Fairfield falls to Iona
All the momentum in this week was building up for this moment.
Four games in four days for the chance to earn the program’s first conference championship in over 20 years.
Fairfield had come from a 1-9 start all the way to the 2021 MAAC Tournament Championship game. The Stags were playing their best basketball of the year and would face Iona in a 2018 MAAC Championship rematch.
Except the game ended exactly how it did three years ago with Iona celebrating on center court, punching a ticket to the Big Dance instead of the Stags.
On Saturday, the seventh seeded Stags (10-17 overall, 8-12 MAAC) fell, 60-51, to the No. 9 seed Gaels (12-5, 7-3). Iona earned its fifth straight MAAC title along with an automatic ticket to the NCAA Tournament, leaving Fairfield at the end of its 2021 campaign.
“We were not a good team earlier in the year, obviously and most of that was my fault, but I never thought it was a personnel issue,” Fairfield head coach Jay Young said. “I thought it was an execution issue and we just had to get better. … I’m proud of where we ended up, certainly devastated for our guys but we’ll be back in this game if we keep doing what we’re doing.”
Iona took advantage of the Stags’ slow game tempo and limited their offense to their third worst shooting performance of the season. Fairfield ended the game shooting 30.2 percent, it’s lowest since its 68-51 loss to Niagara on Dec. 18. The Stags’ worst shooing game of the season came the last time they lost to Iona, on Dec. 11 with a 27.5 shooting percent performance.
“Our offense just didn’t show up tonight,” Young said. “It was a combination of a very good defensive team in Iona and when we did get some open shots, you gotta make them. You’re not going to win a type of game against this opponent scoring 51 points. … That had been a problem for us in the past and it kinda came back and bit us tonight.”
Fairfield’s shooting woes began in the first half where in the opening ten minutes, the Stags were just 2-of-13 from the floor. Five straight points from Benning cut a seven-point lead by Iona to a one-score game at 5:06 — the closest the Stags would get within the Gaels the whole game.
A 13-3 run, allowed Iona to close out the first half ahead, 30-18, while Fairfield was kept scoreless in the final four minutes.
The Stags opened the second half with some momentum as they went on a 10-2 run to get within four points of Iona. But the Gaels didn’t let off the gas, scoring six straight to get back ahead by double-digits and force Fairfield into a timeout. Less than two minutes later, back-to-back buckets from Iona gave the Gaels a lead of 45-31, forcing Fairfield to use their second-tolast timeout of the game at the 10:12 mark.
Following a five-plus minute field goal drought from Fairfield, Iona reached its biggest lead of the game of 52-36, with a 3-pointer by Isaiah Ross at 6:07.
However, the Stags caught a break when Iona head coach Rick Pitino was called for a technical after arguing over a personal foul called on the Gaels. Fairfield junior guard Jake Wojcik came in clutch from the charity stripe, making all four of his free throws and right afterward, two more, giving the Stags an 8-0 run and cutting Iona’s lead in half. Wojcik finished the game leading Fairfield with 13 points.
Yet that’s where Fairfield’s momentum ended. Despite a last-minute 3pointer form Benning, the Gaels used an 8-3 run to build enough cushion behind them and won the game, 60-51. Iona senior guard Asante Gist led the Gaels with 18 points and was named the MAAC Tournament MVP.
“We showed a lot of character coming in as a seventh seed,” said Benning, one of two seniors from the Stags’ roster to graduate this spring. “We put all that aside and we fought. I think a lot of people counted us out and we proved some people wrong. We really fought and it shows to the toughness of our coaching staff and the toughness of everybody that we have in the locker room. I think that’s what I’ll remember the most. How much we fought to get here.”
AVONDALE, Ariz. — The big story at Phoenix Raceway one year ago was the remarkable recovery of veteran driver Ryan Newman, who strolled around the infield sipping a soft drink just weeks after a horrific crash in the Daytona 500 had everyone fearing the worst.
It was an entertaining race on a beautiful Sunday afternoon with Joey Logano holding off Kevin Harvick for his second win of the season. Kyle Larson finished fourth, continuing his rise with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Then came COVID-19, and everything in auto racing — and the world — changed.
“Gosh, it doesn’t feel like a year ago,“driver Ryan Blaney said.
After 12 long months, it’ll be a much quieter scene for this year’s spring race in the desert, with a smaller crowd, masks, social distancing and everything else that’s been deemed necessary for sports to continue during a pandemic. It’s a compromise that’s become somewhat normal, even if it’s less than ideal.
“I miss a lot,” Logano said. “Obviously, the fans not being at the racetrack, the energy that they bring is second to none, so that quietness is awful. I like hearing the cheering, the booing and everything in between. I like that. I like having our sponsors at the racetrack and people walking through the garage thinking it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen when they see these cars up close.”
NASCAR’s season was paused for two months after Logano’s win at Phoenix. The sport was one of the first in the nation to return on May 17 in Darlington, South Carolina, during a one-day event in front of no fans.
The slow march to normalcy continues in Phoenix.
“Hopefully, we’re making progress on this thing of getting the world healthy again, but it’s changed the way that our sport has operated,” Blaney said. “It’s changed the way everything has operated, from sports to businesses and things like that, and I’m looking forward to the day we can all get healthy again and put this all behind us and get back to normal life.”
LARSON’S RETURN
Little did anyone know that Larson’s fourth-place finish in Phoenix would be his last race with Chip Ganassi Racing.
The driver’s use of a racial slur while participating in an online race last April cost him his job, his reputation and his ability to attract the corporations that fund a race team. Larson wasn’t sure he’d race in NASCAR again until Rick Hendrick took a chance on a him.
Last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Larson raced to his first NASCAR victory since he was reinstated from a nearly yearlong suspension. He was hired by Hendrick Motorsports when NASCAR said the suspension would lift at the start of this year.
Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only Black fulltime driver, was one of the first competitors to congratulate Larson.
“It meant a lot for Bubba to come to victory lane,” Larson said. “He’s always believed in me. That was special.”
HOMECOMING FOR MCDOWELL
Daytona 500 winner Michael McDowell will be racing close to his hometown of Glendale, Arizona, where he grew up racing karts before moving to North Carolina to pursue his NASCAR dreams.
The 36-year-old McDowell was an unlikely Daytona winner, earning his first Cup victory in his 358th start.
McDowell returned to his
old kart track in Glendale on Thursday, where he raced under the lights against local kids aged 7 to 16. He signed autographs and brought his Daytona 500 trophy for fans to check out.
KEEP IT COOL
Last year’s spring race in Phoenix was a hot one, with temperatures pushing close to 90 degrees.
Sunday’s race should be quite a bit cooler, with a high around 70 degrees expected, but the rain that fell in the desert on Friday and early Saturday should be gone.
ODDS AND ENDS
Reigning Cup champ Chase Elliott won at Phoenix in November to clinch his title and is the 5-1 favorite to win Sunday. Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin are all 6-1. Defending race winner Joey Logano is 8-1 and Michael McDowell at his home track is 100-1, the same odds he overcame to win the Daytona 500. … The Cup Series has had four different winners in four races to start the season but none by active Cup champions. It is the first time since 2008 that a former series champion did not win in the first four races of a season. … There have been five different winners to start the season 14 times before but not since 2017. The record is 10 different winners in 10 races in 2000. … There are seven former winners at Phoenix in the field. Harvick leads all drivers with nine victories at Phoenix. … Jason Biggs, host of “Cherries Wild” on NASCAR broadcast partner Fox, is the grand marshal.