Game #17: Manhattan Jaspers @ Fairfield Stags
Thursday, January 23, 2025 | 11:00 AM
Leo D. Mahoney Arena | Fairfield, CT
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FAIRFIELD, CT - After taking down its previous four opponents in conference play, the Jaspers are red hot heading to Connecticut. Their opponent? The preseason favorites, winners of seven straight, and reigining MAAC Champions, the Fairfield Stags. Throughout Manhattan's four-game winning streak, five student-athletes have averaged double-digit points with graduate Leyla Ozturk leading the charge at 14.3 points-per-game. Head Coach
Heather Vulin's squad has a scoring differential of +27.5 over the previous four games, that have all resulted in victories since January 4. Most recently against Niagara, it was Ozturk and
Kristina Juric who both logged a career-high in points with 22 and nine respectively. The two programs are sitting with the largest winning streaks in the conference with seven and four respectively. The last two games have seen Fairfield have a margin of at least 20.
Scouting the Opposition:
•The Fairfield Stags are the reigning MAAC Champions - after taking down the Niagara Purple Eagles in the 2024 MAAC Championships in Atlantic City.
•Preseason Player of the Year graduate guard Janelle Brown tore her ACL in the victory over Villanova on December 16, 2024. She scored her 1,000th career-point just the game before. At the time, she averaged 8.3 points-per-game.
•Sophomore road runner Meghan Anderson was named MAAC Player of the Week on Monday, January 20, after averaging 27.0 points-per-game and converted 65% from downtown in the two victories over Niagara and Canisius.
•Third year head coach Carly Thibault-DuDonis kicks off her third season as the head coach of the Fairfield Stags. She is the reigning MAAC Coach of the Year, Maggie Dixon All-Met Coach of the Year, ECAC Coach of the Year, Kay Yow National Coach of the Year, and Kathy Delaney Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year Finalist.
•During the championship run last season, the Stags won a program record 31 games, which featured a 29 game winning streak. The second longest behind the eventual national champions and #1 team in the nation, South Carolina Gamecocks.
•Fairfield was nationally recognized for the first time in program history by receiving votes in the USA Today Coaches Poll, and sat #25 in the Associated Press Poll down the stretch of the year. Additionally, the Stags finished the year Top-5 Nationally in the College Insider Mid-Major Poll.
•The Stags led the MAAC with a record five players selected for preseason awards.
Did You Know? - The Fairfield Stags do not have a listed forward or center on their roster. The alternate to "guard" is "road runner". According to preseason MAAC Player of the Year and graduate guard Janelle Brown in an interview with USA Today, Brown explains, "our road runners are just stupid athletic. Like they can just defend. They can play offense. It don't matter. They're just everywhere."
Emina Selimovic explains: ""So, we're not your typical forwards or posts. Yeah, you know, we have length and, you know, inside we can – we have our game, but we can also run the floor and stretch the floor. And I think that's what a road runner is, as Coach Blake (DuDonis) likes to call us. We aren't, like I said, your typical post that just stays in from block to block and just, you know — we can stretch the floor, and we're almost like a mixture of a guard and a forward."
Last Five Meetings:
Fairfield Leads All-Time 53-33
3/02/24....................................FFD 77-53
12/18/23...................................FFD 82-58
2/02/23....................................MAN 53-46
1/07/23....................................FFD 52-50
3/12/22....................................FFD 73-68
