Iona erases early double-digit gap, rolls Fairfield back for 4th win in last 5

Greg Gordon lays in last of his 35 points as his career night helped Iona lock up sweep of Fairfield Friday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Not even five minutes into hosting its battle with Fairfield Friday, Iona’s night was almost over before it could properly begin.

Spotting the Stags an 11-0 head start that soon became a 16-2 deficit, an irate Tobin Anderson called a timeout to light a fire into his young charges.

“It happened so fast, it caught us off guard,” Greg Gordon said of Fairfield’s opening salvo. “Tobin, as you could see, got into us. I think all our minds sunk in and it was like, let’s lock in and make it work. We got rolling and we didn’t look back.”

Iona employed its trademark full-court press early and often in the remainder of the first half, frustrating the visiting Stags and speeding them up in the process. The Gaels took the lead as the opening stanza drew to a close, and did not relinquish it after halftime, powering their way to a 91-82 victory at the Hynes Athletics Center, the hosts’ fourth such triumph in their last five contests since a deflating last-second loss to Niagara on January 7.

“We were down 16-2,” Anderson reiterated. “That’s hard to come back from. It could have gone the other way, too. The good thing is when you’re down like that in the first five minutes, there’s a lot of time to come back. We were able to have the time to fix our problems.”

A major remedy to the woes at the onset was the play of Gordon, who wasted little time in furthering a sensational stretch of recent performances. The Chicago native, who has already authored several career nights on his new home floor, turned in perhaps his magnum opus in maroon and gold Friday. Gordon’s 35 points and 12 rebounds led the way as Iona (10-10, 5-4 MAAC) secured a season sweep of Fairfield, who has not walked out of Westchester County on the positive side of the scoreboard since 2007, when Ed Cooley was in his first of five seasons at the helm of the Stags. 

“I just realized they were playing me one-on-one,” Gordon said of Fairfield’s effort to defend him. “I felt like it was easier to create and easier for myself to score, allow my teammates to get open and create opportunities for them also. I just saw green, and green means go.”

“I just thought he was aggressive,” said Anderson of his star swingman. “He just got it going a little bit. There have been some times this year where he hasn’t responded because it’s all new to him, but I thought he responded great. His body language, his whole approach, it got a lot better. His impact on the game was phenomenal.”

The absence of Idan Tretout, who missed Friday’s contest as he continues to rehab an ankle injury suffered in the Gaels’ January 21 loss at Quinnipiac, has allowed Gordon to take on more of a statistical alpha role on top of his already prevalent leadership by example. As someone thought to have needed more than half the year to acclimate himself fully to the Division I game, he insisted Friday that the learning curve has since been conquered.

“I think about it every day,” Gordon said of his matriculation to Iona from Dyersburg State (Tennessee) Community College. “I was just in junior college eating noodles, and we have a whole cafeteria now. One of my mentors always said, you won’t adjust to (Division I) until December-January. I’ve adjusted pretty well, now I’m just trying to keep it rolling.”

While Gordon’s transition process appears to be — by his own admission — over, the collective adaptation by the Iona team is still taking shape. While Tretout was not on the floor Friday, the senior guard still served as one of the more vocal supporters from the bench, with one of his more common mantras serving as a rally cry.

“Every time we get into a media timeout with less than eight minutes (left) and we’re up nine or so, Idan always says, ‘we’ve been here before,’ Gordon revealed. “And I feel like that brings everybody together and locks everybody in.”

“I think it’s getting better,” Anderson surmised. “It’s not perfect. We made a lot of mistakes the first 10 minutes and we corrected those as time went along, but we’re making progress and we’re being patient.”

Iona looks to add to its hot streak Sunday against a Rider team still in need of its own momentum, which may have been created Friday in a runaway win over Siena. The Gaels have not looked better to date this season, but to say that the recent spate is the peak for Anderson’s roster is premature judgment at its finest, according to Gordon.

“We’re definitely playing better,” he intimated. “Our best basketball? No, not yet. We’ve got another ceiling to tap into.”