FAIRFIELD, Conn. — The slightest wrong maneuver can doom you in the throes of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.
On Sunday afternoon at Mahoney Arena in front of a good crowd freshly released from football season, the wrong bounce came Fairfield’s way on a missed free throw by Supreme Cook with less than a second left on the clock. The final scoreboard read Manhattan 73, Fairfield 72, as the Stags officially dropped their sixth game of the year inside their state-of-the-art on-campus facility.
“Don’t worry about the missed free throw,” head coach Jay Young said in his message to Cook. “You should be more upset about the steal you went for in the first half that you shouldn't have gone for and they laid it up and in. Next time, you go to the line you’ll make it.”
The Stags (12-15, 8-9 MAAC) were put in a position to potentially steal this game on the strength of a bounce-back second half offensively. A lot went wrong in the opening 20 minutes, including the Stags falling behind by as much as 10 points thanks in large part to a stretch that saw the Jaspers hit 10 of 11 shots. A lot of the damage came from uncontested looks for Manhattan, as well as some overzealous defending that was a theme all night on both sides.
“We fouled a lot and we normally don’t do that,” Young said. “Our defense was out of sorts.”
After getting in the bonus with over three minutes left in regulation, Fairfield almost reaped the full benefits of the foul fest when Adam Cisse inexplicably fouled Jalen Leach on a 3-point attempt when the Jaspers were up four with nine-tenths of a second remaining. Leach hit his first two free throws and then intentionally missed the third, setting up an offensive rebound for Cook, who was then fouled by Anthony Nelson before time expired. That led to the heartbreaking moment for Cook, who finished 5-of-10 at the line after going 3-for-9 at Marist Friday night. He was iced before the second attempt when Manhattan interim head coach RaShawn Stores called a timeout.
It was an anticlimactic ending for Fairfield, who hung around even when it didn’t have answers for Nelson on the defensive end. But while the defense never fully found its identity, TJ Long delivered his latest big second-half performance with 15 of his 23 points coming in the final 20 minutes of action. Long displayed some impressive shot-making, unearthing an arsenal that included a fadeaway mid-range jumper off one foot a la Dirk Nowitzki. The lefty sharpshooter tied up the action at 66 with a three in front of the Fairfield bench at the 2:41 mark of regulation. It was deja vu to the first matchup between these two teams at Draddy Gymnasium on December 1, when Long hit a game-tying three with over three minutes left. That one ended with a lost possession when Caleb Fields got trapped on the perimeter as Manhattan walked away with a 56-53 win in a rugged game. Ugly, low-scoring games tend to be the outcome when the Stags and Jaspers exchange pleasantries.
“We were way better offensively in this game than we were down there and way better defensively down there than we were today,” Young said about the season series sweep to Manhattan. “They had a guy today (Nelson) who just kind of willed them.”
Young admits his team isn’t going to change its style either, while fully aware of its strengths and weaknesses 27 games into the season. The Stags are who they are, and most of the time it requires them grinding it out and rolling up their sleeves on the defensive end.
“We don’t have any breakaway speed, so every game for us is like this,” Young said.
It didn’t look like Sunday’s meeting was going to be in the seventies, as the Stags had no choice but to make the most of their possessions in the second half after failing to get the job done defensively in the first half. Manhattan got scoring from just about everybody in the first half and outscored the home team 20-12 in the paint. When Nelson wasn’t scoring, he was busy setting up Adam Cisse or Josh Roberts. They combined for 17 points against a Fairfield frontcourt in desperate need of depth following the likely season-ending injury to Chris Maidoh. In total, Fairfield was outscored 44-26 in the paint despite outrebounding Manhattan by 11.
“We could not keep any of their guards in front of us,” Young said, especially citing Nelson’s high activity. “They drove it on us and I thought this was the first game our depth exposed us today and we looked tired for whatever reason.”
The Fairfield offense has had better flow the last two games after struggling for most of the season. The Stags had 12 assists on Sunday, nearly three above their average on the season, and went 8-of-19 from beyond the arc while taking advantage of poor 3-point defense by Manhattan. Long wasn’t the only one hitting big shots either, as Fields chipped in three threes and Cook bounced back after missing his first six shots of the game. Long was the topic of conversation, though, having scored over 20 points in three straight games and recording a season-high 23 points against Manhattan.
“Our offense was fine tonight besides the first half,” Young said. “We scored plenty of points to win the game.”
It was not the first time the Stags let a game at home end in a heartbreaking fashion. The first time was when Rider’s Allen Powell tied the game with a buzzer beater on a third-chance opportunity on January 29. The Stags went on to lose that game in overtime. Sunday’s loss to Manhattan had large implications in the standings, as the Jaspers have now leapfrogged the Stags for sole possession of sixth place. Fairfield slides into seventh for now, a half-game behind Manhattan and only a full game behind Niagara for fifth place and the final bye.
Every game is considered important at this juncture, but Fairfield’s visit to Niagara next Friday night will be a game to watch around the league. Young will need to process what went down on Sunday at Mahoney first before he digs into the game plans for Niagara and Canisius.
“There are plays in this game we had control of and that’s what will be frustrating when we look at the film,” Young said. “I haven’t thought about Niagara much yet.”
Quick Hits Around the MAAC
“I think the biggest thing was in practice, we switched up the teams. Now me and Walt are going against each other. Our practices are competitive, the most competitive they’ve ever been. We don’t want to lose another game because of our defense. That’s the main point we’re trying to fix. If we fix our defense, we could be even better.”
— Daniss Jenkins on Iona’s renewed focus since its January 8 loss at Quinnipiac
“I’m tired of teaching lessons. These guys are grown men, especially these two guys next to me (Andrew Platek and Jackson Stormo) and especially some of the other guys on our roster. We’ve gotta correct it. We can’t keep making the same mistake.”
— Carmen Maciariello after Siena's loss to Quinnipiac Friday
“TJ saved us in that first half. (Marist) came out blazing, they were 10-for-10 from the field and we were lucky TJ got us going. We were down one at halftime and luckily, our defense kicked in. That’s a tough team, I’m glad that we could get out of here with a win.”
— Jay Young on TJ Long leading Fairfield’s comeback win at Marist Friday
“This Rider team jumped on us right away, and they’re such a prolific scoring team that they could put you in a hole, and if you get down, they could keep you there. So we had to just keep fighting to keep our head above water, and then we were able to kind of piece it together in the second half.”
— Reggie Witherspoon on Canisius’ perseverance Friday at Rider, ending the Broncs’ eight-game win streak
“That was a big-time road win. Any time you can win on the road in conference play is huge. We played well tonight, but need to improve on the glass and make our free throws.”
— RaShawn Stores on Manhattan surviving Sunday at Fairfield
“They went from Buffalo down to Maryland to the Mount, then a bus ride back up here with a day in between, so you’re kind of hoping he’s not at his optimum. On top of that, you have to take advantage of that, and we did. I thought we maintained pretty good focus defensively.”
— John Dunne on Marist's defense against Niagara, specifically Noah Thomasson
“I just thought we had a couple of opportunities to stretch the lead. We weren’t able to finish it on the offensive end whether it was a finish or a shot, and then defensively, Gardner made some big-time shots and got to the foul line, really stepped up and really did a great job taking the lead down the stretch.”
— Greg Paulus on Niagara’s inability to close out against Marist
“For us, as soon as we got done at Mount St. Mary’s, we drove in…it might have been a four-and-a-half, five-hour drive. We got in at about 2:30-3:00 in the morning here (Saturday). The only other time that we did that was when we played Canisius at home on a Friday and we drove through the night Friday night. We left about 11:15, got into Siena at 4:30 in the morning and played them on Sunday. The travel is what it is, and we’ve got to try to prepare with a quick turnaround like that.”
— Paulus on Niagara’s travel from Mount St. Mary’s to Marist
“For us, just to get back and find a little bit of rhythm offensively. We’ve had two nights where we didn’t play as well offensively as we would have liked, but we were still right there in the final minute or two. There’s certainly some things that we can clean up.”
— Paulus on his goals for Niagara going into the MAAC tournament
Scoring Leaders
1) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (18.8 PPG)
2) Patrick Gardner, Marist (18.5)
3) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (16.6)
4) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (15.9)
5) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (15.4)
6) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (15.4)
7) Javian McCollum, Siena (15.4)
8) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (15.2)
9) Daniss Jenkins, Iona (14.8)
10) Jordan Henderson, Canisius (14.3)
Rebounding Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (9.9 RPG)
2) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (9.7)
3) Supreme Cook, Fairfield (8.8)
4) Paul Otieno, Quinnipiac (7.0)
5) Mervin James, Rider (7.0)
6) Jared Billups, Siena (6.7)
7) Michael Baer, Siena (6.3)
8) Patrick Gardner, Marist (6.3)
9) George Tinsley, Mount St. Mary’s (6.1)
10) Jacco Fritz, Canisius (6.0)
Assist Leaders
1) Daniss Jenkins, Iona (4.9 APG)
2) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (4.6)
3) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (4.1)
4) Luis Kortright, Quinnipiac (3.9)
5) Javian McCollum, Siena (3.8)
6) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (3.7)
7) Latrell Reid, Saint Peter’s (3.6)
8) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (3.6)
9) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (3.0)
10) Samir Stewart, Manhattan (2.9)
Field Goal Percentage Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (.708)
2) Paul Otieno, Quinnipiac (.581)
3) Jacco Fritz, Canisius (.580)
4) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (.546)
5) Supreme Cook, Fairfield (.534)
6) Jackson Stormo, Siena (.516)
7) Allan Jeanne-Rose, Fairfield (.516)
8) Berrick JeanLouis, Iona (.506)
9) Patrick Gardner, Marist (.503)
10) Ike Nweke, Quinnipiac (.483)
Free Throw Percentage Leaders
1) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (.941)
2) Javian McCollum, Siena (.882)
3) Mervin James, Rider (.875)
4) Jaylen Murray, Saint Peter’s (.855)
5) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (.840)
6) Caleb Fields, Fairfield (.807)
7) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (.806)
8) Jackson Stormo, Siena (.802)
9) Isiah Dasher, Saint Peter’s (.797)
10) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (.774)
3-Point Field Goal Percentage Leaders
1) Andrew Platek, Siena (.464)
2) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (.419)
3) Samir Stewart, Manhattan (.406)
4) Nick Brennen, Manhattan (.402)
5) Dezi Jones, Quinnipiac (.402)
6) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (.398)
7) Dakota Leffew, Mount St. Mary’s (.392)
8) Jalen Benjamin, Mount St. Mary’s (.387)
9) Jamir Moultrie, Canisius (.383)
10) Noah Thomasson, Niagara (.365)
Steal Leaders
1) Anthony Nelson, Manhattan (1.9 SPG)
2) Walter Clayton, Jr., Iona (1.6)
3) Caleb Fields, Fairfield (1.5)
4) Dwight Murray, Jr., Rider (1.4)
5) Luis Kortright, Quinnipiac (1.4)
Blocked Shot Leaders
1) Josh Roberts, Manhattan (1.7 BPG)
2) Osborn Shema, Iona (1.5)
3) Nelly Junior Joseph, Iona (1.4)
4) Jackson Stormo, Siena (1.3)
5) Berrick JeanLouis, Iona (1.3)
Power Rankings
1) Iona (20-7, 13-3 MAAC)
Last Week: 1
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 at Saint Peter’s (W 73-53)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 at Mount St. Mary’s, 7 p.m.
2) Siena (17-10, 11-5 MAAC)
Last Week: 3
Last Game: Friday 2/17 vs. Quinnipiac (L 66-63)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 at Rider, 7 p.m.
3) Rider (14-11, 11-5 MAAC)
Last Week: 1
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 at Quinnipiac (L 90-88)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 vs. Siena, 7 p.m.
4) Quinnipiac (19-9, 10-7 MAAC)
Last Week: 6
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 vs. Rider (W 90-88)
Next Game: Sunday 2/26 vs. Manhattan, 2 p.m.
5) Manhattan (10-15, 8-8 MAAC)
Last Week: 5
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 at Fairfield (W 73-72)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 vs. Marist, 7 p.m.
6) Niagara (14-11, 9-8 MAAC)
Last Week: 4
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 at Marist (L 61-52)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 vs. Fairfield, 7 p.m.
7) Fairfield (12-15, 8-9 MAAC)
Last Week: 7
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 vs. Manhattan (L 73-72)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 at Niagara, 7 p.m.
8) Mount St. Mary’s (10-18, 6-11 MAAC)
Last Week: 11
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 vs. Canisius (W 75-74)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 vs. Iona, 7 p.m.
9) Saint Peter’s (10-15, 5-11 MAAC)
Last Week: 8
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 vs. Iona (L 73-53)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 at Canisius, 7 p.m.
10) Marist (9-17, 5-12 MAAC)
Last Week: 9
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 vs. Niagara (W 61-52)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 at Manhattan, 7 p.m.
11) Canisius (7-19, 5-12 MAAC)
Last Week: 10
Last Game: Sunday 2/19 at Mount St. Mary’s (L 75-74)
Next Game: Friday 2/24 vs. Saint Peter’s, 7 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.