Marist & Quinnipiac go Head-to-Head on Sunday in Battle of MAAC Women’s Basketball Juggernauts
By: Sean Brennan
The Marist Red Foxes. The name alone sent shivers through women’s basketball in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference for over a decade - and it still does. Just how dominant has Marist’s run under head coach Brian Giorgis been? Let us count the ways.
Giorgis’ resume reads like a page out of John Wooden’s biography. Maybe even a couple of pages. He is already the all-time wins leader in Marist history with 373 victories, has captured 10 MAAC championships, made 10 NCAA appearances, including nine straight appearances from 2006 through 2014, reached the Sweet 16 in 2007, making his program the first one ever from the MAAC - men’s or women’s - to reach that elite level, has been named MAAC Coach of the Year seven times, has five NCAA Tournament victories on his ledger and has twice led his Red Foxes to wins over nationally ranked teams.
He also has posted three unbeaten seasons in the MAAC, most recently in the 2012-13 season, and currently holds a 242-51 all-time record in conference games.
Nobody in the MAAC comes close to those numbers.
But given a few more seasons, maybe Quinnipiac’s Tricia Fabbri will.
Fabbri, now in her 23rd season as head coach of the Quinnipiac women’s basketball program, has seen her Bobcats take the MAAC by storm since entering the league five seasons ago. Since the start of the 2013-14 season, all Fabbri has done is guide her ‘Cats to a 127-38 overall record while compiling a stellar 101-12 mark in MAAC play. Oh, and like Giorgis, Fabbri has posted two unbeaten seasons since joining the conference.
Fabbri, who recently recorded her 400th career win in Quinnipiac’s victory over Siena on Feb. 11, has logged seven straight 20-win seasons, including this year, brought her team to the Sweet 16 last season and saw the Bobcats voted the top Mid-Major team in the nation last season by CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major poll.
Oh, and did we mention the Bobcats and Red Foxes sit No. 1 and No. 2 in the MAAC standings going into Sunday’s epic showdown in Poughkeepsie? Well then, now you can plan your Sunday accordingly.
Is it a changing of the guard in the MAAC? A new sheriff in town? No, neither coach sees that dynamic. They just see two quality programs ready to do battle. a pair of programs who have travelled eerily similar paths to their successes, according to Giorgis.
“Frightfully similar,” Giorgis said with a laugh. “For example, we went to the Sweet 16 in our fourth year and they went to the Sweet 16 in their fourth year. We both lost to the team in the Sweet 16 that went on to win the National Championship. In their third year they had a young team and they lost their first three games and went on to win, I think, their next 17 and lose in the (MAAC) finals. (It was actually 19 straight counting two wins in the MAAC Tournament, but pretty close by Giorgis coming off the top of his head). In our third year we lost our first three, won our next 15 to win the league and lost in the finals. So to me things like that are very eery.”
Since he took over in 2002, Marist was the big dog of the conference, registering 11 regular-season titles while being fitted for 10 tournament crowns. So how does Giorgis feel these days about Quinnipiac’s rise to prominence? He’s all for it actually.
“We always want competition,” Giorgis said. “I’d like everybody to be like Quinnipiac or like us in our league.”
The Bobcats will be coming into Sunday encounter at the McCann Center toting a 16-game winning streak with designs on locking up the regular-season title. They currently own a two-game lead with three conference games remaining in the regular season. So with their recent dominance in the MAAC, are we looking at a new Marist?
Uh, no.
“Marist has been a program steeped in tradition with a legendary coach and their success speaks for itself,” Fabbri said. “Likewise I think our success speaks for itself. So to say we’re the new Marist, well, I’d really like to change that to, ‘We’re really our own Quinnipiac program.’”
But Fabbri understands the inevitable comparisons between the two monster programs. She even enjoyed the fact that Giorgis knew them without having to look them up.
“I can completely understand the comparisons being drawn with our teams after having gotten to the Sweet 16 last year,” Fabbri said. “And the comparisons are really cool. I was somewhat aware of those things but Brian, being a stat man, it doesn’t surprise me that he could rattle off those right off the top of his head.”
But while both coaches are looking forward to Sunday’s marquee matchup at McCann, neither is willing to call the battle of MAAC heavyweights a true rivalry. According to Giorgis, there has to be more history between the two programs, many more memorable moments, before being labeled a rivalry.
“Rivalries are something that develop over a long period of time,” Giorgis said. “They haven’t been in the league long enough. Canisius and Niagara is a rivalry. Manhattan and Iona, Siena and Marist. Those to me are the rivalries. I’ve never been a person who thinks of a rivalry just because two teams are really playing well and battling for first because then I would have had rivalries with Iona, Canisius, Fairfield, people like that. We have a lot of respect for them and do we do circle this game on our calendar? Yeah, you bet. Do our kids know we have them on Sunday? You bet. But I don’t know if they’ll be talking about this 10-15 years down the road. Whereas everybody at Canisius circles Niagara on their calendar. Everyone at Niagara circles Canisius on their calendar. Look, I’m a diehard Oklahoma Sooners football fan and you circle Texas on the schedule every single year. I know that first weekend in October is when the Red River Rivalry is held. You circle those games and those never change. That’s a rivalry.”
So while it may not be a full-fledged rivalry just yet, have the seeds been planted the past few seasons for a budding rivalry?
“When you think of rivalries I think you immediately go to Duke-North Carolina men’s basketball and then you had Notre Dame-UConn women’s basketball in the BIG EAST and that was over a period of time,” Fabbri said. “And Tennessee-UConn basketball was over a period of time. So I do agree there has to be a time element with it but I think for this year, we’re sitting at one and he’s sitting at two, so it’s a great conference game. And then you just look at the tradition that he has had in the MAAC and then you look at what we’ve done since moving into the MAAC, I think a budding rivalry is a very fair term to use.”
Both coaches also agree on more being better for the MAAC. For the most part Marist was as sure a thing as there was in the conference since the early 2000s with only the past three seasons seeing a little pullback by the Red Foxes. But now with Quinnipiac, and its 21-5 overall record and an unblemished 15-0 conference mark, storming into Poughkeepsie on Sunday to take on Red Foxes team that has rebounded nicely to post a 17-10 overall mark and a superlative 13-2 line in the MAAC, it gives the conference a must-see game that can only enhance its image.
“You sit there and look at some of the conferences, like on the men’s side in the ACC where every game is a battle,” Giorgis siad. “And not that we don’t have battles now, but they’re not for first place, as far as right now. We have two teams up at the top and two teams down at the bottom and a whole bunch of teams in the middle. And not that anybody can’t beat anyone, but you would always love to see great games every single time out. Obviously that would help our conference.”
“I think in any conference it’s great to have those anticipated conference matchups like this one,” Fabbri said. “It’s great for the MAAC. Obviously we’ve been successful the last couple of years after Marist had owned (the MAAC). But we’ve seen Iona win and last year it was us and Rider (in the MAAC final). Marist had the stranglehold on the league but since we’ve moved in we’ve found ourselves on top of the leaderboard the last couple of years. I think it was healthy for Quinnipiac to move into the MAAC to give it some real interest. It’s just good for the conference.”
Quinnipiac will come into Sunday’s game not having lost since being defeated by Michigan State a week before Christmas. Marist comes in riding a nine-game winning streak and is unbeaten in conference play in the McCann Center this season.
So enough chit chat. Let’s tip this thing off already.
“I think it will be rockin’,” Giorgis said. “I think it will be a great atmosphere. We have the best atmosphere in the conference and that’s not even debatable. And there will be a lot of people coming out for this one. Are there a lot of people talking about it? Sure they are. Last year we got smoked twice by them. We were young and they just took us behind the woodshed. This year we were competitive at their place (a 62-56 Quinnipiac win). It was a great game. What’s going to happen this time? I have no idea. They’re playing really well and they have obviously won a lot in a row and they’ve beaten a lot of good teams. But I just get excited because we get to play a game like this. If we win, great. And if we don’t we go back to the drawing board and hope we face them in the tournament.”
To Fabbri, Sunday’s matchup represents all that’s good with women’s college basketball.
“It’s certainly a fun game for us to get ready for, to go up there on Sunday,” Fabbri said. “They have such a following and even at our place our (fan) numbers are really starting to pick up. So it’s really fun to be building our fan base and have people really excited about women’s basketball and a budding rivalry between Marist and Quinnipiac. It’s a fun one to talk about and to certainly get ready for on Sunday. This is why you play the game. Women’s basketball matters in the MAAC and this is going to be a heckuva game.”