LOUDONVILLE, NY (www.NJCUGothicKnights.com) | The greatest player in Siena College men's basketball history will receive the ultimate honor when New Jersey City University head basketball coach MARC BROWN has his legendary No. 4 jersey retired on Monday, December 13 as part of a festive basketball doubleheader in Albany, NY.
Simply known by Siena fans as 'Showbiz', Brown, the all-time leading scorer in the distinguished history of the Saints with 2,284 career points (18.6 ppg), will be accompanied by his family, former teammates, current Gothic Knight players, and thousands of Siena fans as his green and gold jersey is hoisted to the rafters at the Times Union Center.
The ceremony will occur at halftime of Siena's 7:30 p.m. game against Florida Atlantic University. Brown, in his fourth season as head coach of NJCU, will lead the Gothic Knights against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the first game of the doubleheader at 5:30 p.m.
Brown, now 41 years old and a resident of Union, NJ, helped bring Division I national acclaim to Siena during a four-year career from 1987-91. Known as a flashy, playmaking point guard, Showbiz, could do it all on the court and at the time of his graduation was one of only three players in Division I history to score over 2,000 career points and accumulate at least 750 assists. His 796 career assists stood as a Siena record until last year and his 6.5 dishes per game remains the program standard.
After learning of the permanent tribute to his unforgettable career, Brown said: “It's an honor obviously. It's going to be an amazing night, and would be more amazing with a victory—for us [NJCU] and Siena. I think having my jersey retired establishes me as one of the greatest players to ever play at Siena, and that itself is an honor. This is a great cap to my playing career at Siena. It's going to be a wonderful night. There will be many former teammates coming out for this special night and my family will be there. I'm just looking forward to being back in the area.”
Among his long list of honors, Brown was the 1991 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Player of the Year and a 1991 Division I Honorable Mention All-American by both the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI). In1989, he was selected Honorable Mention All-America by The Sporting News. A four-time First-Team All-Conference selection, he was enshrined in the Siena Athletic Hall of Fame in 1998.
That same year, his play put Siena basketball on the Division I map, when he hit the winning free throws in a 32-point outburst as the #14 seeded Saints stunned #3 Stanford in the opening round of 1989 NCAA Tournament. He also helped Siena reach the NIT in 1988 and 1991; the 1991 NIT run ended with a two-point overtime loss to UMass in the quarterfinals.
Nearly 20 years after his collegiate career ended, Brown still holds numerous individual game and season records at Siena, as well as individual NCAA and NIT thresholds. Among the records, he still has the marks for most assists in a game (15) and season (222). He currently ranks fourth in career steals (221) and three-point field goals (224) and fifth in three-point percentage (.423).
“I have not coached or recruited a finer player,” Mike Deane, who coached Brown at Siena, said. “He generated a following that put Siena in a place as probably the strongest Low-to-Mid-Major on the East Coast because of the atmosphere he created. I may have orchestrated it, but he created it. It was a pleasure to coach him. He was one of those once-in-a-lifetime kind of guys. His career was unprecedented and unparalleled there.”
Brown's jersey becomes the third to be retired by Siena, joining Billy Harrell's No. 10 and Kenny Hasbrouck's No. 41. Harrell played from 1949-52 and Hasbrouck from 2005-09.
Brown succeeded his iconic father, Charlie Brown, for whom the NJCU arena floor is named, as Gothic Knight head coach during the 2007-08 season after concluding a 16-year professional career in the United States, Europe and South America.
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