‘I’ll take our backcourt against anyone,’ Doty, Shoats lead Siena to semifinal win
· Yahoo Sports
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Throughout the offseason, as I formulated my picks for preseason All-MAAC in my head, there was a tug-of-war on whether Justice Shoats or Gavin Doty would be Siena’s best player this season. They were both clear picks for those preseason teams, and have backed it up all season.
Doty was named All-MAAC First Team, while Shoats was named All-MAAC Second Team last week.
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But they may have saved their best game for their biggest moment.
The duo exploded for 51 combined points, 26 from Shoats and 25 from Doty, to lift Siena into the MAAC Championship Game with a 76-61 win over Fairfield on Semifinal Sunday. Of all of their terrific performances, this was the first time that both scored 25 points in the same game. The 26 was Shoats’ season-high as well.
“I feel like there were times in the game where they were trying to cut it close,” Doty said. “(Justice) made a big shot, I made a big shot, and we were not losing this game. We’re gonna do whatever it takes. We took it in four-minute segments, and that’s why we came up with the win.”
While Brendan Coyle scored the first five for the Saints, it quickly turned into the Doty and Shoats show. Not for any reason besides their ability to take over a game.
“I thought our scoring would be a little more spread out,” head coach Gerry McNamara said. “They just had great games. I didn’t think it was anything in particular.”
But he did note that Doty and Shoats are both effective getting to the foul line. It hasn’t been quite as big a part of Shoats’ game this year, dropping from a 44% free throw rate last year to 25, but he attempted 11 free throws on Sunday, dashing into the lane.
Doty doesn’t need a foul to finish through contact, but he’ll gladly take one. He may lead the country in shots made while falling to the ground. There isn’t a player in the MAAC, star or not, that ends up on the canvas more than him, but he gets up every time.
Both Doty and Shoats are elite operators of the mid-range, but it’s their evolution as outside shooters that makes them even more dangerous. Back in January, McNamara mentioned that he was discussing shooting more threes with both of them, and it has paid off.
Doty made three threes on Sunday night for the first time since January, but has been attempting them more consistently. For Shoats, it’s been a slow rise in attempts, which still don’t make up a ton of his shot diet, but connecting on three, a season-high, changed the game on Sunday.
“We work every day on shooting,” Shoats said. “I knew teams were gonna come out guarding me differently. However, they want to show, ice, under, ballscreens, whatever they do, but I knew sometimes I’m gonna have to step up and shoot it. I’m confident in myself, and I feel like I put the work in to do that, and we talk about that every day.”
On Saturday, it was Doty at the foul line down the stretch, and the clutch layup from Shoats. On Sunday, it was the two trading buckets all game long. Fairfield didn’t have any answers, especially with how Francis Folefac and Riley Mulvey were able to keep Brandon Benjamin in check.
In each of Siena’s two meetings with Merrimack – who awaits in the conference final on Tuesday – Antonio Chandler, who has since been deemed ineligible, was a key piece. He’s an important baseline scoring cog against the zone. Shoats and Doty make their money as drivers operating in the mid-range and paint, a tough thing to do against Merrimack’s zone.
McNamara will be searching for every possible way that he can attack that zone. He said he’ll rewatch both of Siena’s matchups with Merrimack in the next two days, and not even look at the film from the semifinal against Fairfield until after the season.
But don’t tell numbers zero and four that it’s a bad matchup.
“I’ll take our backcourt against anyone, any night,” Shoats said. “I feel like Doty and I can get going whenever, whatever it takes. So I’m glad to have these guys on my team backing me up at all times.”