With half of the America East conference schedule finished – eight teams played their eighth league game last night – now is the perfect time to break out some tempo-free numbers. Continue reading “Tempo-Free America East: Vermont Leads the Way”
After taking a road trip to Connecticut and a long first week of basketball, here are some extra thoughts on the two conferences I cover for Big Apple Buckets, the MAAC and the America East. In addition, Ryan Peters shared his thoughts on UMBC, who stunned Mount St. Mary’s on Sunday afternoon with a come from behind victory. Continue reading “Weekend MAAC and America East Observations”
Albany head coach Will Brown knew his roster was going to be tested Saturday in Quinnipiac’s home opener against a team with two of the toughest big men his team will face this season in Ike Azotam and Ousmane Drame.
The Great Danes opened a stretch where they play six of their next seven games away from home, after two comeback victories, and opened up a quick 11-0 lead on the Bobcats. However, Quinnipiac’s size and strength inside proved to be too much, out rebounding Albany 41-28, the major difference in a 79-69 loss.
“They were definitely quicker than us on the perimeter and they were more physical than us up front, but I thought Puk and Rowley did a good job blocking out and rebounding,” Brown said. “I was disappointed with our permitter guys that we didn’t rebound the ball better from the perimeter. I thought that if Sam [Rowley] and John [Puk] in our front court did a good job blocking out, that we would be able to that our guards would have career nights rebounding-wise and they didn’t.”
Junior Sam Rowley willed Albany throughout the game, scoring six of the team’s first 11 points. Rowley’s post up move on Ousmane Drame drew a foul with 7:07 left and his free throws cut the lead to 63-59. Rowley, who had reached 20 points with two free throws to cut the lead to three, would not score again and turned the ball over on his next possession sending an errant pass inside to John Puk.
Though senior Dave Wiegmann drove the left baseline for a layup to cut the lead to one with 6:03 to play, the Great Danes would not get any further with Peter Hooley missing a three and two runners in the span of four possessions. Those empty possessions allowed the Bobcats to quickly up their lead to seven and run away with the game.
“I wouldn’t go as far to say we deserved to win, but I thought we could have won it,” Rowley said. “It was 66-63 at one stage, with a couple of minutes left, and we just made some crucial turnovers.”
Brown chalked up the team’s first loss of the season to losing the rebounding battle by 13 as well as their inability to make a three-pointer, taking just four for the game.
“When you rebound as poorly as we did you don’t have that much room for error,” Brown said. “We’re an opportunistic three point shooting team, we only took four three’s today and we had none. I don’t know if I’ve ever coached a game at Albany where we have not hit a three.”
“We have to be that much more patient offensively and I think those three possessions we were impatient. When we were patient, we put pressure on their defense and we got good looks and good opportunities.”
Senior point guard D.J. Evans, who combined for 32 points in Albany’s first two games, was held to just two points. Brown said that Evans was being treated for an ankle injury before the game, which might have contributed to his tenativeness.
“I didn’t think we had great energy tonight from D.J. Evans,” Brown said. “For whatever reason he wouldn’t shoot the ball tonight. He was our leading scorer coming into the game, he was letting them fly the first two games we’ve played, I know he rolled his ankle and was getting treatment today but I didn’t think it would be much of a problem.”
Brown subbed Evans out for most of the crucial stretch of the second half, playing Hooley at point guard and using a big lineup which appeared to negate Quinnipiac’s transition game with guards Zaid Hearst and Kasim Chandler who combined for 27 points.
“I thought every time we reversed the ball and made Quinnipiac defend, if it was a straight half court game I was confident that we would win, but we didn’t get to set our defense up enough,” Brown said.
Drame scored 18 points and the Great Danes held Azotam in check by crowding him, holding him to eight points on 14 shots, but their crowding of Azotam left Umar Shannon open who scored a game high 24 points.
“If you play Azotam straight up one-on-one for 40 minutes he’s going to score a lot of points and he’s going to get you into a lot of foul trouble,” Brown said. “I might have, in the first half, not played Sam enough and Puk enough because I was concerned about them getting in foul trouble against that front line. That’s something I have to look at when I go back and watch the film.”
Ryan Restivo covers the America East for Big Apple Buckets. You can follow Ryan on Twitter @ryanarestivo or contact Ryan at rrestivo[at]nycbuckets.com.
The Quinnipiac Bobcats defeated the Albany Great Danes by the score of 79-69 this afternoon in their home opener at the TD Bank Sports Center. Continue reading “Quinnipiac 79, Albany 69”
Albany head coach Will Brown has made a living of being able to recruit players from Australia, he currently has a player from the country in each of his four classes. Continue reading “Albany Aided by Another Australian Import”
After making his third NCAA tournament appearance, head coach Will Brown and the Albany Great Danes are reloading a roster that won 24 games, their most in Division I history. Continue reading “Albany Set to Reload Behind Junior College Players”
When Stony Brook fell to Albany on their own home court last weekend in the America East semifinals, much of the noise afterwards came from the injustice cast on the Seawolves. Twitter was overrun with angry questions. Why did Stony Brook, after winning the America East regular season by three games, have to play a semifinal match on the road? How was this fair? Many of us complained, including one of college basketball’s best in Andy Glockner. Continue reading “Will Brown Has Albany Heading the NCAA Tournament Again”
The Albany Great Danes came in to Stony Brook looking to do something none of their other conference members had done this year: win a game at Pritchard Gym. Continue reading “Stony Brook Squeezes Win Over Albany, Closes America East 14-2”
With only three to four weeks left in the regular season, I felt it was an excellent time to look at some of the mid-major regular season races across the east coast. Time is running out for teams attempting to jockey into favorable position before making a run at qualification into the NCAA tournament. Today, we’ll break down the top of the standings for the America East and the Patriot League conferences. Continue reading “Conference Check-ins: America East and Patriot League”
As winners of four of their last seven games heading into last night’s conference matchup, the UMBC Retrievers had a chance to make a little history. With a victory over Albany, UMBC would have won five of their first ten America East games for the first time since the 2007-08 season, a season in which the Retrievers last qualified for the NCAA tournament.
Instead, Albany stormed into Catonsville, MD and blew out UMBC, holding Aki Thomas’ group to 0.81 points per possession and 35.6% shooting. It was the worst home loss for UMBC in more than a year, when the Catamounts of Vermont came in and dominated the hapless Retrievers last January.
“They kept us from running our sets effectively, they kept us from moving the ball,” said Thomas. “We really try to spread teams out and move the ball and they did a good job of keeping the ball on one side of the floor.”
Albany raced out to a 17-4 lead because of their defense and the play of senior Mike Black. In his first eight minutes played, the shifty and agile Black had nine points, four rebounds, and one assist and was evidently out of the slump that had infected his game in Albany’s recent three game losing streak to Boston University, Vermont, and Stony Brook. During a stretch of four games, Black had only made nine of 57 field goal attempts, but was off to a four for five start versus the Retrievers in the early going.
But then with 11:22 left in the first half, Black came down awkwardly on his ankle after a contested layup. After laying on the ground in serious pain for about two minutes, Black was helped off the floor without bearing any weight on his right leg. He was later diagnosed with a sprained ankle, although the severity of it after the game is unknown.
“With Black only playing nine minutes and [Jacob] Iati having no baskets at the half, for us to be up 17 says a lot about the rest of our guys and the toughness that we played with tonight,” said Albany head coach Will Brown.
The team with the third best defensive efficiency rating – 92.9 points allowed per 100 possessions – in the America East held UMBC to six field goals in the first half, while forcing 11 turnovers and 22 missed field goal attempts. If it wasn’t for Brian Neller’s two three-pointers late in the first half, Albany would have enjoyed at least a 20 point advantage at the half, despite scoring 36 points.
If Albany didn’t have firm control of the game by then, however, they certainly grabbed it after embarking on a 17-4 run to begin the second half. Even though the unanimous preseason All-America East selection in Black was laying on a trainer’s table courtside with his ankle elevated, his diminutive replacement D.J. Evans filled in admirably. The former second team JUCO All-American had 12 points, four assists, and one turnover in 24 productive minutes off the bench.
“The only thing with D.J. [Evans] if you look at him is he’s not the biggest cat in the world – neither is Jacob – but he’s tough,” said Brown. “I thought he did a nice job running the show. He was a calming influence out there and he was a pest defensively, so I thought he did a good job.”
In all, 11 Great Danes scored the basketball for Brown’s squad. Freshman Peter Hooley registered ten points, eight rebounds, and six assists, while sophomore Sam Rowley filled up the stat sheet with six points, six rebounds, three assists, three blocks, and five steals. Through 11 America East games in fact, the 6’5″ Rowley is now averaging 10.1 points and 7.5 rebounds per game.
“He’s a tough kid,” said Brown when asked about the importance of Rowley moving forward. “We have to get him to develop a bit of a mean streak. He’s the nicest guy in the world – straight A student, a great guy – but I mean on the court he’s strong as an ox, but he’s too nice.”
Brown then joked around saying, “I have to work on my Australian slang and try to get better at some of those phrases. But Sam’s great. Sam and Peter [Hooley] have been terrific.”
For UMBC, it was the fourth straight game without the services of 6’10” center Brett Roseboro, who’s out indefinitely. As a result, UMBC was forced to play small the majority of the game, and Albany took full advantage outscoring their counterparts in the paint, 38-28, while also outrebounding them by four. Chase Plummer lead the Retrievers with 15 points on 11 shots, while making his presence felt defensively with three blocks and three steals. Guard Ryan Cook struggled with eight points on three of 12 shooting.
Albany moves to 7-4 in the America East conference, two games behind first place Stony Brook. They fly to Maine for a Saturday showdown with the 3-7 Black Bears. UMBC, now 4-6 in the conference, hosts the second place Vermont Catamounts on the same day.
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