Since podcasts and twitter spaces seem to be occurring quite frequently, I’m starting this thread to try and keep them together. The link below is to yesterday’s College Hoops Chat podcast on Spotify. From the 25:50 mark Fairfield Frank discusses the team’s season so far and previews Friday’s game with Iona. Fairfield Frank is on for approximately 9 minutes. FFrank states that Shema will not be playing for Iona on Friday.
Since podcasts and twitter spaces seem to be occurring quite frequently, I’m starting this thread to try and keep them together. The link below is to yesterday’s College Hoops Chat podcast on Spotify. From the 25:50 mark Fairfield Frank discusses the team’s season so far and previews Friday’s game with Iona. Fairfield Frank is on for approximately 9 minutes. FFrank states that Shema will not be playing for Iona on Friday.
FF seems to be optimistic about both Seck and Yetna being on schedule to return as has been stated recently. He's pretty informed, so I feel good about what he has stated. Regarding Iona, and I admit to not knowing much about the Gaels this year based on their new roster and coaching staff, but Frank seems to indicate that, like the Stags, they prefer to run, but importantly like the Stags, they are short at the center position and with big guys in general. So maybe for a change, getting hurt in the lane will not be a big problem this time. Actually though, winning their first league game, especially against their normal dominant MAAC rival, would certainly change the mood of Fairfield fans I think. With Brycen coming back, I'd like to think it could happen.
BTW great job on posting this 76, and I certainly look forward to listening to many more of these as the season plays out.
Since podcasts and twitter spaces seem to be occurring quite frequently, I’m starting this thread to try and keep them together. The link below is to yesterday’s College Hoops Chat podcast on Spotify. From the 25:50 mark Fairfield Frank discusses the team’s season so far and previews Friday’s game with Iona. Fairfield Frank is on for approximately 9 minutes. FFrank states that Shema will not be playing for Iona on Friday.
Some items from the podcast which I believe from the comments was recorded Tuesday, so some of the comments on Iona are interesting because they were made before Wednesday’s Iona/Marist game.
1. Player Update. Goodine is back practicing with the team. Seck has begun on court workouts, hoping he can participate in practices next week. Seck not yet at on court workout stage. Casey estimated mid to late December likely to be when Seck and Yetna start seeing game action. 2. Lengthy discussion between Joey D. and Casey concerning our next to last possession in the UNH game. 3. Leach’s mom was a point guard at Wesleyan. 4. Some discussion on why Brown played the 5 for the last 12+ minutes of the UNH game. 5. Both Leach and Casey felt Brown was fouled when he caught the pass from Floyd on the last possession of the UNH game. 6. Casey with a comment that surprised me—- he thought Bleechmore did the best job of taking away UNH’s Daniels going to his left hand of the guys who guarded Daniels that game. 7. Both Casey and Leach believe the team seems to be reactive at the start of the games rather than proactive.
Just listening to Chris Casey and you realize how much these coaches know and how complex and complete their preparations are before and during a game. You can tell he’s one of those coaches who loves talking hoops. Reminds me of Mitch in that way. Hope it works out for him here.
And as is so often the case, Jalen Leach is another impressive player deserving of a good year.
During the podcast Casey says something to the effect of — he thinks of this team this season as climbing a ladder, one rung at a time. From what I saw last night, looks to me after 7 games were still at the first rung (a win over a D3 team). I really don’t think we’re getting to that second rung until either Seck or Yetna is healthy enough to get on the court for game action.
In the latest Open Court podcast, Casey lists 4 things he wants the team to be good at and which are worked on every practice.
1. Being good at guarding the ball one on one 2. Help/recover, be in the gaps, and close the driving lanes 3. Post defense 4. Rebound the ball
IMO of the 4 items Casey states are worked on every practice, rebounding the ball is the one where emphasis in practice hasn’t particularly translated into game results as teamrankings has us 341 out of 362 D1 schools in defensive rebounding rate.
Teamrankings stats are taken solely from D1 vs. D1 games so the 37-18 advantage we had over D3 Mount St. Mary in defensive rebounds is not included in their compilation.
^To save people some time, the link in the post above is to a notification on X(twitter) that has a link to a twitter spaces tonight at 9pm with a recap to the first weekend of MAAC games. The link indicates who’ll be participating in the twitter spaces tonight.
In the latest Open Court podcast, Casey lists 4 things he wants the team to be good at and which are worked on every practice.
1. Being good at guarding the ball one on one 2. Help/recover, be in the gaps, and close the driving lanes 3. Post defense 4. Rebound the ball
IMO of the 4 items Casey states are worked on every practice, rebounding the ball is the one where emphasis in practice hasn’t particularly translated into game results as teamrankings has us 341 out of 362 D1 schools in defensive rebounding rate.
Teamrankings stats are taken solely from D1 vs. D1 games so the 37-18 advantage we had over D3 Mount St. Mary in defensive rebounds is not included in their compilation.
Peyton Smith is a very good offensive player. However I have not seen him demonstrate natural rebounding instincts. This is something he is really going to need to focus on. A good rebounder, is getting into position the minute a shot is released. They anticipate where they think the ball might go, establish position and box others out. They are tenacious and want the ball. These skills can be developed, but Peyton doesn't come to the program with that in his skillset, probably because he easily got a lot of rebounds in high school because he was bigger and taller than most of those he played against. That isn't the case right now and he is going to need to adjust.
Here are the leaders in rebounding per 40. Nobody really stands out. Recently player like Supreme Cook put up 14.0 and Chris Maidoh at 12.7. So these rebounding numbers for Fairfield are not great, with the exception of Floyd, who is putting up "Forward" like numbers from the point guard position.
Rebounds per 40 8.5 Louis Bleechmore 7.6 Jack Brown 7.3 Peyton Smith 7.0 Jasper Floyd 6.2 James Johns
^Most people in the poll felt we did not need another assistant coach, but I feel if there’s someone 6’8” or taller who is one or two years out of college— who’d be willing to be an assistant coach for us, then we should hire him and have him work with Peyton and the forwards on their rebounding. Right now there’s no one for Peyton to practice against that’s going to be a physical match for him. With Seck and Yetna slowly coming back, Casey isn’t going to risk re-injuring them with rugged rebounding drills.
Peyton doing rebounding drills against Bleechmore, JJJ, and Brown doesn’t give him any practice against the guys he’s likely to find in the paint with the teams we face.
Should be a very interesting Twitter spaces tonight at nine as the guys try to make sense of the first weekend which has Marist and SPU 2-0 (SPU was picked for 10th by the MAAC coaches in their preseason poll and this weekend they swept the Buffalo trip) and Niagara and Rider are 0-2. Everyone else 1-1. Rider was picked to win the regular season by the MAAC coaches so it’ll interesting to hear the theories as to why they’ve lost at Siena (who lost by 30+ points in both the game right before Rider[Albany] and today at MSM) and at home today to us, and we’re playing with 2 likely frontcourt starters on the sideline.
Should be a very interesting Twitter spaces tonight at nine as the guys try to make sense of the first weekend which has Marist and SPU 2-0 (SPU was picked for 10th by the MAAC coaches in their preseason poll and this weekend they swept the Buffalo trip) and Niagara and Rider are 0-2. Everyone else 1-1. Rider was picked to win the regular season by the MAAC coaches so it’ll interesting to hear the theories as to why they’ve lost at Siena (who lost by 30+ points in both the game right before Rider[Albany] and today at MSM) and at home today to us, and we’re playing with 2 likely frontcourt starters on the sideline.
Crazy MAAC, results of first two game nearly invert the votes from the coaches poll. Hard to have predicted these results.
^Most people in the poll felt we did not need another assistant coach, but I feel if there’s someone 6’8” or taller who is one or two years out of college— who’d be willing to be an assistant coach for us, then we should hire him and have him work with Peyton and the forwards on their rebounding. Right now there’s no one for Peyton to practice against that’s going to be a physical match for him. With Seck and Yetna slowly coming back, Casey isn’t going to risk re-injuring them with rugged rebounding drills.
Peyton doing rebounding drills against Bleechmore, JJJ, and Brown doesn’t give him any practice against the guys he’s likely to find in the paint with the teams we face.
Since I didn't get the "eye test" of actually viewing the game today, commenting on how Smith (and everyone else for that matter) played is strictly based on the comments of fellow posters here and also the boxscore. Seems like he had a great day according to the reports. And since the boxscore showed he had 10 rebounds plus FIVE blocks (that's a lot!) suggests to me that he has been working hard at getting better at the areas of concern as expressed above. Hopefully not a one-off game for Peyton in that regard. The team can really benefit if he plays like he did this afternoon against Rider.
He battled on the boards... success was limited... but I think he had a key rebound down the stretch. It's tough. Rider had almost as many offensive boards are the Stags had defensive boards. Getting another big or two in the lineup would help a lot.
