only effectively double-teamed 7-footer Josh Williamson, but did so without leaving others open as the defensive rotations limited to Bucknell to 3-for-22 shooting from long range.
“They were throwing bodies at him,” Griffin said after Williamson, who averages 16 points and eight rebounds, managed just six points and two rebounds. “They were going post doubles right as soon as he caught it. We’ve seen a lot of physicality thus far, but we haven’t seen a post double as aggressive as the one we saw tonight.”
In McNamara’s only other appearance at the arena as a senior guard Dec. 27, 2005, he had 20 points, seven assists and five steals in Syracuse’s 86-52 victory over Towson.
