The Stags entered this past weekend in the midst of a tough stretch that includes playing seven of their final 11 games on the road. But they also went into the weekend with a chance to start to pull away from the rest of the pack in the MAAC and stay just one game behind first-place Siena.
Instead, Fairfield came out and played one if its worst games of the season against Iona on Sunday afternoon, losing 68-58 at the Hynes Center in New Rochelle, NY. The loss dropped Fairfield into a three-team tie for second place in the MAAC, with Iona and Saint Peter’s.
On Sunday the offense failed to click and the defense allowed open three-pointers. In the end, the better team won that day, but for the Stags (14-6, 7-3 MAAC) there is still a lot to look forward to.
“It was frustrating,” said Needham, who scored 15 points with four assists against Iona. “It always helps playing on the road, win or lose. We don’t want to be down. We’ll be back. ”
Senior center Anthony Johnson scored 25 points for the Stags against Iona and Yorel Hawkins chipped in with 11 points, but Fairfield’s bench was outscored 5o-5 by the Gaels. Iona also scored 33 points on 11 three pointers, while Fairfield converted on four long range shots.
“We know that Anthony Johnson and [Ryan] Olander are such a presence that we weren’t going to score a lot of easy points inside. We wanted to space them out and use their size against them,” Gaels second year head coach Kevin Willard said. “And I thought we did a good job of taking good shots.”
The Stags still face St. Peter’s (12-8, 7-3) and Iona (15-6, 7-3) at home later in the season with a chance to take back control of second place. Fairfield also still has important games against Niagara at home (11-11, 4-6) and Rider twice (11-11, 4-6), the two teams picked to finish second and third in the MAAC in the pre-season coaches poll. Both are surprisingly struggling halfway through the conference season.
“We’re in a bit of a log jam,” head coach Ed Cooley said. “As much as we wanted to win as a program, a better team beat us. They played their game plan, they executed and they were better than us today.”
The Stags were able to pick up a road win and a sweep of last place Marist on Thursday night in Pougkeepsie, N.Y. Fairfield won 70-50, led by a double double from Anthony Johnson (16 points, 11 rebounds). Johnson scored his 1,000th career point in the game, becoming the 37th Fairfield player to accomplish that milestone.
Fairfield led for the entire game and were ahead by as many as 25 points in the second half. For Cooley, the win was a special one, the first on the road against Marist.
“My first three years we played here, it wasn’t a pleasent experience” Cooley said. “I was 0-3 as a head coach and my seniors were 0-3. That’s all we talked about all week.”
The fourth-year head coach has now won at every MAAC school, except for Rider. The Stags face the Broncs on Feb. 12 and it could be Cooley’s best shot to knock off Tommy Dempsey’s squad on the road.
After the victory over Marist, the Red Foxes head coach Chuck Martin was quick to praise the Stags.
“That’s a really good Fairfield team,” Martin said. “That team’s got a chance to play in the NCAA tournament … Take the Fairfield off the front of their jerseys, they could be an A-10 or Big East team, with their size and strength.”
While Fairfield has tough matchups to long forward to down the road, the Stags cannot over look the upcoming road trip to Baltimore to face Loyola (10-10, 3-7 MAAC) and head coach Jimmy Patsos on Thursday night. Earlier this season the Stags defeated Loyola 65-60 on Jan. 8 at the Arena at Harbor Yard.
Patsos, who has had a heated relationship with Cooley in the past, recently stirred the pot again. During the post-game press conference following the Greyhounds game at Siena in the Times-Union Center, he talked about playing in Bridgeport at the Arena at Harbor Yard.
“You go to Beirut — I mean, Bridgeport — and it’s a different situation, because it’s kind of empty, and even though it’s nice and everything, but you try and duplicate that in their minds, that’s different,” Patsos stated.
Following Fairfield’s game against growing-rival Loyola, the Stags return home for a late afternoon game on Saturday against Rider at the Arena at Harbor Yard at 4 p.m.
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