If Saturday night was any indication of the type of nights sophomore guard Clarence Jackson can have then Siena opponents beware.

Jackson scored a game-high 27 points and shot 7-for-10 from beyond the arc to lead Siena past Union College 99-47 on Saturday night at the ARC.

"I felt like I played really well," Jackson said. "I got really comfortable in there."

Siena coach Fran McCaffery was happy with Jackson's defense and getting on the glass as well as his scoring and even wanted to keep him in longer.

"He hasn’t played extended minutes," McCaffery said. "He has to understand he’s going to play extended minutes. When he’s playing well offensively, I’m going to leave him out there, so he’s got to play through that little bit of fatigue and not break down."

Jackson told me following the game that he's hoping to fill part of the void missing from Tay Fisher's graduation - either providing a spark off the bench or starting if need be.

Jackson's confidence seems to be high and that's good for Siena.

"I just try to shoot it with confidence and it’s going to go in," Jackson said.

Senior captain Kenny Hasbrouck thinks that with consistency Jackson will be able to have some big nights this season.

"Him and Ryan (Rossiter) are basically the future of Siena right now," Hasbrouck said.

Rossiter didn't play because of injuries in the legs (knee) - neither did Josh Duell (foot) or Cory Magee (concussion).

Because of that, freshman Owen Wignot got a start, which he said he was surprised about when he found out two hours before tip-off.

"I was shocked, but I just tried to go out and do my best," Wignot said.

Wignot scored 11 points and was a positive according to McCaffery as was fellow freshman Kyle Downey, who scored 19.

"It really wasn’t anything I did," Downey said. "I just hit open shots. Everyone found open shots for me, so it was my teammates that helped me do that."

If that's not doing anything then I'm not sure what I did on the sidelines really doing nothing.

Downey said he was happy to get the nerves out in an exhibition game, but very excited that there were plenty of people there and there was a game atmosphere.

"That’s one thing I love about Siena, our support is amazing," Downey said. "Even for an exhibition game we had probably three of four thousand people there. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like during the season."

I'll give Downey a pass since he's a freshman...the crowd was good, but it was only 1,622.

Speaking of the crowd, it was lively, especially at the beginning.

"That’s the first time I’ve ever played in the ARC in front of a crowd like that against another team," Hasbrouck said. "It was a fun time. It was a great time for everybody, for the Siena community."

McCaffery said afterwards that they would consider doing this again and he much prefers this to a intrasquad scrimmage like the Green/Gold game that Siena has had in years past.

"I don’t like the Green/Gold game," McCaffery said. "It really serves no purpose whatsoever. I like exhibition games because it serves as a dress rehearsal."

Edwin Ubiles also scored 19 points and Ronald Moore had seven steals in 17 minutes.

The first game is only nine days away though and Boise State will look much different than Union.

"We have some work to do with the schedule that we have coming up," McCaffery said. "I think we’re making progress."

I'll have some more notes from the scrimmage tomorrow.