MAAC MidSeason Review

The MAAC Blog has done their mid season storyline segment. I was surprised that they hardly mentioned Fairfield except they have Cooley as their Coach of the Year and they do have Derek Needham as one of the top 10 players of the league (even though they spelled his name wrong).

There is no mention of how they expect the Stags to fair in the second half of the season and they do not really mention how great Iona has done.

The coach of the year would be very difficult to choose right now. Yes, Cooley has done a GREAT job this year with the absence of Nero and Hawkins and Edney still trying to become what they once were. Even with the struggles of Needham and the at times pathetic offensive displays of shooting the ball anywhere on the court. With all that stacked against him, he has found a way to win and make a defense that is currently the second best in the nation.

With all that said Iona has also done a great job, but things have come much easier to them.. It will be interesting to see how things will go on February 4th.

Loyola 66 Fairfield 65

The Fairfield University men's basketball team (12-4, 5-1 MAAC) ended their 11 game winning streak as they were edged by the Loyola Greyhounds (7-9, 3-3 MAAC). Click for a complete recap and boxscore.

The Least You Should Know:
-This is the first loss for the Stags since late November when they were defeated by St.Joseph at the Webster Bank Arena. Speaking of streaks, this is the first time they lost at Loyola since 1998. They previously had a 13 game winning streak on the road against the Greyhounds.

-This is by far the most points that they allowed to a MAAC team and the most points given up since November 15th when they lost to Rutgers. This is the second most allowed in any game on the season.

-Ryan Olander sat after he picked up his fourth foul, he only played 28 minutes on the game. When he went on the bench Justin Drummond went on a tear and scored 7 points.

-The Stags did have a chance at the end of the game but Ryan Olander could not hit the three pointer, and the Greyhounds followed with a dunk off the inbounds (even though it might have been a 5 second violation)

This was a bad game all over. The defense really struggled as Loyola seemed to be able to score at will, and they did hit alot of clutch threes when they needed it the most. Without Olander, the Stags seemed very thin and Loyola took advantage and really killed the Stags in the paint and all over on offense.

The key stat is of course: 8-19. That is what the entire team did at the free throw line. It was really embarrasing to say the least. They were getting better at the line in recent games but obviously not here. Needham, Edney, and Hawkins who are the team's best free throw shooters went a combined 4-12 from the line. Inexcusable as those three players should be your leaders that step up in crunch time, but Fairfield seemed to be lacking leaders down the stretch.

Before the game the team watched the match between Buster Douglass and Mike Tyson and the coaches explained that they could become like Mike Tyson and just settle to be good, or they could stay hungry. Obviously, they got knocked out.

Player of the Game: Derek Needham with a team high 14 points (4-7 from 3) and 4 assists.

Up Next: The Stags travel to Rider to play the Broncs on Monday 1/17 at 7 PM.

Fairfield 72 Howard 52

The Fairfield Mens Basketball team (5-3, 1-0) defeated the Howard Bison (1-8) at Alumni Hall last night. It was the team's fourth straight win as the Bison and have now dropped eight consective decisions. View the complete recap and boxscore.

The Least You Should Know:
-Yorel Hawkins had a game high 16 points, the most he has scored all year.

-Derek Needham only had 7 points BUT a season high 13 assists.

-Maurice Barrow had a career game with 10 points and 9 rebounds

-The team shot 51.9 percent from the floor while limiting Howard to a 40 percent margin.

-They did have 9 of their 14 turnovers in the second half.

I really think this is one of the best games that the team has played. The people that you needed to step up really did and Needham finally found that his game is when he dribbles and splits the defenders. Even if he just had 7 points he really took the game over

Up Next:
The Stags travel to Albany to face the Siena Saints on the 10th.

Men's Basketball Picked Number 1

The Fairfield University Men's Basketball team was picked to finish atop of the conference on Tuesday at Media Day. The Stags picked up 96 votes which was 5 more than runner up and 3 time defending champions Siena. The squad has been picked first by numerous college basketball magazines, including SI and ESPN.

The team also includes a couple of players who were named to all-MAAC teams. Derek Needham and Yorel Hawkins both picked up the preseason nods. Needham, the MAAC Rookie of the Year, was picked to the conference first team. The sophomore guard was named to the All-American freshmen team last year and broke almost every Fairfield freshmen record as he was the team's leading scorer and in the top ten in the nation for assists among freshmen. The freshman led the team to the Championship game and one shot away from upsetting the Saints. He became one of the most successful freshmen athletes ever to pass through the MAAC by winning a record 10 Rookie of the Week awards.

Sophomore slump? It's happened to the best of them. Teams are no longer going to have to worry about Anthony Johnson and will be focusing more on Needham. Can he handle the pressure of leading the team that is supposed to win the title?

Yorel Hawkins was picked to the finish on the All-MAAC Second Team. The senior was injured at the end of last year which forced him to miss several regular season games plus the conference tournament. He was one of the leading scorers on the team before falling victim to the injury bug, can he sustain it this year? He is going to be asked to score at will and become their offensive threat. He has never had that responsibility before and it will be interesting to see if he can handle it.

Stags Selected Number 1 in MAAC, 83rd in Country

In the collegehoopsnet season preview, they have ranked the Stags as the probable winner of the MAAC and the 83rd best team in the country. The Stags have been getting recogniztion from many different college previews this year.

It is interesting to note that they put alot of emphasis on Yorel Hawkins. "This is a team that lacks size." They also argue that if Hawkins gets hurt than they will not have the depth to recover like they did last year.

They also expect Edney to start from the beginning of the year and even have them in the projected 5. Earlier in the year, Cooley admitted that he felt that Edney will never be fully recovered from his Achilles heel injury.

Also of note, it doesn't seem like they like the status of Greg Nero. "Anything they can get out of Nero is a bonus- a big bonus." After hearing reports like this, it makes you wonder how effective he can be this year.

Gettin Lite is back on

WVOF has announced that Gettin Lite is back on the air for it's third season. It will actually be filmed and broadcasted for the Ham Channel and Youtube. Past guests include:

Derek Needham
Yorel Hawkins
Stephanie Geehan
Desiree Pina
Brianna Dixion

The show will be on the air Tuesdays at 8PM and on youtube whenever the show is finished editing.

Fans miss Majok Majok

In the recent poll entitle "What is the biggest adversity for the Stags" the fans overwhelmingly chose the loss of Majok Majok. Here are the results:

Loss of Majok Majok 54%
Greg Nero Injury 28%
Yorel Hawkins' Knee 8%
Warren Edney Ankle 8%
Sean Crawford Foot 0%
Loss of Adam Jones 0%

I personally voted for the Greg Nero injury and think there is too much stock put into Majok Majok. Yes he is a big loss. Yes the recruiting class is much weaker without him. But when Greg Nero played in 2008 he was the Stags BEST player. To have a potential all-MAAC player come in maybe at 75% and the possibility of being at 100% by the MAAC tournament is still better than an uknown commodity. Who says Majok Majok would have made an impact? Maybe he finds a difficult tranisition to the college game. We will never know.

You can also make the argument for Warren Edney injury being big. Cooley and others have described him as a "player of the year" candidate when he is healthy. Early in 2008 he was a big surprise and had a great early portion of the season. That being said, Cooley admits that he does not think Edney will ever fully recover and remember he has not played in almost 2 years! There will surely be rust and who knows if he will ever get back to his old form?