Both the men and women’s basketball teams have something to build on for next year after each team wrapped up their respective seasons with losses in the MAAC Tournament semifinals to Siena.
Director of Athletics Eugene Doris has recently assured that Tim O’Toole will return for his fifth season as the men’s head coach. The Stags have struggled to mediocre seasons during O’Toole’s first four seasons as coach, but O’Toole believes this year’s team has begun to take a huge step forward.
“I really believe this team turned the corner for the Fairfield men’s basketball program,” O’Toole said. “What we’ve been trying to do for the last four years—to play together, play solid team defense, to bring in talented players—we’ve done that, and now we’re ready to move forward.”
After knocking off third-seeded Manhattan in the conference tournament quarterfinals, the Stags had limited rest coming into the game against Siena just over 12 hours later on the Saints home court.
The Stags defeated Siena twice during the regular season, but were unable to win for a third time, falling 83-63, due in large part to the play of the Saints’ Dwayne Archibold, who scored a game-high 28 points.
“We knew who ever won that game was probably going to win the tournament,” O’Toole said. “We just ran into an unbelievably hot team.”
Siena went on to defeat Niagara in the championship game to become the conference’s first-ever team to emerge from the play-in round to win the title and an NCAA Tournament berth.
The Lady Stags also fell victim to Siena in the semifinals, losing 80-62. After earning the program’s first-ever at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament last year, the Lady Stags finished a disappointing 13-16 overall this year.
The women’s team, however, will lose just two seniors this year. The Stags will return three starters from this season’s lineup, led by junior Schrene Isidora. Isidora scored a career-high 32 points in the conference tournament quarterfinals against Canisius, in a game the Stags won 96-92 in overtime.
The men’s team will lose seniors Sam Spann, Kyle Walsh and Keith Urgo, but will maintain the team’s main core of players. The Stags have also signed one recruit so far, DeWitt Maxwell from New Jersey. Maxwell was amongst the nominees for the prestigious McDonald’s High School All-American game this year.
“I think we had an amazing year,” O’Toole said. “But we have the making of something powerful.”
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