Fairfield Upsets Iona to Gain MAAC Basketball Final SPRINGFIELD, Mass. - As the coach of Princeton, Sydney Johnson helped deliver two of last season's most memorable moments. The Tigers clinched a berth in the N.C.A.A. tournament with a buzzer-beater, one that gave them an upset of Harvard in a one-game Ivy League playoff. After his team played Kentucky tough before losing on a buzzer-beater in the Round of 64, Johnson broke down in tears at the news conference. In essentially a one-week span, he helped demonstrate the alluring emotional pendulum of college basketball in March. Johnson has switched jobs, shipping up I-95 to take over at Fairfield, but he showed on Sunday that he could renew some of his March karma. 4 Fairfield upset No. 1 Iona, 85-75, in the semifinals of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament, putting the Stags on the cusp of an N.C.A.A. tournament bid. The Stags will face Loyola (Md.), which beat Siena, 70-60, in the league title game Monday night. For Iona (25-7), the MAAC regular-season champion, the loss most likely foiled its N.C.A.A. tournament chances. The defeat came as an even bigger surprise because Fairfield was missing its injured star guard, Derek Needham. Fairfield's victory helped validate what had been an underwhelming season. Before they began play, the Stags (19-13) were considered a fringe top-25 team. "It's been up and down; I don't want to sugarcoat it," Johnson said. It's been up and down, but somehow we're clicking at the right time. As Johnson witnessed last year, the one-and-done desperation of tournament play can inspire a team to do great things. Rakim Sanders, a transfer from Boston College, prodded his Fairfield teammates by saying near the start of the second half, "I don't want this to be my last game." Fairfield, which trailed by 2 at halftime and by 6 with 10 minutes 43 seconds to play, responded with a 16-1 run. Sanders finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds. He had transferred to Fairfield to play for Ed Cooley, who coached him at B.C. But Cooley left to coach Providence, prompting a shotgun marriage of the soft-spoken Johnson and the mercurial and underachieving Sanders. "He didn't have a choice whether he was going to stay or not," Johnson said with a laugh. Iona's Mike Glover had 19 points and 8 rebounds but wilted in the spotlight, shooting 9 for 18 from the free-throw line. The Gaels never threatened in the final minutes. "We died," Coach Tim Cluess said. The ball was dying a little bit with our guys and wasn't being moved as quickly. Cluess spent a good portion of the postgame news conference lobbying the N.C.A.A. tournament committee to consider the Gaels. They have an argument, with a Rating Percentage Index of 39 entering the day and wins over Vermont, St. Joseph's, Richmond, Maryland and Nevada. "I think we should definitely be in the discussion," Cluess said. If you're going to pick eight or nine teams out of the Big East, I think that's nonsense. Those teams aren't as good as we are. The top teams, yeah, but not the seventh-, eighth- or ninth-place team there or any other league. Not this year. While Cluess may ruffle a few feathers with Big East teams, who arrive in New York for the tournament on Monday, the statistics say his case is not compelling. Jerry Palm, who analyzes the bracket for CBSSports.com, said that Iona had virtually zero chance of reaching the N.C.A.A. tournament. "Iona has some decent wins this year," Palm said, "but didn't play a good enough schedule, and picked up too many bad losses, including today, to get an at-large bid." For Johnson, it has been a tricky transition season after leaving his alma mater. "It's still raw," Johnson said of the decision. I'll be frank with you. He said he cherished the relationships he made at Princeton, pointing out that the parents of the Tigers player Patrick Saunders were in the crowd Sunday. Johnson said the most gratifying part of Princeton's run last year was building a relationship with the family of Christian Regulski, a boy known as Crunch who had a brain tumor. "There's still some emotions there," he said of his time at Princeton." I do love those guys, and I miss them. But Johnson has a new home and a new chance for a memorable March moment.