Dane Pound

Funny, the preseason "wisdom" was that UMass Lowell was going to stink without Jahad Thomas this year. That didn't quite pan out. Pat Duquette can really coach. They've finished higher than they were picked preseason just about every year.

I too like the freshman core. I'll probably like them more when they're the sophmore, junior and senior core but still. As for the Juco guys, I actually like Lauderdale and would like him to get more touches and minutes. Clark too, although he drives me crazy sometimes.

I'm not going to make long-term statements about the talent of players over the course of two lousy games. The worst part of today's train-wreck was all the hustle and desire displayed in the last 5 minutes. I don't know where that was all game. The most fight I saw on the court was the halftime exhibit.

True when he was here and was the main option. Probably a little different at Villanova where he's the fourth or fifth scoring option. The article was a pretty interesting take. It's almost as if he's saying that fans sometimes go overboard about players and want them benched. Must just be the Nova message board because I've never seen that happen here.

Maine edged by Vermont tonight 73-49. They were even with the Catamounts in rebounding.

I don't buy the "old" argument but I do buy the experience part. Smith, both Duncans, Lamb and a couple other Vermont guys have been through the AE championships, NIT and NCAA wars and it showed. They played with an intensity our guys hadn't really seen yet. At the beginning of the year, our young guys didn't realize how hard you have to play to win a D1 game. Conference play is a step up in intensity that they learned the hard way on Saturday night and Vermont is a good teacher. I'm not sure Vermont will take a step back next year. It seems like everyone says that about them every year and they don't. We'll take a step or two forward.

Outsmarted and out-toughed. Vermont did exactly what they should have done against Clark. Double team and force the ball out of his hands and we weren't able to run offense after that happened. He compounded it by trying to do too much when there was nothing there. He's going to get killed here but I thought he played his butt off. He made some bad decisions and Vermont didn't make many, if any. I often defend Devonte but he didn't look like he wanted to be on the floor tonight. As others said, Lulka was the only bright spot other than the extended GDAC area. Puzzled about some of the linesups. I thought Hank played well. Also, Lauderdale is physical. Surprised he didn't see the floor as we were getting beat-up inside.

I'll be curious to see how Moll plays in his first game back to the area and his home fans. Between Colonie and the Catamount fans who travel there will probably be a big Vermont contingent at Sefcu. This should be fun. It's an opportunity game for us. I'm guessing Devonte starts at the PF if Lulka can't play?

Niagara message board - http://www.voy.com/25499/

Warren Nolan predicts us going 7-9 in AE play. I'd take that. Warren Nolan has us losing the last conference game at Bing. I'm not OK with that. http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2019/team-predict-schedule?team=Albany

Looks like those minutes went to Flory, more or less. Hopefully Flory can develop into some scoring punch from the bench. Lulka seems to be settling in. Had a nice game against a decent MAC front court in Kent State. I'd like to see him take more shots.

Surprised we didn't call timeout with a minute left up 1. Easy for me to say.

Nice extra pass by Campbell. e.

I thought he got raked across the forearm on that play.

He had two blocks.

According to twitter we've offered JUCO PG Mustafa Lawerence. Played his freshman year at Missouri State and started 9 games before going to JUCO.

I think that's a feat of strength.

It's that magical time of year when we erect our Festivus poles. Wait, that didn't come out right. Happy Festivus! In keeping with tradition, you've have disappointed me greatly and now you're going to hear about it. Now it's time for the "airing of the grievences..." Gattuso, your record - stinks! NCAA, your grad transfer rule - stinks! How far in the pockets of the power conferences are you people? Mark Benson, your policy of throwing people out of Sefcu 30 seconds after basketball games are over - stinks! Some schools roll out basketballs and let kids shoot some hoops on the court after the game. And now, the feats of strength: Stony Brook, our football team had it rough but we still beat you and made national highlights doing it. Lacrosse, final four. Siena, you've lost to us so often you won't even play us anymore.

Well sure he'd be excited. We've already shown we could win the MAAC.

"Ugly" and "Manhattan basketball" seem to be synonymous. They pretty much clutch and grab for 40 minutes and dare the officials to call a foul. Just about every other team they've played as described the game as ugly. The encouraging things I saw: The new starting 5 - Clark, Healy, Rizz, Lulka and Hank. Hank isn't a scorer but the other 4 are. Off the bench Lauderdale is probably our best offensive big aside from Lulka. Bringing him in the same time as Devonte keeps four scorers on the floor since Devonte isn't really a scorer. Devonte didn't pout. About getting moved to the bench. He did a bunch of the little things like bring the ball up while #22 for Manhattan dug his elbow into his side all the way up the floor. Sign of life for DeSousa. No turnovers and no real big mistakes. The first time he caught the ball down low he was a little passive. The second time he caught it, he took it right to the rim. More of the second one, please. We moved the ball. On offense we weren't just waiting for Ahmad to do something (mostly.) Lulka getting the ball more. Good things tended to happen when he had it. Made some nice passes in the post. Take all of that with a grain of salt since it's Manhattan, but still. We had some semblance of structure that we haven't had. The discouraging: The ball still stopped too much in the half court. Every time we were up 5 or 6 points with the ball and could give ourselves some breathing room, we made some awful play

That's exactly what I thought they were going to do. The Haka from the Maori in New Zealand.

Maybe I was dreaming but the Manhattan team did pushups and crunches on the floor at halftime. I've never seen that before.

3-1 against the MAAC this season so far.

Going against the grain here but I thought that was alright. Manhattan pretty much makes games ugly. We had some post touches and moved the ball a little on offense. Some nice minutes from Lauderdale. Adam Lulka - Double double in points and rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks and a steal.

The tough part about having an inside game is the big guys need to get the ball in the right spots to score. We're not running our offense well enough to get that to happen. Right now, it's a lot of four guys watching Ahmad dribble the ball and then try to make a play. We have a lot of good pieces but we have a lot of work to do. Honestly, it you took Peter Hooley, Mike Black and Sam Rowley, threw them out on the floor when they were freshmen, you'd probably get something similar to what we've had through the first dozen games.