There have been a lot of incredible and historic sports seasons at Fairfield University over the years. The 1985-86 men's basketball season was one of them.
 
By Chris Elsberry
 
It was time for a change.
 
Don Cook had heard the whispers of disappointment coming from the university's administration. Another losing season of men's basketball had been posted in the books at Fairfield University and needless to say, the natives were getting restless. It was the fourth losing season in a row and the average wins per season during the time registered at just 11 – not nearly good enough, especially for a program that, in the decade under the previous coach Fred Barakat, went to three ECAC and three National Invitation Tournaments.
 
 "It was a tough situation," Cook said. "Sometimes you find yourself in these kinds of situations where the administration felt it was important to make a change. There were several opinions expressed and at that point I had to agree with them that maybe, this was for the best."
 
A search committee was formed and candidates were interviewed. But the one who stood out was a young, passionate, fiery assistant coach whose team was just coming off winning the NCAA championship, Villanova's Mitch Buonaguro.
 
"Obviously (Buonaguro) was a hot ticket," Cook recalled.
 
It didn't take Buonaguro long to convince the Fairfield administration, and the athletic director, that he was the right man for the job.
 
"I think that once we interviewed him," Cook said. "We felt that this would be a good opportunity to jump-start the program and see where Mitch might lead us. We felt that we needed to change the profile of the program and hope that that winning formula from Villanova could spill over here."
 
One of the main keys to Villanova's success was its defense. Intense and hard-nosed, in 1984-85, the Wildcats held opponents just over 63 points a game for the season. But in the NCAA tournament, that's where the Wildcats really shined, holding Dayton to 49 points, Michigan to 55, Maryland to 43, North Carolina to 44 and Memphis State to 45 before finally beating Georgetown to win the title.
 
After getting the Fairfield job and watching film of the previous season, Buonaguro saw something that stood out as plain as day.
 
"I didn't know much about the team but the first thing I noticed was that the defense was horrible," Buonaguro said. "So, my first order of business was to sell the defensive end of the floor."
 
Technically, in the Buonaguro rebuilding game plan, selling the defense might have been 1A on his list. There was something else that he decided needed to come first.
 
"When I took the job, the school allowed me to hire a conditioning guy," Buonaguro said. "I had gotten the word that the kids were not in great shape, so we really got tough on them with conditioning."
 
Under trainer Greg McCready's iron hand, the players quickly started adapting to the new policies under Buonaguro, running around campus at five o'clock in the morning before heading to the gym to work on fundamentals. It was tough but necessary.
 
And it worked.
 
"When you're 19, 20 years old, there aren't too many things that are tough. We were more than ready to embrace change," said Tony George, a senior guard that averaged 20.3 points that season and finished with 2,006 career points. "We had had a tough couple of years. Mitch came in and defined everyone's roles and got everyone in great shape. Myself, I lost over 20 pounds. That focus, being conditioned, that helped us."
 
"I got in great shape," said senior forward Pat Yernia, who averaged 15.2 points and 8.1 rebounds that season. "They put us through a huge workout regime over the summer and the fall. I'll never forget (assistant coach) Tom Blake out running with us at 5 a.m."
 
"I remember that like it was yesterday," added junior forward Jeff Gromos, who averaged 11.0 points and shot nearly 50 percent from the field that season.
 
"Mitch was really tough on us and I remember he said a lot of things about the atmosphere, like it was a country club and how everything was going to change. We had some unbelievably intense workouts, a very strict dietary regime, disciplined training. We ran when it was still dark out. It was a completely different atmosphere. Mitch was almost like a drill sergeant, but he brought us to the next level."
 
 
Building confidence
 
As summer turned to fall and the team kept working on getting into shape, Buonaguro also started drilling – literally – drills into the heads. Various scenarios, different plays … 10 seconds, five seconds, two seconds left on the clock. Run the play, make something happen. Be confident.
 
"We did all the little things and that's what it all came down to, doing the little things," junior guard A.J. Wynder said, who averaged 8.4 points that season and probably hit the biggest basket in Fairfield history in the MAAC championship game against Iona the following season. "Breaking things down, game planning, whatever it was, Mitch was very detail oriented. Through preparation comes confidence."
 
"There were times when it was hard to buy into, but we also knew that we believed in Mitch and knew what the end result would be," Gromos said. "I think we really did believe in each other, that we were all in it together and that we were all going to fight for each other. There was a confidence building in each game. He instilled the belief that we were going to win each game and that's the hardest thing to get into a player's mind, that, if you keep working hard and doing the right things, it's all going to work out."
 
Interestingly, the season started off slowly with the Stags standing just 2-3 after five games, including two-point losses to Yale – who had future 16-year NBA veteran Chris Dudley on its roster – and UConn, with future 18-year NBA vet Cliff Robinson. But then the Stags reeled off six wins in a row, including a last-second 49-48 win at St. Peter's and victories on the road against Florida Southern and Miami (Fla.).
 
"We were losing (at St. Peter's) by a point with about 10 seconds left and I got the ball at midcourt and drove all the way to the basket and scored on a reverse layup with a second left," Yerina said. "We went crazy. Then, we go to Florida and we beat both Florida Southern and Miami at their place. Those wins propelled us right into the league."
 
"We struggled a little at first, but you know what? We all knew it was Mitch's way or the highway," junior point guard Ed Golden said, who averaged 2.8 points and 4.1 assists a game that season. "With Mitch, it was always the harder you work, the easier things become."
 
After a loss against Syracuse (with future NBA players Pearl Washington and Rony Siekaly), Fairfield then won seven straight defeating LaSalle, Lehigh, St. Peter's, Fordham, Iona, Holy Cross and Army and stood atop the MAAC at 8-0.
 
"Mitch put into everyone's minds what their roles were and everyone bought into it," Golden said. "That's what we needed. We needed everyone to buy into it because we weren't good enough to have just one or two guys take off and run with it, we needed everyone. We didn't play a lot of guys, maybe seven or eight, you either came out to get a short break or to get yelled at. But we were a well-oiled machine. No one had a problem with their role."
 
George agrees.
 
"That was the biggest difference, everyone knew their roles," he said. "Roles were defined, and we bought into the system. Coaches can coach all they want but if the players don't buy in, it's not going to work. That year, we were the true essence of a 'team.' We all wanted to win, that was our biggest motivation."

Part II