Fairfield still on top of MAAC, but future is bright at top of league

Fairfield celebrates second straight MAAC championship, but Quinnipiac team Stags defeated is also NCAA-tournament caliber. (Photo by Fairfield Women’s Basketball)

By Connor Wilson (@Conman_815)

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — For the second consecutive season, the Fairfield Stags have won the MAAC women’s basketball championship, this time around dismantling a fellow mid-major heavyweight in Quinnipiac 76-53 on Saturday afternoon.

“We’re trying to build one of the best women’s basketball programs in the country,” head coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said. “I’ve got an amazing administration and everybody wants us to be one of the more competitive programs in the country. It’s why I came to Fairfield.”

The Stags finish the season with a 28-4 record, a step down from last year’s historic 31-1 entering Selection Sunday, but it’s not a stretch to say that this year’s team is on par with that one talent-wise. Returning a solid core of Meghan Andersen, Katey L’Amoreaux, Emina Selimovic and Kendall McGruder, Thibault-DuDonis also added some impressive transfers and freshmen, and sustained last year’s success even after Janelle Brown, last year’s MAAC Player of the Year, tore her ACL early in the season.

Returning all that talent meant Fairfield knew what it was getting from its squad, and as a result, scheduled a challenging non-conference slate that included trips down to Arkansas, Oklahoma State and Wake Forest. After being a 13 seed with just that one loss last season, the Stags and Thibault-DuDonis wanted to have a better resume to improve their seed this season and, as a result, increase their odds of advancing in the NCAA Tournament.

“We knew that we would have a really strong returning group this year and wanted to schedule accordingly,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “We scheduled a really hard non-conference and scheduled every big conference we could so we could do the best on our end to get the best NET.”

When asked where she thinks the Stags should hear their name called on Sunday night, Thibault-DuDonis confidently assured:

“We believe without a doubt that we deserve an 11 seed.”

Time will tell shortly where the Stags end up, but rest assured they’ve put together a pretty convincing case. Another team in the conference that has a pretty convincing case, not for seeding, but just to get into the NCAA Tournament, is Quinnipiac. The Bobcats after Saturday’s loss finish the season with the same 28-4 record as the Stags, but are nearly double the spots ahead in the NET (51 vs. 100 on Sunday morning). For that reason, it’s extremely unlikely to see a two-bid MAAC, but don’t tell that to the Fairfield head coach.

“Watch them,” Thibault-DuDonis said. “You can’t tell me there’s 64 teams better than them in the country. They are skilled, Gal Raviv is one of the best players in the country, hands down, and they’ve got a really balanced team. There’s been a lot of talk about three teams from the Ivy League and they beat two of those teams. They deserve to be in the tournament.”

Even if we don’t see two MAAC teams hear their names called tonight, that doesn’t change the fact that Fairfield and Quinnipiac are set to have one of the best rivalries not only in the Northeast, but the country in women’s basketball for years to come.

But that’s for the future. For now, let’s celebrate Fairfield and its historic run to consecutive MAAC Tournament titles. A force to be reckoned with next week no matter the seed next to its name.