Dane Pound

Good story and that sounds like a heck of a coach of program. Connelly had 19 pts on Friday (they did play).

The results are in and KingDane cleaned up in 2004, winning 3 awards. We'll work on getting a celeb presenter next year but for now here goes: Posting with the Enemy-MaineJeff Athlete of the Year- A threeway tie between Teresa Covert, Blair Buchanan and E-Rod. Coach of the Year-Volleyball Coach Sheffield in a landslide. Pepsi Pugalist Award(most likely to fight with a Siena fan)-KingDane Best Avatar of the Year-DaneFan2K3 for his Will Brown's smackdown of Scott Beeten avatar. Rookie Poster of the Year-King Dane, GoDanesGo was a close second. Russian Novelist Award (longest posts)-Dane96 Funniest Poster-KingDane Poster of the Year-Statefan Sports Moment of the Year-Albany beating $iena in basketball by 21 at the Pepsi Arena. Male Athlete of the Year-Merrick Thomson (lacrosse) Female Athlete of the Year-E-Rod Comeback Team of the Year-Baseball with Vollleyball and Women's Hoop a close second. Thanks to everyone for voting, GreatDanes84 for setting the whole thing up and Statefan for coming up with the idea.

A couple of game stories from yesterday's win. Danes impressive in league opener-Troy Record A first for Great Danes in America East-Times Union.

Apparently I was wrong about Connelly's first game. Maybe it was an exhibition? Anyway, I stumbled across an article about him from last year. Gives some insight to how good his high school team has been and what kind of athlete he is. According to the story he had previously played point guard. Connelly story.

BU's win was great for the conference. There should be a nice buzz about them when the come into the RACC in a couple of weeks. That should translate into local interest, bigger crowd and a better atmosphere. The Danes have played BU tough when they were unmanned so this would be a great chance to break through although it's still down the road a bit. I'm not sure why Siena scheduled Vermont this year. Seems like a pretty clever move considering all the national attention the Catamounts have gotten so far this seasn (and preseason). Perhaps a little gamesmanship on their behalf by bringing the most hyped team in our conference into town before we do.

My wife mentioned Iati's injury. She heard it on the radio driving home but they didn't say how serious it was. Hopefully it's not too serious. Has anyone heard anything else?

Press release on the UA site about Geir Gudmunsen being voted to the all-american team. I'd guess that would get him a camp invite from an NFL team. I remember JT Herfurth was an all-american and got some camp invites. If I remember right didn't he get hurt in a senior-game bowl type thing? FOOTBALL’S GEIR GUDMUNDSEN NAMED TO AFCA I-AA ALL-AMERICA FIRST TEAM Waco, Texas – University at Albany’s Geir Gudmundsen has been voted to the American Football Coaches Association’s 2004 Division I-AA Coaches’ All-America Team, as announced on Thursday, Dec. 16 by the AFCA office. The AFCA has selected an All-America team since 1945. Gudmundsen becomes the second UAlbany player to be chosen at the I-AA level. Gudmundsen, a 6-foot-6, 315-pound left tackle, made 44 consecutive starts on the Great Danes’ offensive line during his career. He recently made his fourth straight appearance on the All-Northeast Conference squad, including three years as a first-team selection. Gudmundsen, who was voted UAlbany’s top offensive lineman in 2004, helped his team rank seventh nationally among the I-AA leaders in rushing at 254.7 yards per game. The Great Danes ran for 345-plus yards against four opponents, while teammate Nicholas Bazan established single-season school records by a quarterback for rushing yards (1,043) and touchdowns (12). UAlbany offensive tackle J.T. Herfurth was named to the AFCA I-AA All-America squad in 2000. Defensive end Matt Caliandro (1998) earned Division II All-America recognition, while offensive tackle Scott Turrin made the Division III team in 1992 and 1994.

I knew he was a good student but I didn't realize that was the situation. I guess that leaves the door open to a midseason transfer if that's the route they want to go.

I don't know that we could guess about next year starting lineup when this years doesn't seem to be settled. I agree with you Patch about bringing in another big guy. We lose two this year with the graduation of Q and Wyatt. I'd like to see Perry's scholarship go to Courtney Johnson. He's earned it as far as I'm concerned.

There's a brief ranking in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning. Connelly's Camden Central team is ranked 8th in S. Jersey. They list him as 6-6 also, first game is Friday night.

The Albany area has been a pretty good recruiting area for the Siena women so they are probably trying hard to protect it. Two of their top four scorers this year are local players. I had thought the Albany-Siena contract was for both teams to play. Apparently it's just for the men and the women do it on a year-by-year basis. From the looks of things this year it seems like they are going to cherry pick when they play, when their team is up (and we're down), they'll play us and when we're up (and they're down) they'll find some reason not to. I'm with you, they should sign a deal to play every year, alternate sites.

As I post this I understand two things: 1. I should just let this go (but I won't) 2. It's early in the season and these rankings aren't necessarily accurate I believe earlier this year the folks on the Siena board said we were being paranoid about them not having a women's game this year. If I remember correctly one of them said the Albany women don't belong on the same court as the Siena women's team. According to the Sagarin ratings Albany-187 Siena-216 Showing that at least on paper, this would have been an enjoyable, competitive game. Of course we knew that six months ago and so did the Siena staff.

Probably not surprising considering he also said Albany wouldn't win as long as he was at Siena. The quote was from Tommy Mitchell.

I've been surprised at times by a few things Brown has said. I think before the Wagner game he said he expected this team to match last years win total after the fifth game. Meaning, they would go 5-0. I was concerned before the season started that we might have too high of expectations but I'm glad Brown and Jordan (in the Record) expect even more from themselves. They need to learn how to win and have a tough stretch of road games ahead of them. I didn't read that much into Brown's statements about Gallup. His first two years here were filled guys leaving and getting hurt. Brown's comments generally were "we'll be fine" or whatever after the latest terrible news.

I only caught the second half of the game yesterday. Danes battled back several times from Colgate leads. Really thought they were going to take this one when Schumaker nailed a couple threes to cut the lead to two. Danes got a stop, then Hutch got fouled but she missed both free throws. Colgate hit theirs and the game was over. Patterson was disappointed in the defense, they had no trouble scoring with four players in double figures. A week off then a very tough tourney at Virginia.

The Irish may still be grateful to the Germans for their help in procuring arms for the Easter Rising of 1916 which in time lead to Irish independence. It's also possible an Irish Pub is happy to have beer, no matter where it comes from. I'm pretty sure it is. I've been to both Armory Square and the Carrier Dome although not on the same day. They are pretty close together although I don't think you'd want to walk from one to the other. You may need to depending on how many Rheingolds you had. They usually wait until later to announce it, don't they? I've never taken it.

You know you've made it when you have your own ice cream flavor. Release UAlbany and Hershey’s Unveil “Great DANEgerous Swirl” Ice Cream Contact: Michael Parker (518) 437-4980 Interim President John R. Ryan announces UAlbany's new signature ice cream. Photo credit: Tiziana Rota ALBANY, N.Y. (December 1, 2004) -- The votes are in and the top choice of students at UAlbany for the school’s new signature ice cream flavor is “Great DANEgerous Swirl.” Students got to sample the vanilla ice cream with purple and gold candy-coated chocolate pieces and golden peanut butter swirl after UAlbany Interim President John R. Ryan and students unveiled the winning name at a press conference Wednesday. With 439 students participating, 89 students voted for the winning combination of ingredients. Taking a cue from the UAlbany Great Dane mascot, “Great DANEgerous Swirl” won out over such names as “Albany Crunch,” “Great Dane Delight,” “Great Dane Crunch,” “Great DANE-a-licious,” “UAlbany Crunch” and “UA Crunch.” Two UAlbany seniors teamed to come up with the winning name, LaTosha Staton, a 21-year-old Economics major from Freeport, and 22-year-old Tanaya Johnson, an English major from Manhattan. There were 106 names originally submitted. The ice cream contest was sponsored by University Auxiliary Services and Chartwells, the University dining service, in collaboration with Hershey's Ice Cream. “Great DANEgerous Swirl” is the third signature flavor Hershey’s has created for a college or university, the others being “Victory Vanilla” in recognition of Penn State's national football championship in 1986, and “Orange Explosion” for Syracuse University.

Good idea. We'll plan on doing that at the end of the athletic year. Maybe just keep the end of year awards to the message board awards and do the sports stuff in the spring. Two things I wanted to mention. Sorry about the confusion yesterday over the awards. I had started a thread in the morning and then GreatDanes84 set-up the awards in a different format. At first I thought his were a bit confusing but apparently I was wrong as everyone seems to have figured them out. Thanks to GreatDanes84 for his efforts on this years awards. Had he left a best student poster category in, I would have voted for him. The only bad news for him is that because he did such a good job setting up this years awards he's nominated himself for setting up the 2005 message board awards!

Here's the link to that story. UAlbany gets some home turf -TU Hopefully they put up plenty of flag polls or something to hang all those lacrosse championship banners.

I'm torn about this also. I'd like to see either the Villanova game or the Syracuse game. Both are complicated by the fact that they're in the middle of the week. I could possibly be persuaded to attend the Vermont-$iena game if they offered the $1 tickets for that game or if they might possibly be giving away tickets by that time. My fear is the Danes would pull a monumental upset at Syracuse that night while I spent the night at the Pepsi watching Vermont thump $iena.

The officiating was certainly in the minds of the fans last night. I hate to see it get in the players heads as well and it did to some degree as there were reactions by players to several calls. I watched Zoellner stare down an official after getting called for a travel and then on the next possesion he was called for a foul on Bell. Really hope the staff gets the message across that they should just play and ingnore the officiatiating no matter how surreal the calls occasionally seems to be. For the most part LIU didn't react at all to the calls and they had their share of dozies. I don't think any of us expected to see the Danes play their best basketball in the first 10 games or so and they certainly haven't. Jamar Wilson's said in today's TU that this team is more talented that last years team but isn't as tough as they were last year. At this point in the season I'd agree. Some of that is probably the changing defensive philosphy from a half court defensive team to full court trapping, etc. When they get that figured out with the offenisve possibilities on this team there should be alot of fun times in the RACC this year.

I'll be curious to see what Brown has to say about this tomorrow. I'm not sure if they changed the technical rule or not. I thought you get two shots and the ball. I remember very clearly Chris Webber doing that in the final four against UNC and the game was over. UNC got two shots and the ball. I also think the officiating was terrible but the Danes still had a great chance to win this game and they let it slip away. Courtney did have a nice game. Iati was having trouble guarding the quicker LIU guards and thats why Courtney played so much. Iati's guy was either going by him or Iati was fouling him. Tough matchup for him tonight. I thought Albany did what it needed to do on the offensive end, they just didn't make LIU work hard enough to get their points. Their guards were just chewing them up and Bell had a much more effecient night than Zoellner. They are scoring well enough to win but they aren't defending well enough. That will come and this team will get where we expect it to be. One last thought that was actually Statefan's at the game. Q again had a nice night. I had thought he may replace Levi in the starting lineup but Levi still may go in at SF and Wilson starts at PG in place of Iati. Makes us a better defensive team. Just a thought (actually Statefan's thought)

That's what Brown said in today's TU. "It's going to be a sellout, and it's going to be loud, and it's going to be great energy," Brown said. Keep in mind Nolan gym only seats 1,000. But hey, it's a start.

After the Army game Brown mentioned starting Q in the future. He said it again today. Interesting to see how Q responds knowing he's auditioning for a starting job. I'm guessing he would start at PF which would mean Levi coming off the bench. Probably not great news for Levi but he would be a huge asset coming of the bench. Scoring, rebounding and toughness coming off the bench in the form of Levi and B. Wilson. No break for opponents frontcourts when those two come in. Granted it only holds 1,000 but Albany's first sellout. Hopefully there's a couple more this year at the RACC.

Curious to see if they press LIU like they did Army. The area they've seemed to have trouble this year is in the half court offense. Both Wagner and Lehigh didn't let them run and forced them to do alot half court which isn't their strength at this point in the season. They were able to run on Sacred Heart and Army and $iena was kind enough to press and create open floor. Our tour of captial district basketball venues that aren't the RACC is nearly complete. I'm looking forward to seeing the game tomorrow and the new St. Rose place.