By Joe Budzelek
After two straight seasons in which November felt like the longest month for Iona fans, the Gaels are back in the New York groove after Friday night’s 76–71 victory in their rekindled rivalry against Fordham. With that win, Iona has started 3–0 for the first time since 2021.
Across Tobin Anderson’s tenure at Iona, the Gaels didn’t reach three wins in either season until December, slogging through a combined 2–11 start to non-conference play—almost all of it against mid-majors. That stretch created a palpable sense of PTSD throughout Gael Nation entering this season.
While the Gaels have undergone nearly full roster overhauls over the last three offseasons, new head coach Dan Geriot and general manager Craig Moore have brought a clear plan for Iona’s next chapter. Their approach emphasizes a positionless, skill- and team-oriented offense built on passing and cutting from all five spots within motion sets that create ample spacing—a sharp contrast to Anderson’s half-court motion system, which relied heavily on guards Dae Dae Reaves and Adam Njie to navigate difficult shots and passes inside the arc.
“This offense should put a lot of stress on defenses,” Geriot said prior to the season. “The idea is: it’s a forty-minute game, and for thirty of those, we’re going to play pretty positionless and be a real force offensively. We’ve got a lot of good dribblers and passers. We also have good shooters, so if our dribbling and passing hit the right spots cleanly, we can put players in position to become great shooters.”
With an analytically driven approach to roster building, Geriot and Moore have already shown the ability to target under-heralded players with limited résumés who nonetheless fit exactly what Iona needs.
A prime example is senior forward Lamin Sabally.
The Berlin native originally began his career at UTSA after finishing high school as a three-star recruit at Bella Vista Prep. As a freshman, the 6-foot-7, 195-pound small forward gradually grew into his current 6-foot-8, 215-pound frame. Before the season, the staff was excited to expand Sabally’s offensive game and unlock the potential he flashed both at UTSA and last year at Incarnate Word, where he finished as the team’s second-most efficient defender thanks to the length and athleticism that now allow him to legitimately guard positions one through five at Iona.
“At Incarnate Word, the coaching staff did a great job of putting Lamin in very specific actions with space to make plays,” Geriot said after Friday’s victory, in which Sabally finished with 11 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks, and—most surprisingly—six assists. “While he usually finished at the rim, Lamin also had some instinctual plays that opened our eyes to what he could become.”
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| Lamin Sabally (#9) anchoring Iona's defense in their Friday night victory over Fordham (photo credit: Riley Frain) |
After totaling only 25 assists across 68 games in his first three seasons of college basketball, Geriot’s offense has unlocked Sabally as a prolific point-forward. He has now recorded four or more assists in every game this season.
“In this offense, he’s a handler—we like to group our guys as handlers, spacers, and screeners,” Geriot said. “He can move across pods, but for us, he’s mostly in the handlers pod right now.”
In the Fordham win, one play that electrified Hynes Athletics Center was an alley-oop Sabally set up for a slashing Kosy Akametu, another diamond-in-the-rough addition who now needs only six more points to match his single-season high from his previous three years at Santa Clara. Speaking of shrewd pickups, starting point guard CJ Anthony scored 21 points and dished 8 assists last night—nearly matching the 28 points and 8 assists he totaled across three seasons as a walk-on at Cincinnati. Anthony leads the Gaels in total assists, with Sabally just one behind.
Despite Sabally’s breakout—from entering the season as a rotational defensive Swiss Army knife to becoming a high-usage offensive weapon—Geriot believes the quick-learning forward still has room to grow. “We want Lamin to continue developing patience and timing not only for himself, but also for his teammates,” Geriot said. “That’s why we’re seeing the uptick in assists and potential assists—his patience is growing at a rapid rate.”
It’s still incredibly early, but Sabally’s rapid growth is positioning him not only to become one of Iona’s most valuable players this season, but also to earn a spot on an All-MAAC Team when awards are announced in March.
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