Three Thoughts: Quinnipiac 60, Fairfield 59 (A Bill Carmody Sighting)

Bill Carmody stood in his purple shirt Friday night at Webster Bank Arena and he could have been transported to Northwestern a few years back or maybe even Princeton a few years before that. He’s been out of the game for a couple of years now since being fired by Northwestern. He never did get the Wildcats where he got Princeton twice, the NCAA Tournament, even though he was there 13 seasons.

He came damn close, though, with four straight NIT appearances at one point, and his 1-3-1 and Princeton offenses gave more talented teams fits, although Carmody never did quite get enough talent to Chicago to get them over the NCAA hump.

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Three Thoughts: Iona 72, Fairfield 57 (A Bit About Schadrac Casimir)

For all the talk about Iona being nicknamed Transfer U, some of it deserved, the Gaels’ success under Tim Cluess over the past five seasons has not been solely about picking up talented players that other programs may not want for various reasons. Continue reading “Three Thoughts: Iona 72, Fairfield 57 (A Bit About Schadrac Casimir)”

Three Thoughts: Fairfield 60, Marist 54

K.J. Rose went for a career-high 26 points, but it was not enough for the Stags Monday night against Bucknell. (photo courtesy: Fairfield Athletics)

To call K.J. Rose’s shooting in the last few games a slump may not really do it justice. A famine, maybe? Since a 26-point outburst on 9-16 from the field in an overtime loss to Bucknell on Dec. 1, the Fairfield sophomore had made just seven of his last 37 shots heading into Friday’s game with Marist over a seven-game span that saw his minutes start to dwindle almost in perfect correlation to freshman Jerome Segura’s increasing.

Friday didn’t really start much better for Rose, he had missed his first five shots as the Stags were struggling mightily at home with a Marist team that was just 1-15 (although the Red Foxes had a full cast of characters for the first time since Opening Night).

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Three Thoughts: Loyola (MD) 61, Fairfield 59 (OT)

At some point – as Dennis Green so emphatically pointed out years ago – you are what you are, and with the 2014 portion of Fairfield 2014-15 campaign now complete, we’re pretty sure the Stags are a solid defensive team with pretty good size, but one that is going to struggle offensively, especially when leading scorer Marcus Gilbert is not as his best.

That combination is likely going to result in a lot of low-scoring, close games in MAAC play, and Fairfield was already able to win its first two conference games that way. Alas, they’ve now lost all three non-conference games since after a particularly physical (some might call it unattractive) 61-59 overtime loss (Fairfield’s fourth OT game this season already) to struggling Loyola (MD).

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