The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference has a rather large footprint in this part of the country, south to Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland, north to Merrimack on the Massachusetts-New Hampshire line and west to Canisius in Buffalo, but in women’s basketball most of the heat has been generated from the 30-mile stretch between Fairfield and Quinnipiac.
The neighborhood rivals were both 11-0 in MAAC play after winning road games Saturday, with long active winning streaks, and the collision course they’ve been on comes to a head on Thursday night at Fairfield, a game to be seen on ESPNU, but will likely pack the gym in the first of what figures to be three meetings this year.
“The fact (Tricia Fabbri) has been at Quinnipiac for 30 years is truly an inspiration,” Fairfield coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis said. “A lot of people look at me sideways when I say I could be at Fairfield the rest of my career, but I admire that she has put down roots and built that the way she has. When we talk about continuity with our teams, it starts with us (coaches) pouring into where we are, so she has created a great program there and made history in women’s basketball.
“Quinnipiac and Marist both made Sweet 16 runs, and it’s one of the reasons I was excited about Fairfield, the proof it can be done (in the MAAC).”
Fairfield has played in three of the last four NCAA Tournaments, the last two under coach Thibault-DuDonis, who is 91-25 since replacing Joe Frager in 2022. The Stags have quite the one-two scoring punch in guard Kaety L’Amoreaux (19.6), who has made the Becky Hammon Mid-major Player of the Year watch list, and forward Meghan Andersen (17.6 points per game), who has earned a slew of conference honors. Two of the Stags’ three losses have come against ranked teams, North Carolina and Iowa, and they have a win over Villanova, one of the better teams south of UConn in the Big East.
Every player with eligibility who played a minute or more last season returned to Fairfield (17-3), so the continuity has allowed Thibault-DuDonis to be more nuanced with her offense. “We’re not reinventing the wheel and recruiting a whole new team every year,” she said.
“That’s really hard to come across in today’s day and age,” L’Amoreaux said. “We’re a super tight-knit team. You could throw any group of us in a room and have a great time, so that’s something that’s really special. Meg’s one of my closest friends and you see that on the court a lot. … This team is just itching to get back (to the NCAA Tournament), every single person is battling day in and day out with that goal in mind.”
Last season, Quinnipiac and Fairfield split two regular-season games, but Fairfield won the MAAC Tournament final, 76-53, taking the NCAA bid and sending Quinnipiac to the WBIT. The Bobcats finished a 28-5 season with a bitter taste.
“This team, we’re all hungry after the way last year ended,” said grad student Jackie Grisdale, who leads the Bobcats with 14.0 points per game. “This is it, this is my last shot at it and I want our team on those banners up there. I want this team, specifically to be remembered for all the hard work we put in and how great a team we are, so there’ s a lot of hunger there. … Fiery, confident and fun. Fiery, I think we play with a lot of passion, we play for each other really well. Confident, we’re all great basketball players and we’re always hyping each other up. And then fun, I’ve never had this much fun in a locker room before. ”
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Quinnipiac (16-4) has four scoring in double figures, including Ella O’Donnell (11.1), and sisters Sydney and Ella Ryan, each averaging 10.5 points in the only season they will have together. Fabbri likes the brand of defense the Bobcats are playing, and with their ability to stretch the floor, with Sydney Ryan at power forward, they remind her of the team that reached the NCAA’s Round of 16 in 2017. Quinnipiac made it back to the tournament in 2018 and ’19, but have not captured the MAAC’s bid since.
“I do like us defensively, I do love how we move the ball,” said Fabbri, who is 545-297 at Quinnipiac. “I love our assist-to-turnovers (318 to 206), so how we are sharing the ball is at a very high level.
“… You don’t want to live in the past, but every once in a while you want to remind them of the pain. I have a firm belief, whether it’s next week, or when we play (Fairfield) here Feb. 14, I feel in March we’re going to be ready for that moment if, God willing, we put ourselves in that position. We have the right people and leadership to set the tone.”
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Nearly a Bulldog
Fernando Mendoza, Heisman Trophy winner, national champ and face of college football, came out of high school during the pandemic and did not get a lot of high-major offers.
“Up to my senior year, the only real offer I had was Yale,” Mendoza said during the Tranquilo Sportstalk podcast. “And nothing against Yale. I had talked to most of the Ivy Leagues, except Harvard. And I got a call from this guy, I thought it was from Yale, it was Harvard, and I’m talking to this guy for 10 minutes thinking it’s Yale. I said, ‘I can’t wait to come up, New Haven’s a great place, go, Bulldogs,’” and he was like, ‘Whoa, what?’ And from then on, I never heard from Harvard. Well deserved.”
Mendoza committed to Yale in 2021. Then Bill Musgrave, long-time NFL player and coach, who had taken a job as an assistant at Cal-Berkley, called out of the blue and came to Christopher Columbus High in Miami.
“I was under-recruited, my only committable offer was Yale,” Mendoza told ESPN radio. “Here we go, great academics, good football, live out my dream and basically become essentially a student at that point. … I had already signed a blank piece of paper at my high school, because you couldn’t sign with the Ivies, had my Yale hat on. Then in late January, my quarterbacks coach got a call from Bill Musgrave, who I owe so much for; am forever in debt to.
“He came down and watched me work out and said he wanted to offer me. I said, ‘How much is tuition?’ I thought he was talking about a walk-on. He said, ‘No, I want to offer you a scholarship.’ And I said, ‘Wow, he’s believing in me like that? Everywhere else I was fighting for a walk-on. He offered me a full scholarship? Here we go, where do I sign?’”
And the rest is history. Mendoza went to Cal, then later transferred to Indiana and led the Hoosiers to their unbeaten season and victory over Miami in the championship game this week.
Sunday short takes
*If you’ve seen the billboards with Silas Demary Jr. and Sarah Strong, or the TV ads, you know Jordan’s Furniture is offering free furniture if you buy before Feb. 16 and both the UConn men and women reach the national final. You may recall, Jordan’s did this in Boston in 2007 and when the Red Sox won the World Series, millions of dollars in furniture bills were forgiven. They’re really rolling the dice here; they better have good insurance.
*John “Iceman” Scully, the Connecticut boxing Hall of Famer from Windsor, hosted a showing of the documentary “The Ice Never Melts” at the COBA gym in Hartford on Jan. 17. The event served as a 40th anniversary reunion for four boxers who won New England Gold Gloves representing Hartford-area gyms in 1986, Scully, Robert Perez, Angel Gonzalez and David Davenport. Scully, a ranked light heavyweight, has since trained two world champs, Chad Dawson and Artur Beterbiev, served as a TV analyst and worked on behalf of underprivileged former boxers in the area. The documentary can be seen at tubitv.com.
*There is good news and bad news on the state’s pro hockey front. The good news is a new, five-year collective bargaining agreement was ratified by AHL players, including those who play in Hartford and Bridgeport. This ends a process that carried six months passed the expiration of the last CBA and insures labor peace in the top tiers of pro hockey in North America through 2030. … The bad news? Reports from Canadian hockey insider Frank Seravalli, indicate the Islanders’ affiliate in Bridgeport, which has been there since 2001, will relocate to Hamilton, Ontario. This could end the century-old tradition of pro hockey in southern Connecticut.
*Former UConn receiver Keelan Marion was in tears after the national championship game, taking blame for the interception that finished Miami, where he had transferred. Looking at it, I don’t see where it was really his fault, though.
*I take pride in not being stubborn when it comes to my Hall of Fame vote. The number of first-time voters who chose Chase Utley was overwhelming, and he got nearly 60 percent of the overall vote, so I pledge to seriously reevaluate my vote on him next year.
*Don’t tell me Catchy Comedy network picked the day of the AFC and NFC Championship games to air an 85-episode Get Smart marathon. … I asked you not to tell me that.
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Last word
The outrage throughout college basketball in response to a judge’s ruling to let former G League and NBA Summer League participant Charles Bediako play for Alabama immediately is justified. Something needs to be done to allow the NCAA to establish rules of eligibility. But the idea that the NCAA can circumvent this by penalizing Alabama in any way for using Bediako, such as ruling games in which he participates won’t count, is a non-starter. I’m no lawyer, but it seems obvious that if you do that this, it would violate the spirit and letter of the court order. It would be the equivalent of making him ineligible, inhibiting his opportunities to play, and the NCAA would be dragged right back into court and lose again.