Dane Pound

It takes a little luck sometimes. 

Next week I'd have Undercuffler do the punting. Not sure he can but I don't think that matters.

Our offense is so high powered they broke the sticks.

Walker was being held on that play too.

The guys you want to stay will leave and the guys you might want to leave are going to stay. We've all seen this movie before.

Great optics this week:

-You fire the coach that a large portion of the fan base wanted to keep on the day he and his wife are honored by the American Cancer Society for their fundraising efforts.

-You announce a college coaching search that'll cost 50-100K on the same day the university announces it has problems with debt.

It's only Tuesday but you're really winning the flippin week UAlbany Athletics.

40 minutes ago, Clickclack said:

I would have been fine either way and I'm not a long distance fan. 

 

I know you're local. You would fired every coach a few times over by now.

PS. that was a joke.

3 hours ago, Clickclack said:

 The reality is Benson made the move he did after this staff pulled into the finish line at the end of the last 3 seasons in 5th, 7th and 6th place.

A solid No to this. The 5th place finish this year was not a result of coaching or players. It was at the whim of the AE conference schedule makers.

The lousy part of this decision is that whatever issues I've had with recruiting in the past couple of seasons, they seemed to figure it out this year. Horton, Kelly, Champion and Doles were all good recruits. On paper, we would have had a lot of talent returning next year.

Funny the way the arguments have gone. It seems like the alumni/fans furthest from Albany are mostly "OK" with the coaching change. While the alumni/fans closest to Albany aren't OK with it. The hard part for Benson and the Admins is that it's the people closest to Albany that go to games, etc.

2 hours ago, Clickclack said:

This team I felt had nice talent but glaring weakness at PG and one really good Big. 

I've liked Horton at the PG spot. It was a tough matchup with Carter whose experience won out tonight. He managed the game really well and his steal late in the game was a backbreaker. Also thought not having another big haunted us again Stafl.

28 minutes ago, nysteve661 said:

Good observation.  But what does that say about the guys who have been here for a while and are not getting playing time and contributing such as Healy, Hank, Hutch, Shaffer, Anderson.  Rizzuto and even Lulka(mostly his size, cause we are small without him) have helped.  I know we have discussed aud nausium that we want four year guys and avoid too many JUCOs, transfers, and grad students but this athletic group can show promise at times in an offensive style that suits them.  

To me it says Rizzuto had a really bad game and Healy has been off since coming back from the injury. I think it also says that was a pretty good recruiting class. Wouldn't have expected that we would have won easily with Rizzuto not scoring.

Hats off to Zach Cooks from NJIT. Every time I've seen him play he goes all out. 

We scored 76 points today and 71 of those points came from guys in this recruiting class - Horton, Doles, Kelly, Champion and Taylor.

4 minutes ago, McFan said:

2 fouls and the lead so Rizzuto stayed in the bench.

Thanks. Missed the two fouls. Taylor was on the bench for a while in that half too. No complaints though of the guys on the floor though.

Speaking of, feels like Rizzuto has been out of the game for a long time.

6 minutes ago, DanesRGood said:

I'll admit, sadly, I've hardly followed this season. Where is Healy? I think I asked previously and someone said he was hurt. Then I see minutes in the stats. Is he still hurt or lose his role? 

A little of both, I think. Rizzuto has been playing really well as has Kelly and I don't think there's a ton of minutes left.

1 hour ago, Eli said:

I mean there is probably some amount of correlation between good teams and how well the players do in the classroom (basketball IQ, etc.)...but to suggest this is why he should be kept as coach in perpetuity (or on a super long leash) and allow him to go 500 year in year out, not sure I agree with that. 

You can probably file this under "excuse making" but the unbalanced schedule made a difference this year. Vermont won 10 games and a #2 seed while going 4-0 against Bing and Maine - the bottom two teams in the league. Albany wins 6 conference game and the #5 seed while having games against Bing and Maine cancelled. There's no guarantees, but if we played those games we're probably a #2 or #3 seed and not having this conversation.

What isn't excuse making is comparing Albany's results with peer institutions - SBU and Bing who have similar resources and are in the same conference. They have two combined NCAA tournament appearances and had several players arrested in both of those years. Albany has 5 tournament appearances over the same time and also set a record for number of all academic selections.

Great to see Rizzuto get the accolades. He really stepped up his game this year and I thought he put up first-team numbers - he was 5th in the conference in scoring.

I thought CJ Kelly had an all-conference type year also. Part of the problem with the unbalanced schedule and him missing two games with injury is half the coaches in the conference didn't see him play.

19 hours ago, Clickclack said:

Look around and take stock of the environment we are in especially with the transfer sit out rule being waved. Mids and lows will be feeder programs for P5...as soon as you develop a kid he'll split. Need to adjust to new reality and that will be increasingly taking cast offs from P5 programs. There is talent to be found there...

I actually thought the staff did do a good job doing this year with Doles and Champion.

The brutal thing about this season, with no preseason and very little practice is that it did no favors to teams built this way since they had no time to figure things out collectively. The teams returning the most experience had an advantage this year. It's no surprise that UNH, UMBC and Vermont had the most returning minutes coming into the season and finished in the top 3 spots. They all returned their PGs and usually their SG as well.

2 minutes ago, BestDaneSinceHamlet said:

My biggest criticism of Brown had always been his failure to adjust the offense as the game evolves. 
 

the middle has been clogged all game yet he’s trying the same thing.  Either he’s being ignored or...

They can keep clogging the middle because we can't hit diddly from outside.

On 2/18/2021 at 9:53 AM, dslyank said:

Not that I have any say; but considering the unbalanced schedule and other covid issues etc; the Strength of schedule [i.e. wins/loses vs teams played against] absolutely should be a high factor in AmEast seeding. This is usually included in tie-breaker determinations; but usually down on the list of determinants. It should move to the top of the list and perhaps even supersede overall record.

We'll see. I think it's 50/50 if they can pull off the tournament. I keep suspecting they'll just say the #1 seed is the conference rep for the tourney at some point. 

The way the numbers are going, it seems like it would have been better to change the NCAA tourney from "March Madness" to "May Madness" and had a better chance of having look a little more like a regular season with teams getting games in. That's Monday morning quarterbacking on my part.

With the number of games being cancelled there were bound to be some winners and losers with the conference schedule. Hartford looks like the winner - they played all four teams with a losing conference record and picked up 6 of their 8 conference wins against them while avoiding Vermont.

Hopefully we can go into the tourney healthy. 

A fun look at Amica. He made a couple of freshman mistakes (two fouls in his first minute) but settled down. Hopefully we seem some more of him because he looks like he has all kinds of speed. If he, Rizzuto, Healy, Kelly and Horton return next year that will be an entertaining backcourt.

Probably one of the better outings from Sam Safer.

Like NYSteve, I get frustrated watching Lulka miss shots inside. Then I look at the box and see he had a pretty productive day - 8 points, 8 rebounds a steal and an assist with no turnovers. I liked that he was pretty much the only guy UML couldn't push around in the paint.

We'd be talked about as recruiting Shane O'Dell at one point. He's a freshman at St. Rose. In his first game yesterday against one of the better D2 teams in the country - 23 points, 8 rebounds and 5 blocks. 

We could have used some of that a little further up Western Ave. last night.

A great night by Rizzuto and not many other people other than maybe Taylor.

I'm guessing Doles and Kelly are out because of Covid protocol.

With all these teams "pausing" during the regular season, I wonder what will happen during March Madness. Do you "pause" and then head straight to the sweet 16?

So sorry to hear this. 

2 hours ago, UA1882 said:

You wonder if Brown has convinced most if not all of the rotation players to return . (Taylor, Doles, Champion). They would have the rest of this year and all summer to gel. 

 

Doles doesn't need the free year. He's a grad transfer but has two years of eligibility. He graduated in three years and redshirted one of them so he retained a year.

Really, the transfer market is a fickle beast but if Horton, Rizzuto, Kelley, Doles, Lulka and Healy stick together it's a really nice core to bring back.