Will be anxiously awaiting the MRI of Goodine's knee this week. Having four healthy talented guards who can all handle the ball and score (none a better outside sniper than Goodine) will be important for this team down the stretch and into the postseason.
Unfortunately, I hear the news on Brycen is going to be disappointing to Stags fans.
This program has had terrible injury luck, at least for me going back to when starting power forward and leading rebounder Steve Balkun badly sprained his ankle in practice before the then 22-3 Stags faced Rhode Island in the ECAC semifinals back in 1978. Now that we have a legitimate MAAC Championship contender, for the first time in years, we are going to lose one of the best 3-point percentage shooters in the country (who also can attack the paint)?? Ugh!
Will be anxiously awaiting the MRI of Goodine's knee this week. Having four healthy talented guards who can all handle the ball and score (none a better outside sniper than Goodine) will be important for this team down the stretch and into the postseason.
Unfortunately, I hear the news on Brycen is going to be disappointing to Stags fans.
I will reserve full comment on BG's situation until information is provided by a source associated with the University. But sadly I believe that UConn Bill may be right in his opinion. I am very upset and disappointed about the way this seems to be developing. I had hoped that when Brycen left Providence to come to Fairfield he would have the opportunity to get the playing time he was denied at his former schools and showcase his skills. I feel he is an elite scorer with exceptional range. Even with his 40 point outburst, I think we still have not seen his skills fully on display. I hoped we would see a healthy BG and Lex in the MAAC Tourney and then the NCAA tourney. Those two playing at the level they are capable of when healthy would have made Fairfield a very dangerous team.
The Stags play their 25th game on Friday, and we have not seen, and I believe we will not see this season, Fairfield play a game with their best 5 players in the line-up at the same time. There have been at least one, if not two or three Stags injured for every game this season. As much fun as this team has been, I think they could have been on a roll similar to the one by the woman, and advanced quite far with a healthy Alexis Yetna and Brycen Goodine running alongside Floyd, Leach, Fields, Bleechmore, Smith, Johns, Seck and Brown.
My prayers remain with BG and I hope that he will have the opportunity to return to the Stags healthy and will get the chance to play a full season, at the level he is capable of.
Post by alsostagparty on Feb 11, 2024 14:51:41 GMT -5
Stags are fortunate to have so many weapons. Still, Brycen is special coming in as the sixth man. I hope we get to see him on the court again. I believe he has another year as an option if he wishes. Anyway for all those players considering whether to stay or move on, a grad degree from Fairfield certainly isn’t too shabby, and “greener” pastures elsewhere could lead to less playing time even with a better NIL payday. For some I think chasing the NIL money is a gamble if you want to showcase your skills for a basketball career after college. Regardless of what happens to Goodine, I think we should be a solid team next year.
Last Edit: Feb 11, 2024 14:52:29 GMT -5 by alsostagparty
Unfortunately, I hear the news on Brycen is going to be disappointing to Stags fans.
I will reserve full comment on BG's situation until information is provided by a source associated with the University. But sadly I believe that UConn Bill may be right in his opinion. I am very upset and disappointed about the way this seems to be developing. I had hoped that when Brycen left Providence to come to Fairfield he would have the opportunity to get the playing time he was denied at his former schools and showcase his skills. I feel he is an elite scorer with exceptional range. Even with his 40 point outburst, I think we still have not seen his skills fully on display. I hoped we would see a healthy BG and Lex in the MAAC Tourney and then the NCAA tourney. Those two playing at the level they are capable of when healthy would have made Fairfield a very dangerous team.
The Stags play their 25th game on Friday, and we have not seen, and I believe we will not see this season, Fairfield play a game with their best 5 players in the line-up at the same time. There have been at least one, if not two or three Stags injured for every game this season. As much fun as this team has been, I think they could have been on a roll similar to the one by the woman, and advanced quite far with a healthy Alexis Yetna and Brycen Goodine running alongside Floyd, Leach, Fields, Bleechmore, Smith, Johns, Seck and Brown.
My prayers remain with BG and I hope that he will have the opportunity to return to the Stags healthy and will get the chance to play a full season, at the level he is capable of.
And I'll add to your thoughts expressed about Brycen in hoping to see him again in a Stag uniform, if not this year then next season at least. Sadly I have been told by a program "insider" that what others are stating might be true. I certainly hope EVERYONE is totally WRONG about his status but unfortunately I don't think they are. Anyway aside from the disappointment for the kid himself, from a team standpoint, on we go. All is not lost, especially with the return of more power up front. The Stags are still very much capable of finishing strong, possibly even getting to 20 wins, something which hasn't happened in over a decade, and yes even winning the tournament if everything breaks right. So keep the faith would be my message.
This program has had terrible injury luck, at least for me going back to when starting power forward and leading rebounder Steve Balkun badly sprained his ankle in practice before the then 22-3 Stags faced Rhode Island in the ECAC semifinals back in 1978. Now that we have a legitimate MAAC Championship contender, for the first time in years, we are going to lose one of the best 3-point percentage shooters in the country (who also can attack the paint)?? Ugh!
We're still a contender even though losing Brycen makes things a lot more problematic. You mention Balkin in 78. I'll trump that with Derek Needham in 2012. Anyway it always seems as though it's always the Stags who have the worst luck in the world regarding these things. But in reality many, many other programs experience the same thing (too many to mention), but we don't want to hear about it because well, we are Stag fans. Sadly this is just the unfortunate part of athletics.
Post by alsostagparty on Feb 12, 2024 9:24:35 GMT -5
I’m going to hang on to a thread of hope regarding Goodine. He certainly seemed to be walking around fine in sweats at the last two games. That, and knowing Casey and staff are very precautious in bringing players back from injury, has me hopeful he just has to rest up for a couple weeks and it doesn’t involve surgery. If Brycen is out for the season, Floyd, Bleechmore and Johns are capable of delivering his points.
Perhaps , hopefully JJJ can provide some bench relief at the guard position if Goodine is finished for this year. John’s is playing better of late and is capable of providing some short to midrange points. However, as of now JJJ 3 point shooting is no where near what Goodine can provide. Matt Curtis might be able to also provide some 3 point shooting. However both of these guys have so far not lived up to their reputations IMO. Fields, Floyd and Leach are playing a lot of minutes which has to wear out their legs over the long season. So if Goodine is out FF needs to find a capable replacement to spell all three. Who will step up?
IMO - Floyd is the guy. He'll have to carry more of the offensive load. It will also put more pressure on Leach and Fields to not have an off night. The positive spin on this is that the guys I just mentioned are really good and can do it. I think this is a big week for other guys to get healthy. Hope Smith is getting close to a return. Hope Bleechmore gets closer to 100%. Hope Yetna can make progress.
Post by reindeerfan on Feb 12, 2024 12:44:10 GMT -5
I feel like we will see Smith next weekend. As far as the game plan goes, I think we will see Matt in small doses here and there to spell Leach, Floyd and Fields. These guys are capable of going 40 minutes, and we won't be playing 4 guards anymore with Smith and Bleechmore back, we will have some depth at the 4 and 5. We'll be OK but we will miss Goodine's range and high shooting efficiency.
I feel like we will see Smith next weekend. As far as the game plan goes, I think we will see Matt in small doses here and there to spell Leach, Floyd and Fields. These guys are capable of going 40 minutes, and we won't be playing 4 guards anymore with Smith and Bleechmore back, we will have some depth at the 4 and 5. We'll be OK but we will miss Goodine's range and high shooting efficiency.
Of course we will, but you make a great point in how to kind of counter what his contribution would have been if he hadn't gotten injured. The fact is if Smith does indeed come back for next weekend's games, that would mean that between him, Bleechmore, Seck, and now Yetna (who I believe will be a contributor once he finds his stride) plus JJJ would probably have been slated to take up enough minutes to the point that Casey wouldn't have been using 4 guards together on the court very much anyway. And while he hasn't really shown an aggressive scoring ability in limited action nor will he be asked to do so right now, it appears Chris has placed enough trust in Curtis to handle his duties responsibly when he is inserted into the lineup as has been the case for the past four games. Sum total is that there is enough talent to go around and a coach who has shown he knows how to use it and therefore the Stags should be okay even if they obviously would miss the talents of Brycen Goodine for the rest of the season.
Last Edit: Feb 13, 2024 13:53:17 GMT -5 by nashvillestag
Post by doowopbill on Feb 12, 2024 13:24:11 GMT -5
If it's true it will be quite a bummer with Brycen out for the season. I agree wholeheartedly with Typhaon that Jasper Floyd has to pick up the offensive loss of Goodine which I feel he is more than capable of doing. I think back to the non-MAAC games when Jasper was regularly taking the ball to the hoop and averaging about 14 ppg. IMO Jasper has been deferring offensively to his 3 guard colleagues and perhaps has been a little gun shy about driving hard to the basket after he had several shots blocked by big men in games in January. He can hit the open three and of course he is terrific at the free throw line. I love seeing him at the foul line late in games .So let's go Jasper. He already does so very much for this team. I am confident he can pick up the scoring slack with the expected Goodine loss ( I hope I am wrong). As for too many minutes for our 3 guards I agree with the posts above about having ample time to rest between Friday and Sunday games. I do think the MAAC tournament is another story with all those back to back games .For now give Matt Curtis several spots each game for any of the 3 guards. Let's see what Matt can do.
They play a lot of minutes, but there is a lot of time between games. Thurs/Sat or Fri/Sun, and then several days without games.
Throw in the TV timeouts every four minutes, plus coaches calling timeouts, and I'd like to think most of these players can handle it.
Va. I think you and I go back to the days when there were no TV timeouts, shorter time used during coaching timeouts and no wasted time spent sitting around while the officials checked the monitor at the slightest suggestion that they might have gotten something wrong, yet in spite of that many players were often listed as playing close to 40 minutes a game. I think we thought of them as "iron men" in the vernacular of the times. Well guess what, I think we have three current guards in Fields, Leach and Floyd who are sort of throwbacks to that era because it seems they are almost always out on the court (just check the stats for minutes played). So yes, at least concerning those three guys, I agree with you, they can handle it.
Last Edit: Feb 12, 2024 13:47:17 GMT -5 by nashvillestag
The 3some needs to stay out of foul trouble. So far they have, but can’t get early fouls where Casey has to decide whether to sit them down in first half.