Peacocks roll past Fairfield into MAAC semis

 

KC Ndefo drives inside as Saint Peter’s advanced to semifinals of MAAC tournament with win over Fairfield Wednesday. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — In the middle of a stretch where Saint Peter’s stellar defense was perhaps its most elite, Shaheen Holloway — one of the most even-keeled coaches in the country — tipped his hand ever so slightly when he admitted that his Peacocks were just starting to understand what March was about.

A rematch with the team Saint Peter’s ended its regular season four days prior only confirmed that.

Leading Fairfield by 25 points at halftime, the Peacocks led from the start against the Stags and never looked back, even as the pace picked up in the second half of a 77-63 victory that put the scrappy team from Jersey City into the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament semifinals for a sixth time in the last eight seasons.

“I told my guys at halftime it was going to be a dogfight,” Shaheen Holloway remarked as Saint Peter’s veteran duo of KC Ndefo and Daryl Banks III led the way with a combined 35 points. “I’m proud of these guys. They came out, took care of business, and now we’ve gotta take care of business on Friday.”

The shocking upset of Iona — ousted by Rider mere minutes before the Peacocks took the floor — has now thrust Holloway’s bunch into the role of favorite to cut down the nets for the first time since 2011, but a focused unit who entered Wednesday’s contest allowing a meager 43 points per game in its last three affairs was preoccupied with one thing, and one thing only.

“We just stayed together, stayed the course,” said Ndefo, who amassed 20 points and nine rebounds. “We started out slow, but you know it’s a game of runs, and we just stayed together on the court.”

“Coach preached how they’re not going to go away,” Banks added. “So we knew we had to sustain their runs to make our runs and get stops when we needed to.”

Saint Peter’s (17-11) scored the first nine points in a game where Fairfield was slow to get into a rhythm, perhaps attributed to playing its second game in as many nights after defeating Canisius on Tuesday. Regardless, the Peacocks executed against a Stags team to whom they surrendered just 41 points in Saturday’s regular season finale, taking a businesslike approach even if the matchup was possibly advantageous given the relatively short turnaround.

“Going over our scout for them, we already had it in the back of our mind that we just played them,” Banks admitted. “It helped us out a lot.”

“I was upset with the way we came out, because we knew better,” Holloway admitted. “But at the end of the day, this is what tournament play is all about. We just want to play. It’s tournament time. We came down here on a mission, and our mission is to take it game-by-game. We just want to play.”