Category: Stony Brook

Season At A Glance — Stony Brook

This is the sixth of what will eventually be capsules for each of the NYC teams when I’m sure their season has concluded.

Team: Stony Brook

Record: 22-10 (14-2 in America East)

Season High: Going 14-2 in America East play with the two losses on the road

Season Low: The offense disappearing in the first half of two big games (at Boston College, championship vs. Vermont)

Really Good At: Defense — Stony Brook’s defense was just stifling during America East play. The Seawolves led the conference in defensive rebounding and defensive free throw rate.

Struggled With: Turnovers – No single Seawolf had an assist rate higher than their turnover rate this season. It speaks volumes that Tommy Brenton led the team in assist rate. Stony Brook turned the ball over on 20.4% of its offensive possession in America East play, sixth in the conference.

Key Losses:

  • Bryan Dougher (First Team All-America East, Stony Brook’s all-time Division I leading scorer, 13.2 PPG)
  • Al Rapier (8.1 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 51.0% FG%)
  • Dallis Joyner (Third Team All-America East, 8.8 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 60.0% FG%)
  • Danny Carter (key guy off the bench)

Key Returnees:

  • Dave Coley, So., G (10.0 PPG, 3.7 RPG)
  • Tommy Brenton, Jr., F (America East Defensive Player of the Year, 8.0 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.6 SPG)
  • Anthony Jackson, So., G (5.6 PPG)

They Said It:

“As a person, he’s been the best I’ve coached in 20 years.” — Steve Pikiell on Dougher

Outlook: Reloading. This senior class is one that deserved to play in the NCAA tournament. Stony Brook got so close on multiple occasions, but they just couldn’t get over the hump. With Dougher, Rapier and Joyner graduating much of the Stony Brook offense is going to have to be reconfigured. There will still be talent on Long Island. Coley is a talent that Pikiell can build an offense around. Of course they’ll have to make sure the defense stays up to recent levels. Interior defense is going to be of a concern. Still, the program is definitely trending in the right direction and Stony Brook will be a consistent America East contender.

NIT Bracket Predictions

With Stony Brook playing in the NIT starting tonight I thought it’d be good to get my picks on record. Unfortunately I have the Seawolves losing tonight, but hopefully they’ll be able to give Seton Hall a good game. You can watch it on ESPN3 at 7:15 p.m.

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Final NIT Bracket Prediction

Here is the final projected NIT bracket. If I’m reading NIT-ology correctly we’re going to differ on four teams. I’m taking Iowa, Princeton, Denver and Illinois State and he’s taking Weber State, Illinois, Pittsburgh and Maryland. (Because Arkansas is getting bumped in his bracket by St. Bonaventure’s win.) We’ll see what happens tonight at 9 p.m.

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NIT Bracketology: March 11

Here we are once again. Selection Sunday is upon us. For this bracket I did a complete scrub of all the seeds. I also started taking into account the fact that some major conference teams can make offers to host that the NCAA just can’t turn down. In the back of my head the Iowa quote about making a competitive offer keeps coming up. The Hawkeyes are definitely in the field in my opinion — they just have so many good wins it’d be hard to turn them down — but for the first time I have them playing Round 1 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

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Stony Brook the bridesmaid again

This time they have only themselves to blame.

Stony Brook won the America East regular season title. Only two road blemishes, to the second and third best teams in the league, ruined its record in the league. The Seawolves earned the opportunity to host the championship, if they made it that far.

In Hartford the Seawolves survived a scare from Binghamton and needed a tip-in to defeat Albany at the buzzer. But the winning plays kept happening and Steve Pikiell’s team looked poised to take a championship.

How much easier the road could’ve been too. Vermont, most definitely the second best team in the league, had to go to double-overtime to defeat Hartford in the conference semifinals. One more made shot by the Hawks and Stony Brook would’ve played a team that it beat by a combined 47 points during the regular season. The Catamounts though persevered and we ended up with a battle of defensive wills and slow tempos on Long Island on Saturday morning for the America East title game.

Even with a boisterous crowd it was evident early that it wasn’t going to be Stony Brook’s day. By the time 10 minutes remained it was 46-29 and a matter of inevitability that Pikiell wouldn’t get the championship he wanted to badly for his program and his seniors. The NIT would be a reality instead of an extra option in the team’s back pocket.

SBU showed resiliency. They had the ball, down four with just 53 seconds remaining. The defense picked up, the offense came to life and there seemed to be the tiniest of openings after Tommy Brenton stole the ball from Brian Voelkel, but Dave Coley’s jumper was off and the Catamounts survived.

For the second season is a row Stony Brook was one win short. The ultimate goal of reaching the NCAA tournament continues to elude the program, which has now won 20+ games in two of the past three seasons only to end up wondering what happened.

The senior class came in after a 7-23 season. They’ve won at least double that number in every single season since. Maybe Stony Brook didn’t get that elusive title this season, but the Seawolves’ time is coming.

Using Roland Ratings to Determine Team MVPs

I don’t believe in +/- too much at the collegiate level, but sometimes derivative statistics can provide some interesting jumping off points. One of those is +/- for lineups. Another is Roland Rating. Basically, Roland Rating is the difference between a team’s +/- when a player is on the court and off of it. It’s a way of judging how valuable player is if you’ve got a large enough sample size. Let’s see what it says about each of the NYC teams and who the most valuable players are.

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America East Tourney Prediction

The America East tournament kicks off on Thursday night in Hartfort, CT with the 8/9 game featuring UMBC and Binghamton. The Retrievers and Bearcats will be playing to get into the quarterfinals and the opportunity to keep an incredibly unlikely run to the title alive. Between the two of them they reached the AE title game just 16 times in 10,000 sims. UMBC won the title once and that was it. That means top seed Stony Brook has a huge advantage, and that home court advantage in the finals sure comes in handy.

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Binghamton’s big win helps Stony Brook

Ken Pomeroy gave Binghamton just a 4% chance of beating Vermont tonight at home, but the Bearcats pulled off the stunning (appropriate use) upset 57-53. The win broke Vermont’s 10-game winning streak and coupled with Stony Brook’s road win at Hartford gave the Seawolves the inside track for the top seed in the America East tournament and an automatic bid to the NIT.

Of course the first one of those things is much more valuable than the second. SBU still has to get one more win on Sunday against Maine, but if Stony Brook can get through that one and the quarterfinals and semifinals of the America East tourney in Hartford they’d then host the finals. Home court advantage is huge. It might’ve been the difference between the Seawolves making their first ever NCAA tournament last season and Boston University surviving.

Home court has already proved to be important in America East play. All three of Vermont’s conference losses have come on the road as have both of Stony Brook’s. The Catamounts won by 19 the last time SBU and Vermont played, but back on January 2 the Seawolves pulled out a six-point victory.

You know how big the impact is of being about to play your championship on your home court is? Something like 30% according to Ken Pomeroy. Your typical 50/50 game becomes 65/35 or so. That’s a huge change. It’s going to help Stony Brook possibly reach its first NCAA tournament.

Binghamton provided a gift tonight. The Seawolves have to take advantage of it and take care of business moving forward.

Stony Brook moves one step closer to AE top seed

The Stony Brook Seawolves took home an 80-68 win last night. The victory brings Steve Pikiell’s club even closer to an America East regular season title. There are just three games remaining in the conference schedule and at 12-1 SBU looks to be in a real solid position. Of course there’s one caveat, the Seawolves have one super tough game remaining, at Vermont, on Sunday. If the Catamounts can get the victory, and they’ll probably be the favorite, it would send the league standings to tie-breakers assuming the top two teams can take care of business down the stretch. Even if Stony Brook gets the #1 seed they’ll still have to win a quarterfinal and semifinal matchup in Hartford before hosting the championship game. Being the top seed makes a difference there because it means avoiding the other conference title contender, Boston University, until the finals. Sunday should be a slow, defensive battle and one of the best games in America East this season, so definitely keep an eye on it. You can actually catch the game at noon on CBS Sports Network.