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Coyle, a Niskayuna native who grew up going to Siena games, he was ready to end the Saints\u2019 16-year NCAA Tournament drought that he watched from the MVP Arena stands. And he helped do just that. He made eight threes in three games and grabbed 8.6 boards per game as Siena won the MAAC Tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely (it felt like finishing unfinished business from the guys I watched growing up),\u201d Coyle told Mid-Major Madness after the MAAC Championship win over Merrimack in Atlantic City<\/a>. \u201cComing through, watching a lot of talented guys. It\u2019s the first one in 16 years, so it\u2019s amazing to be able to do it with this group.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, with his hometown career validated, he isn\u2019t done yet. He\u2019s coming back for year five to be the conduit to the next era of Saints\u2019 basketball after McNamara left to take over at Syracuse. Siena basketball announced that he, along with Owen Schlager, Isaiah Henderson, and Reid Ducharme will return. But of those four, Coyle is the only one who played more than 30% of the minutes this season.<\/p>\n And just as he was the bridge from the Albany community \u2014 as a local kid \u2014 to the Saints starting lineup under McNamara, he\u2019ll be the bridge from the champions to the new vision that head coach Nevada Smith<\/a> has for the program.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Coyle told Mid-Major Madness in March that he would joke with a Siena manager about how the two were the only two holdovers from the 2022-23 team. Coyle remains the only player holdover from the Maciariello era, and will be the rare player in modern college basketball to stay in a program for five years. Even through three different coaches, Coyle remains a Saint.<\/p>\n And Smith\u2019s vision should be a perfect fit for Coyle, looking for a major bounce-back in his three-point shooting percentage.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s up and down mentally,\u201d Coyle told Mid-Major Madness of his shooting struggles back in that interview before the MAAC Tournament. \u201cBut just trying to stay positive because you know eventually shots are going to fall. My teammates have faith in me, my coaches have faith in me, and we all try to lift each other up.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith modernized Shaka Smart\u2019s offense during his five years at Marquette. He helped turn Tyler Kolek<\/a> into an NBA point guard, and was a key reason why the Golden Eagles ranked top 35 in offense for three consecutive years. But his offensive roots go deeper than that. He, like McNamara, is a shooter at heart. He made a program record 313 career three-pointers at Division III Bethany, and then when he went into coaching, implemented a fast-paced, three-point heavy style.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n It\u2019s one that should be perfect for creating threes for Coyle, as long as the Saints can nail the evaluation of the point guard position in the transfer portal.<\/p>\n His offenses were shooting nearly 30 threes per game in 2008, long before it was the norm around college basketball. And it was because of that three-point heavy style that he was an attractive candidate for basketball analytics pioneer Daryl Morey, who brought him to the Rockets organization in the G League.<\/p>\n But it was after that, when he went to the Miami Heat<\/a> organization, that he became ingrained in the cultural side of building a program. It\u2019s what has been so important for Shaka Smart\u2019s teams, and why many of his assistants have been so successful. Smith\u2019s path looks different from somebody like Donny Lind<\/a> or Will Wade \u2014 other former Smart assistants \u2014 but he\u2019s made it to this point regardless.<\/p>\n And he\u2019ll have the greatest gift that a new coach can ask for in year one. A bastion of a successful previous culture, a face of the program in the local community, and a perfect fit for his scheme.<\/p>\n He\u2019s got it all in one with Brendan Coyle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading up to the 2026 MAAC Tournament in Atlantic City, Brendan Coyle was struggling. The sharpshooter who made…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[73177,7,85180,89119,217,34277,29710,189,89120,231,772,1544,87476,25523,1254],"class_list":{"0":"post-714943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-atlantic-city","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brendan-coyle","11":"tag-carm-maciariello","12":"tag-college-basketball","13":"tag-gerry-mcnamara","14":"tag-maac-tournament","15":"tag-miami-heat","16":"tag-mid-major-madness","17":"tag-ncaa","18":"tag-ncaa-basketball","19":"tag-ncaab","20":"tag-nevada-smith","21":"tag-siena","22":"tag-tyler-kolek"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116440350598996856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/4732aa225bddff9bb9ceb1b443ef99f5.jpeg\"\/)
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