Fairfield forced overtime by overcoming a five-point deficit with 20 seconds left, thanks to a late second-chance floater attempt from Jake Wojcik that saw him get fouled by Sam Iorio just before time expired. The officials reviewed it and put 0.1 seconds on clock before Wojcik stepped up and hit the game-tying free throws to knot the score at 63-all at the end of regulation.
However, with the momentum seemingly on its side, Fairfield simply ran out of gas in the overtime period, getting outscored 14-6. Fairfield had to enter overtime without two of its top defenders, Caleb Fields and Allan Jeanne-Rose, who both fouled out toward the end of regulation. Overall, the glaring stat, yet again, was Fairfield’s struggles from behind the 3-point line, going 2-of-16.
“We were kind of really hemorrhaging without Caleb and AJ, two of our better defenders,” Fairfield head coach Jay Young said about his team’s unevenness in overtime. “I was trying to get in a zone and change the defense because they were driving downhill and (Noah) Thomasson was getting going.”
Friday night’s tilt projected to be a defensive battle, with both teams coming in tied for first in the MAAC in limiting opponents scoring at 64.4 points per game. The stingy operations of both teams looked to turn the opponent over and get some easy points in transition.
Again, that battle was won by Niagara, outscoring Fairfield 16-4 on points off turnovers. Joe Kasperzyk’s sleight of hand yielded three steals, which helped the Niagara offense push the pace in the middle stages of the first half and down the stretch of regulation and into overtime when it needed to.
“We just turned the ball over and gave them free baskets,” Young said. “We are struggling to score and our guards are struggling to score, and then you’re doing that too and have no chance of winning.”
Kasperzyk wasn’t necessarily a focus on the scouting report for Fairfield, especially with the scoring abilities of Noah Thomasson and Aaron Gray for the Purple Eagles. However, he produced timely plays en route to his season-high 13 points and was a perfect 6-of-6 from the foul line too. Kasperzyk, who was averaging 1.8 points per game, didn’t score in his prior two games.
“I thought he made some big time plays,” Niagara head coach Greg Paulus said of Kasperzyk, who had been dealing with an injury. “He really gave us a boost off the bench with his scoring and activity defensively.”
The tide really turned for Niagara because of Thomasson and Gray, the latter of whom scored 10 of his team’s first 15 points on the night and was a problem the whole night for Fairfield. Even after picking up his fourth foul with still over seven minutes left, Gray responded with two huge threes, each coming down the stretch of regulation and overtime. In total, 20 of his 30 points came during the second half and the overtime period.
Friday night’s performance for Gray was a continuation of the hard work he has put in since arriving over the summer from Southern New Hampshire. The sophomore has scored in double figures his last eight games, and on this night, set the tone for the Purple Eagles.
“He’s a guy that continues to work hard and continues to get better,” Paulus said of Gray. “I thought he kept us hanging around until we could get our feet under us.”
Fairfield couldn’t stop Gray, nor were the Stags able to present a scoring option that would come anywhere close to matching him.
“Gray was just a killer for us tonight,” Young said. “He drove it and then made some dagger threes for them.”
With nine minutes left, Paulus was called for a technical foul after a turnover in the backcourt by Thomasson. Niagara looked visibility rattled at that moment, while Thomasson gathered around his teammates and mouthed, “my bad.” Niagara answered in a big way after that, launching a 22-6 run during which the Purple Eagles held Fairfield without a point for over four minutes.
Thomasson helped the cause with back-to-back drives to the hoop with less than four minutes to play. The second one gave Niagara a 53-52 lead, its first advantage since a 24-23 edge with 1:59 left in the first half.
Thomasson missed 15 shots and started the game off cold, but still finished with 21 points. The senior guard took advantage of some favorable matchups throughout, with Wojcik often lining up against him.
“We did a good job on him in the first half and made him work for stuff,” Young said about the defensive coverage on Thomasson, who is the MAAC’s leading scorer at 17.9 points per game. “In the second half, I thought he got to his left way too much and there were a couple plays I would like back.”
Fairfield had a 10-0 run early in the second half, which surprised and frustrated Niagara. The Stags kept the Purple Eagles scoreless for over six minutes, while taking advantage of some height and athleticism mismatches on the offensive end. Chris Maidoh and Jeanne-Rose provided sparks with their work in the post, and returned the favor on a Niagara front line that had too many easy points in the first half. Instead of trying to break out of its funk from three by taking more threes, Fairfield played its most methodical and disciplined basketball over the opening 10 minutes of the second half.
Ultimately, the Stags missed too many shots, plenty which were good looks too, thus paving the way for 17 rebounds from Supreme Cook to try to clean things up. To boot, the Fairfield offense was mired by inconsistency with separate stretches of six-plus minutes and five-plus minutes without a field goal make.
Wojcik and TJ Long were a combined 2-for-19, including 1-for-10 from deep. And while Cook and Fields scored 17 points apiece, they didn’t shoot the ball well either. Actually, the saving grace for the Stags was their free throw shooting — 25-of-29 — which gave them a fighting chance.
“We have got to find some answers here offensively,” said Young, whose team ended the night with a season-low five assists, marking the 11th time the Stags were held to a single-digit assist total. “TJ had a hell of a week last week, and between him and Wojcik, they really struggled tonight.”
With Niagara leading in the final minute, the visitors opted to send Fairfield to the free throw line instead of trusting its defense to get stops. Fields made four free throws in the final 12 seconds, and when Gray went 1-of-2 on the other end, the stage was set for Wojcik’s game-tying free throws. Although Niagara’s fouling strategy did extend the game, it didn’t fully cost them either.
“I thought we just started fouling a bit too early,” Paulus said. “We’ll continue to learn from that experience moving forward.”
Fairfield will look to put this one behind it, but so far it hasn’t been easy to leave certain things in the rearview mirror amid a 2-3 start to MAAC play. Young admitted a little bit of everything could afford improvement, and it’s abundantly clear why. Fairfield needs to prove that its current issues, most notably the outshot shooting, aren’t chronic. If it can’t, the journey could grow even more tumultuous when the Stags visit first-place Iona Friday after an off day on Sunday.
“We have a bunch of issues we need to fix right now,” Young said. “The crowd has been great, the people have been great and the new building is awesome. We’ve got to reward them with some better play.”
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.