However, Siena Head Coach Mitch Buonaguro said at the Saints’ media day in October that he expects the Saints to have a successful season in 2011-12.

“We are expecting to have a very successful season.” Buonaguro said. “We always do that at Siena. What matters is what happens at the end of the game. Who wins the game, not about what people say about your team.”

Fans might call on Buonaguro’s statement as overly optimistic. While the Saints lose MAAC Player of the Year Ryan Rossiter and Clarence Jackson, two players that combined to score 43% of Siena’s points last season, new Saints will have to pick up the slack.

The idea of what might constitute a successful season might come with how success is defined. Success is something Saints fans have become accustomed to over their recent history. Since entering the MAAC, the Saints have won seven regular season titles and five tournament titles in 22 seasons. When Paul Hewitt came to Siena in 1997, he helped usher in an era in which the Saints have had a total of just four losing seasons in the past 14 years. During that time the Saints only had two straight losing seasons once, in 2003-04 and 2004-05 was the last time under Rob Lanier. Lanier was fired after the 2005 season, a 6-24 campaign.

The MAAC Preseason Awards Show placed the Saints at sixth in the conference in 2011-12 after finishing in seventh the year before.

So if success a season over .500, a deep MAAC tournament run, or it could be more abstract to what student-athletes develop into reliable scoring options or how the six-man incoming freshmen class develops. We asked all of our experts throughout the preseason how they would define success for the Saints in 2011-12.

Projected Standings from Kenpom ratings

(as of Monday November 7th – pre-season ratings * – does not account for Brookins out for season)

54 Iona

94 Fairfield
147 Rider
148 Loyola MD
194 Siena
230 Manhattan
242 St. Peter’s
245 Canisius
270 Niagara
307 Marist

Basketball Prospectus’ Ken Pomeroy, whose thorough database of stats at Kenpom.com now has individual player stats dating back to the 2005-06 season, used his ‘similarity score’ to figure out how Rahkeem Brookins compares to players all across the nation.

Similarity score is a comparison based on a certain amount of stats used to make the comparison. Pomeroy’s tool finds the players with the stats most similar to the player – in this case Brookins. In his similarity score post in September, Pomeroy said he used the following 13 stats:

Team Rating (4x)
%Poss (4x)
Off Rating (3x)
OR% (3x)
DR% (3x)
FTRate (3x)
%Min (2x)
eFG% (2x)
Assist rate (2x)
TO rate (2x)
Block % (2x)
Steal % (1x)
Shot % (1x)
For more check resources here and here

The team rating allows the comparison to account for the chance that a small conference player doesn’t get compared to a Big Ten player. The unique part about the similarity score comparison is that a player like Brookins, in this case, his season is only compared against other freshmen. A score of 1000 is the highest similarity score you can get, which constitutes an identical match, but that is an extremely rare case.

A good reason to select Brookins to use as a test case to against other players is because Brookins is the returning Saint who played the most minutes last season (884). Brookins started 25 of the Siena’s 28 games and scored a career-high 18 points, including four three pointers, in the Saints loss at St. Bonaventure.

However, for Saints fans, we asked Pomeroy to a much more in-depth statistical query on Brookins 2010-11 numbers. We asked him to break it down against Siena players from the past six seasons and against MAAC freshmen and players from then as well.

Rahkeem Brookins comparisons using Similarity Score

Despite the fact Breeden left the program at the end of the season, it’s interesting that Breeden’s and Brookins seasons from 2011 were listed highly on the similarity score chart. However these comparisons are not the strongest that Brookins compares to.

“900 is pretty strong.” Pomeroy said of the best similarity scores to use when comparing players. “850 isn’t bad. Once you get around 800, the comparisons are shaky.”

Comparisons between Brookins and Moore appear to be somewhat strong, reaching the threshold of 850 or less, but in a search for stronger comparisons, instead of using Siena players, try and open it up to all the MAAC players in the last six seasons.

While Moore is still in the comparison, he is not the best comparison of MAAC freshmen when you compare him against other players. The large amount of shots Brookins took in 2011 were an important indicator towards his future development.

“The biggest thing Brookins has going for him is that he took a few shots last season,” Pomeroy said. “Now he just has to make more of them. But too many freshman are unable to do either, so at least Brookins has shown he is ahead of the curve in one skill.”

When comparing Brookins to other freshmen, John Templon who writes at Big Apple Buckets, @nybuckets on twitter, said Brookins compares interestingly to Marist’s R.J. Hall.

“One name that pops up is R.J. Hall of Marist in 2009,” Templon said. “Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to get his turnover problems under control and has ended up playing fewer minutes for the Red Foxes as the years go by.”

Hall (85.3) and Brookins (86.6) were close in personal offensive rating their freshman seasons according to Ken Pomeroy’s stats. Templon said to expect a different type of development for Brookins than what has happened to Hall in his sophomore and junior seasons.

“That’s not to say he’ll end up with such a fate, but it’s a possibility,” Templon said. “Hall didn’t quite have the steal rate of Brookins as a freshman, so there’s an indication that some latent athleticism is going to come out as Brookins develops.”

Hall’s development has been hindered by academic issues. Hall was ruled academically ineligible for the spring of 2011. Hall is a senior at Marist this year.

The strongest comparison appears to be Canisius sophomore Gaby Belardo from last season. Belardo transferred from South Florida where he played a limited role to play for the Griffs in 2011. Templon agreed on the strong comparison between Brookins and Belardo with his own set of numbers.

“They both had high steal, turnover and assist rates, while not being quite that effective on offense,” Templon said. “Of course one was a redshirt sophomore and the other a freshman.”

Pomeroy said it’s a strong comparison and the tool has done a good job comparing players who might not look exactly the same.

“Obviously, the tool isn’t perfect, and it’s going to miss on a few comparisons, and it may occasionally compare guys who don’t look much alike,” Pomeroy said. “Although, the last part is not really something that concerns me.”

Saints fans might be waiting for Brookins to make progressive improvements this season. Brookins hurt a disc in his back in practice and has not shown improvement since injuring it which could put him in doubt to start the regular season in the starting lineup.

However, if Brookins returns healthy this season Saints fans should expect a solid season. How much improvement might depend on a variety of factors. Pomeroy said Brookins’ free throw shooting is a positive indicator of future success.

“The main thing is that he should get to the free throw line more. That’s something that almost anyone with his low free throw rate as a freshman will improve upon,” Pomeroy said. “Given that he’s apparently a good free throw shooter, that’s encouraging. Whether he can control his turnover issues is another matter. Historically, that could go either way.”

Along those same lines, Templon said Brookins ability to get in the lane and draw contact will be important in year two.

“Brookins doesn’t need to make a high percentage of his two-point attempts, and chances are he never will,” Templon said. “but he needs the threat of going into the lane to keep defenders honest and to open up passing lanes to the wings.”

While also concerned about the tunrovers, Templon said Brookins has the ability to cut down on turnovers and improve as a core player.

“In terms of turnovers, that should come with time and another year of strength development,” Templon said. “If he can cut it down to around 2.5 or 2 per game and maintain his assist rate he’ll be one of the top point guards in the MAAC and give Siena a strong building block for the next few seasons.”

A big thank you to Ken Pomeroy at Basketball Prospectus for running these numbers for us. Pomeroy’s rating system is sure to surprise some pessimistic Siena fans with his rank of the Saints in the MAAC this year – of course to see that you’ll have to buy a subscription to his site kenpom.com (starting Nov. 7th) which is going to the subscription model this year. Also a thank you to John Templon of NYCBuckets.com for helping contribute to this story by running his own numbers and his opinions on Brookins’ game.

It features writings from some of our favorite writers! Including Ken Pomeroy, who already told us his MAAC breakdown, friend of SienaSaintsBlog.com John Gasaway and Mid-majority proprietor now also Basketball Prospectus-ite Kyle Whelliston.

The post on Basketball Prospectus: Unfiltered says it best:

Want to know what I think? You should buy this book.

Siena Saints Blog: So I think all fans might be surprised by your favorite this season, the majority of publications have picked Fairfield, so make your case for Iona being the number one team?

Ken Pomeroy (Basketball Prospectus/KenPom.com): Really, if you have to pin me down, I’ll take Iona in the MAAC office pool this season, but the race for automatic NIT bid would seem to have four legitimate participants. My data shows Iona as the 2nd best team in the conference last season, and given that nearly everybody is back, I think they have a real claim to be the favorite. The only question is how the coaching change affects them. Tim Cluess is noted as a master tactician, so perhaps he has tempo-free analysis on his side as well.

I wouldn’t dismiss St. Peter’s either. If my info is correct, they’re one of only four D-I teams to return their entire rotation from last season. And obviously, you’d expect Siena to be a factor until they prove otherwise.

(Note: as of this time we still do not know Wesley Jenkins status for St. Peter’s. At media day Tuesday, coach John Dunne said that Jenkins’ partially torn ACL could either mean his return in approximately December or surgery. Dunne said they will know for sure in two weeks)

SSB: Now that MAAC fans minds are completly blown away by your Iona prediction, I think fans will all want to know, why not Fairfield?

Pomeroy: Unless [MAAC Defensive Player of the Year] Anthony Johnson has an extra year of eligibility that I’m not aware of, I think the Stags are going to struggle to improve on last season. He was a rather efficient possession-hogger on top of being a rebounding beast and a skilled shot blocker. Those guys don’t grow on trees. I’m guessing pundits are overvaluing Fairfield’s MAAC tourney performance last season, but still, I can’t explain the near unanimity with which folks are making them the favorite. They have a shot, sure, but they don’t deserve the target that league observers are giving them.

(Their answer might have been 6’8″ big man commit Majok Majok but he was ruled ineligible before the school year started)

SSB: Who do you see as the key to develop and give the Saints a shot at winning this league?

Pomeroy: I don’t know if I have a magical answer here, other than it would be nice if somebody was a surprise in terms of production. I applaud the recognition that Ryan Rossiter is getting, but Siena has a lot to replace, and in terms of offensive production, I expect Rossiter will need a lot of help if the Saints are to maintain a top-notch MAAC offense.

SSB: What odds would you place on the Saints keeping up their home court advantage winning streak – while keeping in mind that Butler as well as former Siena coach Paul Hewitt and his Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets come to Albany?

Pomeroy: This a total guess with no computational basis, but I’ll put the chances at about 10%. They may be favored against their old coach, and won’t be a huge underdog to Butler, but the cumulative difficulty of winning 15 consecutive games is the big issue. Especially when the team doesn’t figure to be as dominant as it was the last two seasons.

SSB: What should we expect from Seton Hall transfer Brandon Walters for the Saints?

Pomeroy: As a 6-9 guy whose skills confine him to the center position, he’s a much better fit in the MAAC than the Big East. I don’t think you expect someone like him to be a star immediately, but he’ll be able to contribute.

SSB: We wish Fran McCaffery well at Iowa, how do you think former Saints Head Coach will perform this year?

Pomeroy: Last season, the Hawkeyes went 4-14 in the conference and that’s a reasonable expectation for this season. Iowa might be a little bit better, but so will almost everybody else in the Big Ten. Hawkeye fans can at least get excited about their games having 6-8 more possessions per game than last season and possibly sweeping Michigan.

SSB: How far will the Saints go this year?

Pomeroy: I’ll give ‘em 12 wins in conference play and a semi-final exit. Though, of course, the single-elimination format is a complete crapshoot. I wouldn’t trust a prediction on that in March, let alone now. Especially since they’re moving away from Albany. [note: MAAC Basketball Championships are in Bridgeport this March, then Springfield, MA for three years]

SSB: A fun one, will Marist be able to top their win total from last year (1)?

Pomeroy: Almost surely, although I’m surprised they didn’t schedule a non-D-I early in the season to ensure the losing streak ended [currently an 18 game losing streak, losing games by an average of 16+ points per game during that span]. Heck, I’ll give them a 50/50 shot of not finishing in the MAAC cellar. Marist was mega-bad last season, and still gutted out a win. They’ll be better this year.

SSB: I’d almost like to ask you for a sleeper this year but…

Pomeroy: I just gave you Iona winning the conference when the coaches picked them fourth, and Marist finishing in not-last. What more do you want? Well, if you need more MAAC thoughts, then you should order a copy of College Basketball Prospectus 2010-11. The MAAC preview was written by our own Asher Fusco, who has additional poignant insights on the league, and some of his thoughts differ from mine since my mind-melding training isn’t complete yet.

College Basketball Prospectus 2010-11 will be out any day now, so be sure to put it on your virtual bookshelf. It’s the best one we’ve done yet, and it’s more interesting than anything else out there!

Using his up to date stats and log5 methodology, he has determined the probabilities of every MAAC Team to win the 2010 Citizens Bank MAAC Basketball Championships. These odds are also featured on the Basketball Prospectus article today “March at Last: Conference Tournament Projections.” In his article he explains the log5 method in simple terms:

Think of a coin with one side labeled “win” and the other side labeled “loss.” The chance of the coin landing on “win” is the team’s rating. Log5 is derived from the probability that a team’s coin will land on win and its opponent’s coin will land on loss. (If they land on the same side, you re-flip.)

His take on the MAAC Tournament?

The MAAC produces the biggest Championship Week long shot in Marist, who has a 1-in-6500 chance to leave Albany with an NCAA bid in hand. They were able to lead Siena for 17 minutes on Sunday, so maybe there’s hope. Siena is easily the best team in the conference and gets to play at home but, even so, they have a 1-in-4 chance of being disappointed.

We also let him break down the conference race from a statistical perspective and his answers might surprise you…

Siena Saints Blog: Who would be your favorite to win MAAC Player of the Year? What argument do the numbers make?

Ken Pomeroy: This is a good test, because I haven’t seen anything other than a few minutes of Siena this season. Nor have I checked in on who is getting the buzz from the conference’s beat writers. Also – I’m not going to look at any per game stats. So we’ll see how I match up with popular opinion.

Due to Siena’s dominance, you have to look at their roster first, and Alex Franklin is their MVP, although I’m sure there’s some support for Edwin Ubiles and Clarence Jackson. Franklin’s been more efficient offensively, and his ability to draw tons of fouls and rebound very well adds an extra dimension, so I’d give the conference award to him. I have to give honorable mention to Fairfield’s Anthony Johnson, who’s an impact player on both ends and Frank Turner of Canisius who has to be one of the most effective point guards in mid-major-land.

Siena Saints Blog: Is there anything that can explain Rider’s collapse from the contenders to being a number five seed?

Ken Pomeroy: They actually aren’t too much different from last season, they’ve just had a bit worse performance in close games. With so many guys coming back, you’d expect a little improvement, but it doesn’t work out that way for every team in that position.

Siena Saints Blog: Who would be your tournament dark horse?

Ken Pomeroy: The only fair answer here is “anybody but Siena.” There are only two tournaments with a more overwhelming favorite than the Saints. So picking a specific team to win the tourney is like throwing darts. Niagara is under-seeded as a six, though.

Siena Saints Blog: The MAAC decided to move the championships to Springfield, MA in 2012 to 2014. What’s your take on major/midmajor conferences moving their tournaments to neutral sites?

Ken Pomeroy: Yeah, I love this idea. Since the MAAC is so compact geographically, I think they can make this work. Neutral site tournaments are ideal for crowning a champ, it’s just a matter of whether fans will show up. The A-10 has struggled in that regard in Atlantic City, the Mountain West couldn’t make Denver work, and we’ll see what happens with the WCC this season (playing their 2nd year in Las Vegas, NV). But I would think you’ll at least get enough Siena fans making the short trip over the Berkshires to make the Springfield experiment worth it.

• Siena Saints Blog catches up with David Woods of the Indianapolis Star to talk about the Butler Bulldogs in advance of their matchup on February 20th. Go buy his book! The Butler Way: The Best of Butler Basketball which came out at the end of last year and is available on amazon.com.
• We got into some more reading on Tuesday. RushTheCourt, The Indianapolis Star and the Times Union all reacted to the Siena-Butler matchup and Yahoo!’s The Dagger talked to Ryan Rossiter.
• The night of the announcement we scooped up all the important links from Andy Katz, Joe Lunardi and a great New York Times story on Siena’s Senior class.
• Just past 6:30, we found out Siena’s BracketBusters opponent, and will be traveling to Butler to play in the first game Saturday at 11am on ESPN2HD and ESPN360.com.
• Our pre previews covered the array of options while sorting out Siena’s most likely opponents, to Matt’s opinion piece calling for Butler, to a potential Utah State matchup.

5E Florida State 4th 14.0
9S Butler 6th 14.3
9M Siena 8th 15.4

8M Ohio State 309th 24.2
10W Maryland 314th 24.4
4S Gonzaga 317th 24.5
3W Missouri 320th 24.8
6M West Virginia 325th 25.2
14W Cornell 327th 25.5

Another Vanderbilt?

Kenpom.com stats as of games through 3/9/09

Team A is Cal and Team B is last year’s Vanderbilt team. Their basic components are the same fron three point, two point and from the free throw line. They also prefer to play at a lower tempo than the Saints like. Over the past three games the Saints have been able to dictate tempo to their opponent and induce them to try and play an up tempo game. The only difference between the two is that Cal turns to their three point shots at a much lower rate, one out of every four shots rather than Vandy’s 33% last year.

When they fall behind; however, they turn into a version of Monday night’s Niagara team who feels a propensity to shoot out of their problems. This team is also fairly young, with only one senior on the roster and 6 of their 9 losses coming on road/neutral sites.

This Cal team also does not have a shot blocker. Chinese Freshman Max Zhang leads the team in blocks with 13 and he hasn’t played in any of the team’s past ten games. So if Siena drew Cal you can expect them to be able to drive to the basket and work from the inside out something they did to Fairfield early Sunday. Cal is streaking the wrong way, losing 3 of their last 5 and two of those by double digits. We’ll see Sunday if Cal is paired with Siena.

After finishing 73-50 in four years at Marist, Matt Brady decided now was the time to move on. He chose his next challenge to be rehabilitating a team that won 13 games last year. Though his transition marks a great time for a fresh start with new head coach Chuck Martin.

(photo: GoRedFoxes.com) Martin said, “… I preach to thee.. less threes, more up tempo, then more microphones!”

He will have his work cut out for him. Though he did handle the media. I was going to link the other appearances listed on GoRedFoxes.com, but they led to nowhere. Which might be the theme to this upcoming season.

Any time you have to replace 43% of your roster and 70% of your scoring from last year, you might feel like your season might lead to nowhere. Worse off is when your former head coach takes the players he has recruited with him to James Madison, you’re back to square one. Siena faced this situation in a similar way when they ousted Rob Lainer, which seemed to work out for both sides.

Brady inherited a team that won 6 games the previous year but that had good young talent, Martin inherits a team with 14 wins but any prediction over 14 wins could be considered a stretch. With that come some welcome additions to the lineup. Recently announced two transfers; junior college transfer Javon Parris will spend his two remaining eligibility years at Marist as well as Boston College trasnsfer Daye Kaba. Kaba will help in 2009-10 while Parris is eligible for this season. Parris is a relative mystery, after leaving the College of Charleston after one year he went to a junior college in Kansas and averaged 11.4 points per game. When he enters the MAAC he might realize he’s not in Kansas anymore. As for Kaba, his future is a relative mystery. He transferred in April, said he considered Loyola (MD) but settled with Marist because…

“The main thing is that Coach Martin recruited me back in high school when he was at St. John’s… Other than that, I really liked the offense- the dribble-drive motion. That fits my game perfectly. Those were the two reasons (for my decision).” – Kaba

Schedule

They will play at Memphis and likely get spanked. Also they will battle twice against Delaware. After hearing Mike and Mike’s “Battle For The Butter” idea, I’m thinking we should try to name this two game series. Though this has become an interesting trend, among others Oregon State has a home and home series this year with D.C. based Howard University.

Speaking of twice; the Siena games are spread out this time as oppose to last year’s two games in one week. First Marist will play the Saints at the Times Union Center Wednesday Night 12/9. Then Siena will travel a little over a month later to pay a visit to Marist on 1/15.

Obviously Brady left the cupboard pretty bare.  He inherited a player who would attract NBA scouts named Jared Jordan and what would become a deadly three point shooter in Will Whittington. With these tools he couldn’t get past Siena for a third time in the Conference Semifinals. Consider that nobody in the above picture, even the cut off bodies and arms, is at Marist anymore (photo: NY Times). When he left, so did his coaches and his recruits. And as for much as the fans at Marist don’t like him for leaving, they could not expect him to stay much longer. Siena fans know this JMU team to be the one that greeted them to the 2008 season by hanging 100 on them, but they went downhill from there. JMU has to go on the road for a BracketBuster game, Marist has to host one… hopefully if the scheduling powers can come up with this matchup on what would be Brady’s first recruiting class’ Senior Night.

Fun Fact

Martin’s career COACHING record against Marist: 2-2
1-1 against Marist at St. John’s. (05-07).
1-1 against Marist at Manhattan (99-00).
Which includes 0-1 at the McCann Center.

Martin’s (Monmouth ’91-93) PLAYING record against Marist: 3-2*
*this is back when Marist and Rider were members of the NEC, not MAAC yet.

Prediction

A weak non-conference schedule will allow Marist to rack up some wins, a blowout loss at Memphis, and unpredictable conference play. Guard David Devezin is good, preseason All MAAC 3rd team good, but undersized and he has to be and should be better than his 9.7 ppg / 50.3% eFG last year. He is bound to get more shots this year and could convert into much higher numbers. A wild card is Blair Academy’s Greek product Alex Vouyoukas who might profile as a duel threat forward who can step out and take threes as well as play inside. Martin inherits three players who red-shirted at Marist who he will need to contribute: Guards DeJuan Goodwin and Kaylen Gregory as well as Forward Lawrence Williams. Martin will probably not hold back in letting his first recruiting class develop with more on the job training.

One surprising note, Marist improved in effective FG% defense each year Brady was at Marist. Using Ken Pomeroy‘s set of innovative stats we can look at how Marist’s defense fared year to year:

From 7th to 1st, In Defense

It will be interesting to see if there is any effect on the defense in the first year of Martin’s system. By national ranking, Brady was able to improve this side of the ball quietly while being labeled as an offensive oriented coach. Marist fluctuated from being a team unable to defend the three point line in Brady’s first two years to a team in the top third of three point defenses. It will be interesting to see what the new three point line does to this defense and if this defense improves.

Fans will probably complain that even though the defense might have improved, it also didn’t let them get key stops in the last few years. One of the more interesting situations was the turn from love of Brady to the angst that he left and how he left. Two things going against Martin are that he was not the first choice, Marist extended offers to a coach who wanted to be in the NBA, to at least two others who withdrew. Martin will have a tough test, especially with an athletic director who was a former assistant basketball coach. Good luck.

I am trying to land a range of where I think Marist will land and I think this season could be a lot like Brady’s first season when the Red Foxes went 11-17. My take for Marist is that they will land 9th and finish under .500 in conference. There might be some very positive moments and a few good road wins but there also might be more than a few blowouts. Of course we might be underestimating them, the MAAC coaches vote slated them for 10th, so concerning us we’re omptimists. But that still leaves Marist playing on Friday night in the Times Union Center. However, in the new format only Canisius has been able to rack up an upset.

Martin is coming from Memphis and knows that Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose aren’t walking into Marist jerseys anytime soon, but he has also been at the heart of programs across the east coast. Before Memphis, he was with Bobby Gonzalez at Manhattan, Bruiser Flint at Drexel and UMass, and Norm Roberts at St. John’s. He will eventually build a tough program to beat but this year won’t be it. But at least the Women’s team is being mentioned in the Sporting News top 25.

]]> http://sienasaintsblog.com/2008/10/31/24/marist-2008-09-preview/feed/ 0 http://sienasaintsblog.com/2008/10/27/62/fairfield-2008-09-preview/ http://sienasaintsblog.com/2008/10/27/62/fairfield-2008-09-preview/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:27:52 +0000 Ryan http://sienasaintsblog.com/?p=62 Year One: Rebuild.
Year Two: Be Inconsistently Consistent.
Year Three: Contention.

SSB: One of the teams I still think has been a real good dark horse these last 2 years has been Fairfield…
Pomeroy: I think that’s a reasonable goal for them, not that I would expect it of course. To challenge Siena they would have to significantly improve their defense. Their offense is going to cause a ton of problems for MAAC opponents.
One on One: Ken Pomeroy

Fairfield has the chance to be one of the most intriguing teams in the MAAC this season. Their offense has progressed to better numbers in the Ed Cooley era, however their defense has fallen to the bottom third of the NCAA in advanced categories. If you use the Kenpom ratings for Fairfield, these are the prespectives you get from the past two years:

2007: This is a team that can score, takes a fair amount of threes, turns the ball over 22% of the time but also grabs a lot of offensive boards. They might get you to turn it over but you will be able to score on them almost at will. 4 win improvement.

2008: This is a team that can really shoot it. They are a good offense that excels in rebounding on the offensive end and making threes. You can beat them inside the three point line and you should be able to control the ball against them. 1 win improvement.

In 19 of Fairfield’s 30 games last year, the opponent shot 50% eFG% or better. Teams posted efficiency scores over 118 in 9 out of those 30 games. In other words, the Fairfield defense made the opponent look like the 2008 Duke Blue Devils when they were on the court.

Fairfield’s major knock is that they are inconsistently consistent. The easy word for it might be streaky.

Last Season

Fairfield in 08: Lose 2, Win 2, Lose 6, Win 1, Lose 1, Win 2, Lose 3, Win 2, Lose 2, Win 7, Lose 2.

When Fairfield lost 6 in a row, they turned the ball over 3 times against Georgetown when the game before the team turned the ball over 19 times against Saint Francis (NY). Yet this is the same team that did something the New England Patriots couldn’t do: go undefeated in February. When you look at all the Pomeroy stats here is the comparison of that early Fairfield streak to the 7 game win month. Let’s see if we can find anything:

The offense went from being one of the lower 3rd Offenses in the NCAA to one of the best in the country. The defense went from being one of the worst 20 defenses in the country, to one in the 270 range. That type of improvement which included better free throw rates on both ends precipitated a team that could win 7 games by an average of 7.5 points.

However let’s try to take out these 13 games and see if we can find any difference in Fairfield in the overall categories. And compare them against Fairfield’s overall season numbers.

The two teams look relatively the same. Except that the team that didn’t streak got to the free throw line more often. The team endured a six game losing streak and a seven game win streak while playing most of their games outside of those streaks like the team they were all season. In other words, they are who we thought they were. This is a team with a good offense but a bottom of the barrel defense which will need some help from the three freshmen big men who are coming onto the program.

One of the huge keys to this season will be Junior F Anthony Johnson who led the team on the boards should see an increase in minutes and effectiveness. A rebound in F Greg Nero‘s numbers would help as well:

Mystery Fairfield Player

Player A is Nero in ’07 and Player B is Nero in ’08. You wouldn’t tell by his on the court play since he regressed in scoring, Nero went from 9.4 ppg in 07 to 8.4 ppg in 08. The Junior improved modestly in advanced offensive categories and by about a rebound per game, but that was on a team where he did not lead them in rebounding. Nero’s freshman year he had Marty O’Sullivan picking up a freakishly high 5.6 rpg and Mike Van Schaick picking up 126 rebounds. Nero’s big year might show up this year, for Fairfield’s sake they will need it to become the true offensive force they can be. Cooley thinks that we could see that step taken by Nero this year:

“He’s had some health issues with his nasal blockage, but he’s better. Greg’s had a lot of experience. He’s been in a lot of situations, had a lot of minutes. It’s now time for him to put it together.”
- Ed Cooley on Greg Nero.
Fairfield Blue Ribbon Preview

If Nero cannot step up, expect for some of his playing time to be given to Freshman Forward Brandon Davis, the Greenville, SC product was ranked 44th out of the top 50 centers in the country by ESPN.

Fun Fact

Cooley, the Providence, Rhode Island native, won two Rhode Island High School Player of the Year awards for Basketball before attending Stonehill College.

Schedule

They will be challenged and have never backed down from playing tough non-conference games. They will open at Memphis and then come back home to play nearby rival Sacred Heart before heading to Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Tip Off will feature at least two matchups that include the opener against Virginia Tech and a game against either Missouri or Xavier. Other non-conference matchups will include Patriot League foes American, Army and Holy Cross; a trip to UConn and playing against Drexel and at Fordham.

Siena will ring in the new year with a home matchup against Fairfield and 16 days after the Saints will be welcomed into the Arena at Harbor Yard.

I think we are looking at a very good Fairfield team here: good enough to be third in the MAAC. If this was the team that could get home court advantage for the MAAC tournament they would be a real threat to win the conference title. Last year, Fairfield shot eFG% of 54.1 at home but only went 7-6. The main reason? their opponents shot eFG% of 51.7%. If they can stop someone this season, they will be a real threat. When they defend, they should be able to beat up on the lower half of the conference. They have shown they can beat Siena as a team, both teams combined for five turnovers in the final minute. I think optimism and Cooley’s first season over .500 overall and third straight over .500 MAAC record should be a mild expectation. With a little more luck, this team could see postseason play: hopefully for Siena fans they hope that means the College Basketball Invitational.

[* - See what these ratings mean.]