With sense of urgency heightened, Young is hopeful Fairfield can vault back into MAAC’s top half

Jay Young (center) addressed weaknesses with last year’s Fairfield team, and is optimistic that his Stags can gain ground in wide-open MAAC this season. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

A run to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship game in Jay Young’s second season convinced many that Fairfield’s head coach would take the lightning in a bottle he had caught in 2021 and use it to rebuild the Stags program moving forward.

The momentum did not materialize in 2021-22, nor was it rediscovered last season amid a 13-18 campaign where Fairfield’s identity was largely compromised by its largely anemic offense and challenges in taking and making smart shots. Now entering his fifth season at the helm since replacing Sydney Johnson in 2019, Young is adamant about patching up the cracks in a Stag offense that was dormant for chunks of the past two years.

“I thought that COVID year, we were hammered with practice,” he recounted. “We tried to go too quickly and we were good at nothing, so we just want to make sure we’re going at a speed that’s appropriate for the guys and what they learn, and the group that we have. I think we’ve got a good group of guys, but at this time of year — even with veteran teams — you’re trying to figure out the best way to progress.”

“We were one of the worst teams in the country in doing that,” Young added, addressing his team’s 3-point shooting woes. “I told everybody this: If you told me before the season started that that would be an issue for us, I would have thought you were crazy, but we were just so inconsistent shooting the ball. We just struggled to make threes.”

Fairfield’s intermittent offense will be mitigated in large part by point guard Caleb Fields, who returns for a second season with the Stags that will see him handling a larger share of the workload. With Supreme Cook, Jake Wojcik, Chris Maidoh and Allan Jeanne-Rose all having departed, Fields’ presence is huge for a team that can use continuity going into November. The Bowling Green transfer’s stamina and willingness to take on a major role last season has his coach optimistic about what he will do for an encore.

Caleb Fields’ return at point guard spot should shore up Fairfield’s inconsistencies on offensive end. Bowling Green transfer will be Stags’ floor general and leading scorer. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

“He was a high-volume guy for us, but he handled it well,” Young said of Fields. “He’s one of those guys who, if he plays 38 minutes, there’s really no dropoff in level of play with him. He’s just kind of indefatigable. We’re going to play him as many minutes as we can, but we’ve got a little more depth in that spot with Jasper Floyd and Matt Curtis coming in to help, but Caleb’s going to be out on the floor for us.”

Fields will have his share of complementary pieces in the backcourt, with Jalen Leach and Brycen Goodine both back at 100 percent after injuries limited their contributions last year. Leach spelled Fields as a backup point guard last season and could play more off the ball this year, while Goodine — a Providence transfer expected to be a major addition for the Stags — was shelved for all but four games with a knee injury that has since healed and given rise to the high-major talent that arrived in Connecticut with multiple plaudits.

“Brycen just got cleared for contact this past Monday,” Young revealed. “He did a lot of non-contact stuff with shooting and we’re still kind of going slow with him, but he looks great, he says he feels great, he says his knee is 100 percent. He’s got a lot of pop in his legs, and he was a guy obviously last year that was a big loss for us. We brought him in as a guy who, offensively, certainly could help us and help us go get a basket, and we never got to see that. So we’re hoping he comes back and has the year that we expect him to have.”

On the wing, Michael Rogan and Anthony Davis, Jr., both of whom redshirted a year ago, are ready to see the floor and step into a backcourt that will allow them to acquit themselves early and often. James Johns, Jr., the third piece of last year’s freshman core, is poised for a breakout season on the wing.

“Both of them are good players,” said Young of Rogan and Davis. “Knowing what I know now and how we shot the ball, we were so deep in the season (to burn a redshirt), but Mike’s a guy who could shoot the basketball and he’s got more offense to him than just being a catch-and-shoot guy. Ant’s athletic, kind of a catch-and-shoot guy himself. Both those guys, I thought the redshirt year was really valuable for them, but probably in Mike’s case, if we hadn’t gone past the point of no return with redshirting him, we might have played him because of our inability to make threes.”

“I think for James, it was just a consistency thing for him. He came in with this kind of big reputation. I thought there was going to be some learning curve, (and) there certainly was. But he’s had a really good offseason, I think he’s worked as hard as anybody, he’s put on some much-needed weight, some much-needed muscle. We’re expecting him to take that leap that good players take between their freshman and sophomore years.”

Young will balance the disparity in age with six incoming players, three of whom are freshmen, the other three coming by way of the transfer portal. New Mexico import Birima Seck and Saint Joseph’s expatriate Louis Bleechmore will be integral in a retooled frontcourt, while junior college guard Jasper Floyd comes in to not only lighten the load for Fields at the point, but also supplement him off the ball.

“Birima comes off two years at the University of New Mexico,” Young said of Seck. “He’s got a different type of skill set. He’s got good size, but very skinny, only about 190 pounds, but from end line to end line, he’s an elite runner and can handle the ball with his size, and can make plays for everyone else.”

“I kind of miss Taj (Benning) so much that I want to find a guy like him, so (Floyd) reminds me of Taj Benning a little bit. He’s a big, physical guard that can play multiple guard positions, a good defender that’s got a college-ready body. And then Louie Bleechmore’s a guy that didn’t get much of an opportunity at St. Joe’s, but we had seen him play in junior college a little bit. (He’s a) very athletic, physical frontcourt guy who can play the three or four spot, and can make a shot too. I’ve been pleased with all three of those guys, and they've been good additions. You always worry about bringing in young guys, new guys, but they bring us a level of maturity having been through some wars themselves.”

As for the first-year influx, Matt Curtis will see time in the backcourt while 6-foot-10 Peyton Smith will be more of a contributor down low. Marouf Moumine is a 6-foot-6 wing from Cameroon who has yet to arrive on campus, but will also have a chance to contribute immediately.

“Matt Curtis is a skilled combo guard, can play either guard spot,” Young said. “He’s a good shooter, got a good IQ, he’s a little better off the dribble than I thought. He can get into a shot off the dribble, which is good. We just got Peyton Smith here, the kid we just signed from Hudson Falls, New York, who was going to go to prep school.”

“I don’t know where we fit into young or old. There’s so much change in college basketball right now. We’ve got some older guys on the team, Caleb, Brycen, Birima is a junior, so we do have some guys who will be out there for us who will be a little older. I’d like to get off to a good start for sure.”

Last season, Fairfield’s biggest strength — no pun intended — was its multifaceted and deep-pocketed front line, which featured Cook, Maidoh and Zach Crisler. This year, aside from the 6-foot-11 Seck and the aforementioned Smith, no player on the Stags’ roster is taller than 6-foot-7, which makes size more of a concern than in recent seasons, but Young conceded that the guard-dominant MAAC makes it easier to not place as much of a premium on height.

“It’s funny, he admitted. “We went from having tremendous depth in our frontcourt last year to it being fanned with us losing a few guys up there. But as good as I thought out frontcourt was, if you don’t have good guards in this league, it’s tough to win. I want to rebound and be physical up front, so I’m hoping it’s less of an issue than it is today, but it’s certainly a concern with the lack of depth at that five spot.”

All told, the sense of urgency in the Nutmeg State may be at its highest point in Young’s tenure. Fairfield has yet to finish higher than seventh in the MAAC since he arrived four years ago, and the program has only recorded one first-round bye in the past decade. Young acknowledged the pressure, but is confident that he and his staff have taken strides to close the gap and amend that which may have been broken a year ago.

“We just need to be way more consistent,” he declared. “The difference between us being 18-13 last year instead of 13-18 was our inability to win close games and shoot the ball better. We just lost so many of those, two obviously to Rider that jump out, the two to Manhattan. And we’ve just got to make some shots. Our free throw rate was good, but that was more a combination of us not making shots and finding another way to score, so we drew fouls. We just did not make enough field goals last year, and that’s been a problem.”

“I think we’re close. Obviously on the offensive end, we’ve got to be more consistent. I thought we made a pretty good jump the year before and then we took a step back. Everybody has expectations for the program, none bigger than mine, so yeah, that’s an accurate statement.”