reeder

Besides this board, which is your favorite to visit. I would say: Siena - just the passion and the drama make it interesting to follow AE Board - good to hear what the other teams in conference are doing MidMajority.com (not so much a board, but a good site) - I check his site daily. Last game was the Binghamton - UNH game and he has covered UA twice.

Checked Mapquest 662 miles roundtrip to Baltimore 814 mile roundtrip to Orono 308 miles toundtrip to Burlington 1800 miles in 1 week culminating at Vermont. That's a lot to ask of these kids.

Read it online - focus is on Jamar playing point guard - making the transition from shooting guard. Says he never played the point before - even in HS. Couple of quotes from Brown about pulling him in the Binghamton game for turnovers and getting Jamar to think pass first and shoot second.

Would love to know what the travel itinerary is for this weeks games. We know they took a bus to Maine and back. Wonder how they are going to Baltimore and then to Vermont. The bus ride to Baltimore is probably the same time as to Maine. That's a lot of time in a bus before the Vermont game on Saturday.

I think post play is still a question mark. Jury is still out on Dyson - has anyone even seen him? Not sure if Connelly is a post player. Covington seems like a post player but at 6'6" do we need another?

From time to time the feed may not work - if it doesn't, the other team may have a feed as well.

Tough to win on the road, especially against good teams. I think Albany wins by 8. Maine turns the ball over a lot and Markwood is injured- I think they are starting a walk on. UA will get a good number of fast break points.

Did some calculations on attendance comparing last year. Last year's attendance (w/o the BPG) averaged 982 over 12 games. Year to date this year, the average attendance is 1375 for the four home dates (excluding the LIU game at St. Rose). 40% increase in attendance isn't bad. Yes, I know it's early but the trend is pretty good.

What happened with that game? 33% from the field 23% from 3 point 57% free throws Also, Why doesn't Hutcheson play more minutes. She had 29 last night but other games she plays less.

Was he on the bench last night? I recall a post after the BU or Northeastern game saying that he wasn't on the bench.

1. UA has struggled with the three for the past few games. They didn't panic last night and start chucking. 2. Brown apparently made a decision to feed Zoellner frequently to start the second half. Zoellner played very well. 3. Courtney didn't get a lot of minutes but helped with the pressure defense. I wonder if Brown goes more with a three guard lineup with Courtney because of his defensive presence. With Northeastern you had Barnes and Barea shooting away, last night you had the Binghamton guards making 3's. Maybe Coourtney becomes the defensive specialist to manage those situations.

A very good article in today's T-U. Dane's Bandwagon

Binghamton is a good team. Their record is not indicative of their level of play - challenging out of conference schedule. For Albany, 1. The 3 is important. They didn't shoot it well against New Hampshire or Northeastern. Brent Wilson has been the most consistent 3 point shooter in the last few games. Lucious has struggled from the 3 the last games - 1 for 11. 2. Jamar is getting good penetration but he is having a lot of turnovers and offensive fouls. He needs to either kick it out more frequently or shoot a couple more threes to keep the defenders honest. Jamar was so much quicker than the New Hampshire guards that they just couldn't stop him. Against Northeastern, the guards were able to get in his way and draw the charges. Not sure about Binghamton's guards - if they are very quick. 3. UA needs better post play. Zoellner has pretty much been a non factor in the last three conference games. He had 11 rebounds against Dartmouth but has not been a factor offensively since LIU. I think the third point is the most important. The last couple of games, UA has become a totally guard oriented offense. They need contributions from Zoellner to take the next step. I think UA wins because I don't think the Binghamton guards are as quick or shoot as well as Barea and Barnes. If UA doesn't get an improved game in the post it will be close.

Northeastern challenges: 1. When Barea starts throwing up shots and gets hot, he is very difficult to stop. 2. They have a good backcourt, jamar and Jordan will not be able to get the easy layups like they did against New Hampshire. 3. The good guards for Northeastern will pressure the ball and Jamar has to manae the turnovers. There was a point in the first half last night where UA had 5 consecutive turnovers. You can't do that and beat Northeastern. That said, I think UA wins the game. They are a better team overall.

"We’re just scratching the surface," Brown said. "If everyone was healthy there’s no way we’d be 5-6 right now. Not even close. I think we’re good enough to beat any team in our league, home or away." A quote from Brown in the New Hampshire paper. Interesting - I don't think that there were injuries at Wagner or Lehigh. Levi was suspended for LIU. Those are the three games that they sould have won. I think Lillis was injured for LIU.

I like Tobben because he is a "homer". You can almost feel his emotion when he thinks there is a bad call.

I think 8 to 10 points is realistic as well. That said, UA just played BU well and they have Northeastern and Binghamton coming up. Just hope they don't look past New hampshire.

I agree, there are some factual errors. That said, he is just a basketball fan that lives in Philadelphia and has happened to see two Albany games. I think that overall he did a good job getting data and putting together a write up.

I found this site a few weeks ago - I forget where the link came from. If it was from someone on this board, I apologize. Anyway, he is going to 100 mid-major games this year and has covered two ALbany games - Villanova and BU. 100 games

I think he was a walk on when Jamar and Levi were freshmen - Brown's first full year. Also, I thought he transferred from Arizona State to Albany

I mentioned in a previous post (after the Villanova game) that Zoellner seems to be on a 1 second time delay. He is still a project - hasn't played competitive basketball in a long time - he didn't really play at all at BC and sat out last year. After watching him twice and listening to a couple of games, I think he needs to be more aggressive - needs to dunk the ball whenever he can and just accept that he will get some fouls. Yes he is still a project but I think he will figure it out sooner than later. It's a fine line because we don't want him to turn into a Nick Billings who tries to be a lot more aggressive and just picks up fouls. Listening to the BU link to the game, the announcers mentioned several times how well Lillis was playing defense - his aggressiveness... The attendance also seemed pretty good - not relative to Siena but relative to 800 fans for games last year. Hate to lose a game, but to keep things in perspective - BU is a team that beat Michigan and Rhode Island and played BC and UMass close. I think some people forget that they also won the AE regular season last year as well. Let's hope they put this behind them and focus on New Hampshire

BU has a radio link to the game. I forget the link, but you can get there from their athletics web site.

Sagarin Rankings - 210 now; 310 last year. Let's see how well UA competes wthin the conference - these are the games that really count. I saw the fox clip of Brown saying that he expects the team to peak in begin to peak in late January. Would like to see the RPI around 175 - 200. That will require beating some of the top tier AE programs.

Reassuring to see the numbers that he is putting up. I think he and Jimmy Covington will definitely help the program next year. Big men should be able to put up big time numbers in high school just based on size. Connelly's numbers are especially good because plays a lot on the perimeter (from what little I've read).

With Iati out, someone has to step up to backup Jamar and Jordan. I think Lillis might be the player assuming he can return from his injury. Although we haven't seen it yet, I recall some articles last year that called him the best pure shooter in Iowa. I think Courtney can also give a few minutes each game but he probably won't provide any offense. Lastly Bauman was a shooter in HS - maybe he'll get some minutes and get his stroke going in conference. That said, we have seen tremendous progress with Brent Wilson, let's see if Brian Lillis can get healthy and progress as well.