Immediately after a one-sided loss to Manhattan a season ago, men’s basketball Head Coach Ed Cooley stood outside the locker room and said, “If there was a positive in this game, I thought our assistant coaches were well dressed.”
“We were terrible,” he added emphatically.
It wasn’t just the loss that troubled Cooley, it was the trend.
The Stags had lost five of six games and went into the winter break with far more questions than answers.
Now, one year later, Siena has defeated the Stags, 74-61, handing them their fifth-straight loss.
The energy-less defeat came only a few days after Fairfield allowed a 2-5 Yale to invade Alumni Hall and win in overtime.
“We had a bad performance tonight,” said Cooley. “We were not good from start to finish. Right now, we are not a good team.”
Once again, the team goes into the winter break on a downward spiral. And once again, the questions far outweigh the answers.
“It’s tough,” said guard Herbie Allen ’09, referring to the Stags’ recent rough stretch.
“We prepared [for Siena] for two days. It seemed like we just threw the stuff that we learned [in the] last two days out the window,” he said.
Last season’s Fairfield squad surprised fans because it encountered relatively low expectations from the beginning.
With a new coach and an inexperienced roster that lacked a proven scorer, the Stags were expected to take their lumps and learn the ropes.
While that proved true early on, a stretch of seven-straight MAAC wins and a senior who refused to lose turned the season around and made Fairfield relevant in the conference again.
That winning streak as well as veteran leadership were supposed to be the stepping stones to a better season and a promising future.
One season later, it appears that this program may be stuck in neutral instead of accelerating at full speed.
The only tendency that Fairfield has shown is its ability to lose games due to its inconsistencies.
One day, they are pushing fifth-ranked Georgetown to the limit; the next, they hand a mediocre Yale team a road win.
“It seems like it’s been the same script for [five] straight games,” said Cooley.
One obvious cause for concern is an additional scoring option behind guard Jon Han ’09 and forward Greg Nero ’10. Anthony Johnson ’10 has shown flashes of brilliance but is only shooting 41 percent, even though most of his shots come in high-percentage opportunities.
Mike Evanovich ’09 totaled 20 points against Wake Forest, but since that night, he has scored only 32 points in eight combined games.
Another potential problem may come in a perceived strength: recruiting.
Despite being widely regarded as a skilled recruiter, Cooley may be finding a difficult time getting the right athletes to play for him at Fairfield.
Aside from Johnson, who still has an apparent need to improve his shot selection, last season’s recruits have been erratic at best, particularly at guard.
Devin Johnson ’10, hyped as a defensive standout, has only averaged eight minutes per game this season. Rich Flemming and Roi Buchbinder, highly touted Cooley recruits, failed miserably and did not return this season.
This year, while Hawkins is finding a niche, Warren Edney ’11 has shown inconsistency in his shooting and Lyndon Jordan ’11, a pure point guard brought in for depth, has played 21 minutes in nine games.
Of course, there is still reason for hope.
Three of the team’s most recent losses have come against premier opponents. Georgetown and Cincinnati represent two of the schedule’s more difficult out-of-conference competitors, and Siena is a nationally accredited mid-major school that defeated Stanford earlier this season.
Han has demonstrated his ability to become the lead scoring option, as evidenced by his 22 points in an emotional win over Sacred Heart on Nov. 18.
The team has been competitive in every game, regardless of the opponent, and has demonstrated plenty of heart on the court. Then again, a loss to lowly St. Francis (N.Y.) makes you wonder if a similar turnaround to 2006 is possible.
“We’re in a funk that I haven’t seen us [in],” said Cooley. “It’s frustrating.”
If the trend continues, that frustration won’t be going away any time soon.
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