The men’s and women’s basketball teams will begin their respective regular seasons this upcoming week. The men’s team will travel to Providence College for a Tuesday Night tilt against the Friars at 7 p.m. on November 9, whereas the women’s team will make their way over to Webster Bank Arena in Bridgeport, Conn. for a home matchup against the Brown University Bears, also at 7 p.m. on November 9.
The last time that the Stags were able to outlast the Friars was 1968. Since then, the Fairfield University men’s basketball team has unfortunately lost 13 straight games to Providence. On Tuesday, however, they are looking to change that.
Fairfield University’s men’s basketball has a rough history with Providence College; in 24 games against them, they have only won one and lost 23. The last time the two faced each other was almost a year ago on Nov. 25, 2020, where the Stags fell 56-97 in Providence. The Stags and Friars will only get this once chance at each other this season; the first half of Fairfield’s season will consist of mostly out-of-conference games, with the second half being entirely populated with Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference standoffs.
On the home front, however, the women’s basketball team looks to extend their winning record over Brown University, where they have won five games and lost three. Most recently, however, on Dec. 22, 2019, the Stags lost to the Bears by a score of 44-58. However, they were last able to beat Brown in November of 2012 with a 49-34 win.
The women’s basketball schedule is broken down into nine out-of-conference games at the very beginning of the season, with the rest of the season being MAAC matchups.
The women’s team this year will also be participating in the 2021 MAAC/ASUN Challenge at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, FL. The Atlantic Sun conference, abbreviated as ASUN, is a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I conference that hosts Southeastern US schools.
Representing the MAAC is Fairfield University, Iona College and Manhattan College, with Manhattan bringing both their men’s and women’s squads, and Iona bringing only their men’s team. In the ASUN conference, Florida Gulf Coast University and Stetson University will be bringing their women’s teams, with Liberty University and the University of North Alabama using only their men’s teams.
Later into November, the Fairfield University women’s team will be facing off against Stetson University and Florida Gulf Coast University, which are both teams the Stags have never faced off against.
After the two teams’ respective games on Tuesday, they will both go their separate ways again on the upcoming Sunday, where the men’s team will take on Boston College on the road and the women’s team will face off against Rutgers University, also taking on the role of the away team.
You can watch both of Tuesday’s events live if you cannot make the games; the men’s basketball game will be broadcasted on Fox Sports 1 and the women’s basketball game can be watched on ESPN3.
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