By: Ryan Chichester
The Quinnipiac men’s basketball team has little time to enjoy its current two-game winning streak as they head down to Long Island to try for their first three-game winning streak of the season when they “host” Fairfield on Saturday afternoon at Nassau Coliseum. The first matchup between the two teams this season is also the first game of a MAAC tripleheader.
Sure, it’s not a real home game for the Bobcats, but given that the road team has won the last seven games in this series, leaving Hamden isn’t such a bad idea. The Stags are also 1-8 away from their home floor this season, so the Bobcats are pulling out all the stops as they look to continue their climb in the MAAC standings.
Here’s what you need to know before the teams get underway on Saturday afternoon:
Stags no longer a stagnant offense
It’s amazing what a quick shuffle of the deck can do to your hand. Just ask Fairfield head coach Sydney Johnson, who added sophomore Aidas Kavaliauskas and freshman Jesus Cruz to his starting lineup and has seen much better results. Cruz responded to the promotion with 34 points in his last two games while shooting 14-for-21 from the field. Kavaliauskas has a combined 27 assists in his last three games since entering the starting five. Oh, and they still have Tyler Nelson, who has scored at least 24 points in his last three games to become the MAAC’s top scorer at 21.2 points per game.
“When you play against a player like Tyler Nelson, there’s no really stopping him,” Baker Dunleavy said after Thursday’s practice. “You have to put the best game plan together to change looks, make him hesitate and keep him thinking a little bit. But as he’s shown, especially lately, he’s probably going to get impressive numbers.”
The Stags faced two of the top four teams in the MAAC in the past week in Niagara and Rider, and put up a combined 192 points in the process. After destroying Niagara in a shootout, the Stags dropped a heartbreaker to the Broncs on Tuesday night on a game-winning shot by Rider with eight seconds left.
Rider and Niagara are far from top defenses in the conference (ranked ninth and last respectively), but the Stags competed in an offensive shootout like teams usually have to do when trying to beat teams with their offensive caliber. The Bobcats will have to match Fairfield’s new-look offense by continuing their trend from Thursday night, which is spreading the wealth at the three-point line and limiting turnovers. The Bobcats hit nine triples in the second half to roar past Marist, and committed just seven turnovers for the night. They will need to continue that trend to return home with a win streak still intact.
Push them to the perimeter
The Stags look like a new team offensively the past two games, but they still are the worst three-point shooting team in the MAAC this season, shooting the three at a 33.3 percent clip (just 0.2-percent worse than the Bobcats, who rank 10th in that category). Much like the Bobcats on Thursday night, Fairfield used a surprising three-point surge in the second half to hang with Rider, shooting 8-for-16 from downtown in the final 20 minutes of play. Whatever team can carry that over to Saturday might decide who walks away with a win.
For the Bobcats, they should look to dare Fairfield to keep trying from long range rather than getting burned by Nelson driving to the basket. The senior also ranks third in the conference in free throw percentage (89.2-percent), so biting on the perimeter and letting him blow past for a high-percentage shot or to draw a foul would be unwise. Nelson is an elite scorer who is going to get his points, but has shot just 8-for-26 from three in his last two games, bringing his three-point percentage down to 32.5-percent. If the Bobcats give him a small cushion around the arc and prevent him from driving to the basket, it could minimize the damage done by the future all-time leading scorer in Fairfield history.
