Monmouth basketball falls to Fairfield, 3 takeaways

The Monmouth men’s basketball team traveled to New England on Sunday, Dec. 14 where it lost to former conference foe Fairfield on a snowy afternoon.

It was only a few years ago when a battle between the two teams would’ve been a league game. However, the Hawks (5-6) switched over from the MAAC to the CAA conference and have been playing there since the 2022-23 season. Sunday was the 22nd all time meeting between the teams, with Monmouth’s now cut to 14-8.

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This was Monmouth’s first game since facing Georgia Tech on the road. Though they dropped that game 79-67, it was another competitive outing against a high-major.

Monmouth and Fairfield (6-5) were tied 53-53 with just under 10 minutes to go, but the Stags were able to take the lead and pull away as the game progressed.

“I saw this coming all week,” head coach King Rice said. “We haven’t had a good practice all week. I’ve been a coach a long time. When you practice the way we’ve been practicing, this is what you get. And we tried to cover it up and it just didn’t go our way the last seven minutes.”

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Here are four takeaways:

1. Fairfield eats up offensive boards

Though Monmouth has good size, Fairfield caused issues on the boards. The Stags found success with offensive rebounding and finished with 16 for the game. Both teams launched a good amount of long shots which means long rebounds and Fairfield was able to score 14 second-chance points and outrebounded Monmouth 40-31.

“We didn’t box out,” Rice said. “They obviously saw something on tape, we’ve given up 20 rebounds to probably five or six teams. So if you’re a coach you watch that and think – maybe we can get ’em on the boards.”

The Stags went on a 7-0 run to extend the lead 66-57 with just under five minutes left in the game. Monmouth also began to turn the ball over more in the second half, coughing…

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Publish date : 2025-12-14 22:40:00

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