December 10th, 2017: Fairfield at LIU

Just the Facts, Ma’am: Free throws were the difference in Fairfield’s closely contested win over LIU, 76-72. Tyler Nelson scored 13 of his 17 points in the second half to lead the Stags. Joel Hernandez’s 23 points led the Blackbirds, who shot 25-37 from the line.

For missed shots, hammering home the point, a blown dunk, so very many fouls, and forcing the offense, join your intrepid blogger after the jump.

On to the second half of the show, which pits the LIU men against the Stags of Fairfield. A surprising number of people are leaving, though I think that might have to do with group sales.

The LIU men like to practice in their undershirts, and I am perfectly okay with this. I’m not quite old enough for it to be creepy yet, so I’m going to continue ogling biceps, if that’s okay with you.

Poor Fairfield equipment manager. Half a dozen basketballs have escaped, and he seems to be the only person in charge of wrangling them back into the rack. Don’t be messy, y’all.

The LIU men have the hooded warm-up shirts, and the way the colors are done on them, with a white top and black base, is very interesting.

It is 36-35 Fairfield at halftime, in a game that has been close but not necessarily good. Joel Hernandez has the points for LIU with 11. Ferron Flavors Jr. has been a scoring spark off the bench for the Stags with 10.

I don’t like kids and don’t plan to have them, so my advice may not be the best, but two adults to eight children, including two babies under a year old, does not seem like a good ratio. The people in front of them, who were getting hit with glowsticks, would certainly agree with that assessment.

I feel like Fairfield is showing us up somehow by wearing all black. Even their coaches are in black. Excuse me, but which of our teams goes by Blackbirds?

Dear Blackbirds: I don’t know you particularly well, but I know the band director and the band like to yell “Free throws win ball games!” before every free throw, and this is advice you should have taken even more than usual today. I don’t know that y’all deserved to win the game, but going 25-37 from the line is a pretty good sign that you deserved to lose.

I don’t know if Thomas Nolan is a human victory cigar or if Fairfield’s coach wanted to have a fresh set of fouls on the floor in the final few seconds, but I think he got maybe ten seconds of playing time. Omar El-Sheikh was inserted briefly in the first half, but I don’t think Fairfield’s coach was happy with the foul he committed (I think it was either a shooting foul on a shot that he had no chance of contesting, or a three-shot foul, the latter of which is the quickest way I can think of to infuriate a coach). I don’t think he went back into the game in the second half.

Kevin Senghore-Peterson was tough on the glass, but on two different occasions was very much the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time- once on a rebound, once on a blown dunk. (He was not afraid to voice his frustration with the latter, using language I try to avoid in this blog.) He had good looks and missed them, but I like his rebounding and his shoulders. Ferron Flavors Jr. was an offensive catalyst in the first half, but saw less time in the second and thus did less damage. I like his jumper. Wassef Methnani slid inside for rebounds, but mostly fouls. There were a lot of fouls. He finished well at the rim.

I also liked the shot of Matija Milin, who got off to a good early start, but ran into a spate of foul trouble in the second half and was rendered less effective thereby. Jonathan Kasibabu was physical on the inside, though we didn’t see him for long stretches because, you guessed it, foul trouble. I feel like a broken record, but three Stags fouled out of this game and another guy got four. I’m not sure it’s being a broken record at that point.

Jesus Cruz got a couple of shots to drop that I would probably call prayers if I didn’t think that was a cheesy pun even by my low standards. Big dude for a guard- he seemed about as tall and more strongly built than Milin, who lists as a forward. Tyler Nelson got ball-hungry in the second half, which had its advantages for Fairfield (he hit a couple of shots that put them up for good) and for ill (he had the ball near the end of the game and ended up committing a shot clock violation that could have put LIU back in the game). I got a bad first impression of him because pretty much the first thing he did was miss a shot and act like he’d been pushed down by a gale force wind at the first sign of contact. Y’all know how much I love simulation. But I’ll grant that he’s a gamer. Jerome Segura quietly went about his business, hitting lay-ups in the lane and making good passes. He was understated, but in the right spot at the right time most of the time. I like guys like that.

Fairfield played physical, though not as one-sidedly so as the foul calls would make you believe. They seemed to be making more mistakes than LIU, but they were able to hit their shots and their free throws, and that made the difference.

For LIU, Eral Penn was mostly in at the end of halves, and it looked like his job was to make sure the star players didn’t get hurt in the waning minutes. Jamall Robinson got run in the first half, and a little bit in the second, very late. I think he took one of the late fouls. Raul Frias shot threes, and there was one play after which he was so disappointed that he let loose a short, angry four-letter word that I could hear in the fourteenth or so row. Julius van Sauers played a lot less than I thought- he was sort of the Swiss army knife of substitutions, going in for everyone (but mostly the frontcourt, such as it was). He should have gotten credit for a putback, but the scorer determined that it went in the first time from

Zach Coleman cleared the glass well, but I don’t think we saw a lot of him in the second half. Either that, or that’s when he went invisible. Many things are possible, especially when your intrepid blogger hasn’t had a lot of time to work on game notes and there were no seats on the train. Raiquan Clark was rock solid on the inside, hitting shots in the lane and getting a nice steal that led to a basket. Big dude with a nice versatile skill set, who didn’t seem to be trying to force as much as some of his teammates were.

Joel Hernandez seems pretty tall and pretty solidly built for a guard. There were times when I thought he was forcing too much on offense, taking shots that weren’t necessarily the best ones and didn’t play to his strengths. I will say, though, when the threes went down, they were pretty- I just think he was pressing a bit, trying to make things happen that just weren’t happening. Julian Batts was okay for much of the game, then decided to do something stupid and continue shoving Tyler Nelson after the whistle, whereupon he picked up both the common and the technical foul, going from two fouls to four in the blink of an eye, and that was the last we saw of him until near the end of the game, when his offense was needed. Jashaun Agosto did a nice job of getting to the line, and for the most part did a nice job of converting there. There were times when I felt that he too was trying to create something that just wasn’t going to happen in the face of Fairfield’s defense.

LIU’s coach seems kind of loud, and a little bit angry. I don’t know if I can blame him, especially if this game was indicative of how they play in general. There seemed to be too many guys looking for their own shot and their own way to score, and not enough guys looking to pass to teammates. It’s a team game, and while explosive scorers who create offense only for themselves are fun to watch when they’re winning, they’re not nearly as fun to watch when they’re losing (and I suspect coaches don’t think they’re fun at all).

During the first half, I swear to you there was one official who seemed determined to single-handedly prove that travels are in fact called in men’s basketball. He calmed down a little bit on that front. While I wouldn’t exactly hold this game up as a shining exemplar of officiating, it wasn’t as bad as I was used to, and I still don’t know why the LIU fans were giving the refs hell on one call at the end of the game, when it looked like they got exactly what they wanted.

Maybe it’s just a small crowd in a large arena, but it really didn’t get loud until the very end, and even then that mostly seemed to be directed at the officials.

I should get used to these guys. LIU plays a lot of doubleheaders, so I’m going to be seeing a lot of them.