Fairfield – Drexel Early Edition Game Notes ♫ 23-24 - 198
Nov 15, 2023 21:18:38 GMT -5
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Post by reindeerfan on Nov 15, 2023 21:18:38 GMT -5
Early Edition Game Notes is intended to be fun, informative and sometime irreverent way to look at the numbers, but if you take this stuff too seriously you are cautioned against reading any further. Please proceed at your own risk!
PLEASE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!
.
Fairfield – Drexel Early Edition Game Notes ♫ 23-24 - 198
Fairfield University (1-2, 0-0 MAAC) VS Drexel (1-2, 0-0 CAA)
Friday, November 17, 2023 • 7:00 PM
Philadelphia, Pa.
LAST TIME OUT
Fairfield defeated Mount Saint Mary’s(Newburgh, NY) 92-45 at Mahoney Arena on Monday night. In the game. three Stags secured new career highs including Matt Curtis(4), Peyton Smith(13) and James Johns(17). Johns also lead the team in rebounds with 10 boards.
SERIES HISTORY
The Stags face Drexel for the 9th time in the last 62 years. The teams first met on a neutral court in Staten Island during the 1959-60 season. That game was won by Fairfield, and the Stags have gone on to win 6 of the 8 games played so far in the series. The teams last met in Bridgeport in 2012, a game which Fairfield won 69-58. In that game, Derek Needham’s scored 20 headlining four Stags in double digits, including Desmond Wade(15), Colin Nickerson(12) and Maurice Barrow(12). Perhaps the most memorable game in the all-time series occurred in 1983, a game which Fairfield won in overtime 64-60 in the championship game of the Bankers Classic. In that game Pat Yerina scored 16 points and secured 9 rebounds in route to securing a position on the All-tourney team.
PROGRAM HISTORY AND MASCOT TRADITION
Drexel officially became Drexel University in 1970, prior to that it was known as the Drexel Institute of Technology starting in 1936, earlier the school had been known as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry from its founding in 1891. Drexel played their first basketball game in 1895 winning the game by a score of 26-1 (Editors note: Fairfield was not the opponent). In the early years at Drexel, sports teams competed as “the Engineers.” Following an article on April 16, 1928 that appeared in the student newspaper The Triangle a movement toward a name change began because the non-engineering students didn’t like being called “the engineers.” Presumably, pre-med students wanted the team to be called “the Doctors,” statistics majors liked, “The Statisticians,” and gender studies majors liked “the Unemployed.” Ultimately the University ended the controversy by going with a name nobody liked; they selected the name “Dragons,” narrowly beating out the name “flying lizards that breathe fire.” In reality, even though the name Dragons became associated with Drexel in 1928, the board of trustees never formally adopted the new nickname, and the school continued to play sports under various names that included “the Drexelites” and “the Blue & Gold” before the Dragons ultimately became a defacto moniker. Unlike Fairfield, Drexel was fortunate to have a “gender neutral” name like Dragons, so when they added women’s sports they didn’t have to pick a silly name for their women’s teams like “the Stagettes,” they simply went with “Dragonettes.” The name “Dragonettes” was short lived at Drexel being dropped in the early 80’s. Despite rumors that the Dragonette name was dropped in order to avoid association with a TV show about the LAPD and Joe Friday, we have it on good authority that the name was dropped because everyone hated it. Those are just the facts, ma’am.
In 1997 the Dragon Mascot was given the first name, Mario. While it seems plausible that the Mario name was derived from what was a popular nintendo game at that time, the name “Mario the Magnificent,” was actually chosen to honor Mario V. Mascioli ’45, an alumnus who attended every men’s basketball game for more than 20 years. Rumor is Fairfield is considering naming a dragon “George” for this same sort of reason, but this is strictly a rumor.
Editors note: Dragons are not to scale
In 2002 Drexel abandoned their long time logo, moving away from the Chinese Dragon to a fire breathing winged Dragon design. As far as we know no one protested following this change, making the Drexel mascot one of the most boring and least controversial figures in the world of mascots. In an attempt to make the history of the Drexel Dragon at least marginally entertaining, this recap of the mascot history will end with some Mario the Dragon / Drexel Mascot Jokes:
Why does Mario sleep during the day?
So he can fight Knights.
What is the most common reptile found in the toilets at Drexel?
Commodo Dragons.
Why couldn’t Mario the Dragon have kids?
Because he had e-reptile dysfunction
Why doesn’t Mario the dragon observe the Sabbath?
He only preys on weak knights
I’ll stop here before these jokes start to drag-on…….
ABOUT THE DRAGONS
Drexel dropped its opener, 67-61, at La Salle, defeated Winthrop in a close game 74-72 and lost a close game to Temple 66-64. Drexel has been in every game and could easily be 3-0. Drexel was picked to finish third in the CAA this season. The Dragons return four of five starters from a team that won 17 games a year ago. Williams is the CAA Preseason Player of the Year. The big man from England has won the CAA Defensive Player each of the last two seasons. Tri-captains Luke House, Lamar Oden, Jr. and Mate Okros are also back. All three players were members of Drexel's 2021 CAA Championship team. Justin Moore is Drexel's point guard. Moore was an All-CAA Rookie team pick last year and is poised to have an even bigger year in 2023-24. Overall, Drexel will have 10 returning scholarship players from a year ago, one of the largest returning classes of any program in the nation.
COMIC OF THE DAY
Spud Comics
Lonnie Easterling, the author behind the “Spud Comics,” has been illustrating single panel comics since 2008. Easterling has published several books her cartoons are widely available on the web but are not in syndication.
LAUNCHING FROM DEEP
Fairfield connected on as many as 10 three point baskets only once last season in the game versus Towson. This season Fairfield has hit at least 10 three point baskets every game, extending the streak to 3 games with 15 treys versus MSM.
80 PLUS CLUB
Fairfield scored more than 80 points in their second straight game in the victory over MSM. Fairfield only bested 80 points one time last season versus Quinnipiac (92 pts on 03/02/2023). Fairfield has not scored 80 or more points in 3 straight games since the 2017-18 season, when they scored 89, 104 and 88 points versus Marist, Niagara and Rider respectively.
FAIRFIELD UNDEFEATED
With the win over MSM, Fairfield is undefeated this season when Mark Nemec wear’s his red socks to the game.
FALLING AVERAGE
Brycene Goodine scored 14 points versus MSM reaching double digits for the third straight game. For the season BG is averaging 19.3 points per game.
FAIRFIELD NOW TOPS FOR GOODINE
BG has played college ball for three institutions, Syracuse, Providence and Fairfield. With his recent scoring outburst as a Stag, Goodine has now scored more points at Fairfield than he did at either prior institution:
PTS SCHOOL
87 Fairfield
66 Providence
44 Syracuse
CHUCKING THREES
Fairfield continued launching a lot of treys, the team is averaging 34 three point attempts per game. For the season the team is .373 from deep placing the Stags 105th in the nation in 3 point percentage. Last season Fairfield was 360th in the nation in three point percentage finishing the season at .286.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
James Johns secured the first double-double of his career with a 10 rebound 17 point performance versus MSM. John’s 17 point was also a new career high.
LOUIE LOUIE
Louie - don’t call me Louis - Bleechmore, lead Fairfield in scoring for the second straight game with 19 points versus Mount Saint Mary’s. Richard Berry stated that Louie continues to make the Kingsmen proud.
HIGH PERCENTAGE SHOOTERS
Three Stags are shooting 40% or higher from deep so far this season. They include Michael Rogan, who is 11-17(.647), Brycene Goodine 12-26(.462), and Louis Bleechmore 6-15(.400). No Stag with 50 or more attempts averaged over 40% from deep last season, the last player to accomplish this feat was TJ Long(.403) during the 2021-2022 season.
(Editors note: Jack Brown was .500 from deep last year on limited attempts)
TOP STAGS FROM DEEP FOR THE SEASON
While its only three games into the season, BG and MR are both shooting at a rate that would eclipse the Stags all time record for three point shooting percentage. Only two Stags have ever finished a season above 45% with at least 100 attempts (Mike Evanovich .471 2009-10 and Shane Miller .467 1995-96). To qualify as a leader in accordance with official NCAA standards a player must average at least 2.5 made 3 point baskets per game and appear in at least 75% of a teams games. Using this standard only Landon Taliaferro has averaged over 40%(2018-19.4232)
PREFERS NOT TO GET TOO CLOSE TO THE BASKET
For the season Michael Rogan is shooting 0 percent from the foul line, .357 from inside the arc, and .647 from deep……
SLOWEST STARTS IN PROGRAM HISTORY
Last year Jay Young’s Stags started the season with a 3-7 record. No Fairfield team has finished the first 10 games of the season without at least 2 victories. Fairfield will need to win at least 1 of the next 7 games if they wish to avoid establishing a new futility mark. Here are the other seasons that Fairfield started 2-8 along with the team’s record at the end of each of those seasons.
2-8 Starts
1983-84 (10-18) O’connor
1987-88 (8-20) Buonguoro
1991-92 (8-20) Cormier
2006-07 (13-19) Cooley
2007-08 (14-16) Cooley
2013-14 (7-25) Johnson
2018-19 (9-22) Johnson
It’s interesting to note that no team that started 2-8 finished the season with an above 500 record.
Editors note: Fairfield also started 2-8 during 1949-50 before Fairfield was a division 1 program
DID YOU KNOW - WITH SJ
In the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dictionary was missing from the publication.
MAGIC NUMBERS
1 – Number of games until the Stags play their 1700th game as a Division I program. Currently Fairfield is 64 games below 500 (818-881 .481 W-L%)
19 – Wins needed to get to 20. The Stags have not surpassed 20 wins in more than 10 years (2011-12 season)
22 – The number of wins Chris Casey will need to surpass Paul Cormier for 30th place all-time in MAAC coaching victories.
123 – Number of days until the MAAC Tournament begins
154 – The number of points Alexis Yetna needs to reach the 1000 career point mark.
152 – The number of points Caleb Fields needs to reach the 1000 career point mark.
657 – The number of points Jalen Leach needs to reach the 1000 career point mark
803 - The number of points Brycen Goodine needs to reach the 1000 career point mark
HEARD BUT PROBABLY NOT TRUE
DRINKS TASTE BETTER AT THE DIFFLEY
Since moving the pub to the upper level at the Diffley the quality of the drinks has improved. It appears the University has really raised the bar…..
DESANTIS FORMALLY ANNOUNCES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Joe DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday with firm words and a Twitter announcement that did little to counter criticism that he may not be ready to take on Donald Trump or Joe Biden. One of the most beloved and recognizable names to have ever been associated with Fairfield Basketball, DeSantis hopes his popularity at Fairfield will carry him forward into the National spotlight. DeSantis’ announcement marks a new chapter in his extraordinary rise from little-known basketball player, to NBA draftee, Assistant Coach at Fairfield, Head Coach at Quinnipiac, Broadcaster and now, perhaps, US President. DeSantis, plans to run an unconventional campaign to unite the country. “When he was my student, DeSantis was definitely not a divider,” said Longtime University Mathematics Professor Rev Scully, SJ. “He wasn’t much of a multiplier either.” DeSantis, who is of Italian decent, wants to put “a meatball in every pot.” He also proposes giving every American a block of parmesan cheese, as part of his plan to “Make America Grate Again.”
According to DeSantis, “we should choose a new direction — a path that will lead to American revitalization.” Stag fans, would be happy enough, if DeSantis could play a role in the revitalization of Fairfield Basketball.
With apologies to Joe DeSantis
PLEASE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR!
.Fairfield – Drexel Early Edition Game Notes ♫ 23-24 - 198
Fairfield University (1-2, 0-0 MAAC) VS Drexel (1-2, 0-0 CAA)
Friday, November 17, 2023 • 7:00 PM
Philadelphia, Pa.
LAST TIME OUT
Fairfield defeated Mount Saint Mary’s(Newburgh, NY) 92-45 at Mahoney Arena on Monday night. In the game. three Stags secured new career highs including Matt Curtis(4), Peyton Smith(13) and James Johns(17). Johns also lead the team in rebounds with 10 boards.
SERIES HISTORY
The Stags face Drexel for the 9th time in the last 62 years. The teams first met on a neutral court in Staten Island during the 1959-60 season. That game was won by Fairfield, and the Stags have gone on to win 6 of the 8 games played so far in the series. The teams last met in Bridgeport in 2012, a game which Fairfield won 69-58. In that game, Derek Needham’s scored 20 headlining four Stags in double digits, including Desmond Wade(15), Colin Nickerson(12) and Maurice Barrow(12). Perhaps the most memorable game in the all-time series occurred in 1983, a game which Fairfield won in overtime 64-60 in the championship game of the Bankers Classic. In that game Pat Yerina scored 16 points and secured 9 rebounds in route to securing a position on the All-tourney team.
PROGRAM HISTORY AND MASCOT TRADITION
Drexel officially became Drexel University in 1970, prior to that it was known as the Drexel Institute of Technology starting in 1936, earlier the school had been known as the Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry from its founding in 1891. Drexel played their first basketball game in 1895 winning the game by a score of 26-1 (Editors note: Fairfield was not the opponent). In the early years at Drexel, sports teams competed as “the Engineers.” Following an article on April 16, 1928 that appeared in the student newspaper The Triangle a movement toward a name change began because the non-engineering students didn’t like being called “the engineers.” Presumably, pre-med students wanted the team to be called “the Doctors,” statistics majors liked, “The Statisticians,” and gender studies majors liked “the Unemployed.” Ultimately the University ended the controversy by going with a name nobody liked; they selected the name “Dragons,” narrowly beating out the name “flying lizards that breathe fire.” In reality, even though the name Dragons became associated with Drexel in 1928, the board of trustees never formally adopted the new nickname, and the school continued to play sports under various names that included “the Drexelites” and “the Blue & Gold” before the Dragons ultimately became a defacto moniker. Unlike Fairfield, Drexel was fortunate to have a “gender neutral” name like Dragons, so when they added women’s sports they didn’t have to pick a silly name for their women’s teams like “the Stagettes,” they simply went with “Dragonettes.” The name “Dragonettes” was short lived at Drexel being dropped in the early 80’s. Despite rumors that the Dragonette name was dropped in order to avoid association with a TV show about the LAPD and Joe Friday, we have it on good authority that the name was dropped because everyone hated it. Those are just the facts, ma’am.
In 1997 the Dragon Mascot was given the first name, Mario. While it seems plausible that the Mario name was derived from what was a popular nintendo game at that time, the name “Mario the Magnificent,” was actually chosen to honor Mario V. Mascioli ’45, an alumnus who attended every men’s basketball game for more than 20 years. Rumor is Fairfield is considering naming a dragon “George” for this same sort of reason, but this is strictly a rumor.
Editors note: Dragons are not to scale
In 2002 Drexel abandoned their long time logo, moving away from the Chinese Dragon to a fire breathing winged Dragon design. As far as we know no one protested following this change, making the Drexel mascot one of the most boring and least controversial figures in the world of mascots. In an attempt to make the history of the Drexel Dragon at least marginally entertaining, this recap of the mascot history will end with some Mario the Dragon / Drexel Mascot Jokes:
Why does Mario sleep during the day?
So he can fight Knights.
What is the most common reptile found in the toilets at Drexel?
Commodo Dragons.
Why couldn’t Mario the Dragon have kids?
Because he had e-reptile dysfunction
Why doesn’t Mario the dragon observe the Sabbath?
He only preys on weak knights
I’ll stop here before these jokes start to drag-on…….
ABOUT THE DRAGONS
Drexel dropped its opener, 67-61, at La Salle, defeated Winthrop in a close game 74-72 and lost a close game to Temple 66-64. Drexel has been in every game and could easily be 3-0. Drexel was picked to finish third in the CAA this season. The Dragons return four of five starters from a team that won 17 games a year ago. Williams is the CAA Preseason Player of the Year. The big man from England has won the CAA Defensive Player each of the last two seasons. Tri-captains Luke House, Lamar Oden, Jr. and Mate Okros are also back. All three players were members of Drexel's 2021 CAA Championship team. Justin Moore is Drexel's point guard. Moore was an All-CAA Rookie team pick last year and is poised to have an even bigger year in 2023-24. Overall, Drexel will have 10 returning scholarship players from a year ago, one of the largest returning classes of any program in the nation.
COMIC OF THE DAY
Spud Comics
Lonnie Easterling, the author behind the “Spud Comics,” has been illustrating single panel comics since 2008. Easterling has published several books her cartoons are widely available on the web but are not in syndication.
LAUNCHING FROM DEEP
Fairfield connected on as many as 10 three point baskets only once last season in the game versus Towson. This season Fairfield has hit at least 10 three point baskets every game, extending the streak to 3 games with 15 treys versus MSM.
80 PLUS CLUB
Fairfield scored more than 80 points in their second straight game in the victory over MSM. Fairfield only bested 80 points one time last season versus Quinnipiac (92 pts on 03/02/2023). Fairfield has not scored 80 or more points in 3 straight games since the 2017-18 season, when they scored 89, 104 and 88 points versus Marist, Niagara and Rider respectively.
FAIRFIELD UNDEFEATED
With the win over MSM, Fairfield is undefeated this season when Mark Nemec wear’s his red socks to the game.
FALLING AVERAGE
Brycene Goodine scored 14 points versus MSM reaching double digits for the third straight game. For the season BG is averaging 19.3 points per game.
FAIRFIELD NOW TOPS FOR GOODINE
BG has played college ball for three institutions, Syracuse, Providence and Fairfield. With his recent scoring outburst as a Stag, Goodine has now scored more points at Fairfield than he did at either prior institution:
PTS SCHOOL
87 Fairfield
66 Providence
44 Syracuse
CHUCKING THREES
Fairfield continued launching a lot of treys, the team is averaging 34 three point attempts per game. For the season the team is .373 from deep placing the Stags 105th in the nation in 3 point percentage. Last season Fairfield was 360th in the nation in three point percentage finishing the season at .286.
DOUBLE TROUBLE
James Johns secured the first double-double of his career with a 10 rebound 17 point performance versus MSM. John’s 17 point was also a new career high.
LOUIE LOUIE
Louie - don’t call me Louis - Bleechmore, lead Fairfield in scoring for the second straight game with 19 points versus Mount Saint Mary’s. Richard Berry stated that Louie continues to make the Kingsmen proud.
HIGH PERCENTAGE SHOOTERS
Three Stags are shooting 40% or higher from deep so far this season. They include Michael Rogan, who is 11-17(.647), Brycene Goodine 12-26(.462), and Louis Bleechmore 6-15(.400). No Stag with 50 or more attempts averaged over 40% from deep last season, the last player to accomplish this feat was TJ Long(.403) during the 2021-2022 season.
(Editors note: Jack Brown was .500 from deep last year on limited attempts)
TOP STAGS FROM DEEP FOR THE SEASON
While its only three games into the season, BG and MR are both shooting at a rate that would eclipse the Stags all time record for three point shooting percentage. Only two Stags have ever finished a season above 45% with at least 100 attempts (Mike Evanovich .471 2009-10 and Shane Miller .467 1995-96). To qualify as a leader in accordance with official NCAA standards a player must average at least 2.5 made 3 point baskets per game and appear in at least 75% of a teams games. Using this standard only Landon Taliaferro has averaged over 40%(2018-19.4232)
PREFERS NOT TO GET TOO CLOSE TO THE BASKET
For the season Michael Rogan is shooting 0 percent from the foul line, .357 from inside the arc, and .647 from deep……
SLOWEST STARTS IN PROGRAM HISTORY
Last year Jay Young’s Stags started the season with a 3-7 record. No Fairfield team has finished the first 10 games of the season without at least 2 victories. Fairfield will need to win at least 1 of the next 7 games if they wish to avoid establishing a new futility mark. Here are the other seasons that Fairfield started 2-8 along with the team’s record at the end of each of those seasons.
2-8 Starts
1983-84 (10-18) O’connor
1987-88 (8-20) Buonguoro
1991-92 (8-20) Cormier
2006-07 (13-19) Cooley
2007-08 (14-16) Cooley
2013-14 (7-25) Johnson
2018-19 (9-22) Johnson
It’s interesting to note that no team that started 2-8 finished the season with an above 500 record.
Editors note: Fairfield also started 2-8 during 1949-50 before Fairfield was a division 1 program
DID YOU KNOW - WITH SJ
In the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, the word dictionary was missing from the publication.
MAGIC NUMBERS
1 – Number of games until the Stags play their 1700th game as a Division I program. Currently Fairfield is 64 games below 500 (818-881 .481 W-L%)
19 – Wins needed to get to 20. The Stags have not surpassed 20 wins in more than 10 years (2011-12 season)
22 – The number of wins Chris Casey will need to surpass Paul Cormier for 30th place all-time in MAAC coaching victories.
123 – Number of days until the MAAC Tournament begins
154 – The number of points Alexis Yetna needs to reach the 1000 career point mark.
152 – The number of points Caleb Fields needs to reach the 1000 career point mark.
657 – The number of points Jalen Leach needs to reach the 1000 career point mark
803 - The number of points Brycen Goodine needs to reach the 1000 career point mark
HEARD BUT PROBABLY NOT TRUE
DRINKS TASTE BETTER AT THE DIFFLEY
Since moving the pub to the upper level at the Diffley the quality of the drinks has improved. It appears the University has really raised the bar…..
DESANTIS FORMALLY ANNOUNCES PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Joe DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday with firm words and a Twitter announcement that did little to counter criticism that he may not be ready to take on Donald Trump or Joe Biden. One of the most beloved and recognizable names to have ever been associated with Fairfield Basketball, DeSantis hopes his popularity at Fairfield will carry him forward into the National spotlight. DeSantis’ announcement marks a new chapter in his extraordinary rise from little-known basketball player, to NBA draftee, Assistant Coach at Fairfield, Head Coach at Quinnipiac, Broadcaster and now, perhaps, US President. DeSantis, plans to run an unconventional campaign to unite the country. “When he was my student, DeSantis was definitely not a divider,” said Longtime University Mathematics Professor Rev Scully, SJ. “He wasn’t much of a multiplier either.” DeSantis, who is of Italian decent, wants to put “a meatball in every pot.” He also proposes giving every American a block of parmesan cheese, as part of his plan to “Make America Grate Again.”
According to DeSantis, “we should choose a new direction — a path that will lead to American revitalization.” Stag fans, would be happy enough, if DeSantis could play a role in the revitalization of Fairfield Basketball.
With apologies to Joe DeSantis
Edition 198 @stagsmensbball , #stagsmensbball, #MAACHoops , #heardbutprobablynottrue , #EEGN , #HBPNT ♫2023-2024♫
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