Dane06grad

I agree with you here and also on your other comment about Benson being insulated from criticism. Brown has been here for 20 years and a guy (Benson) who may only make it 2 more could be the one who runs him out of town. 3 years ago we were loaded with talent that unexpectedly (to me) left and shocked the program. There were some swings and misses on the freshman class I was excited about (Class of Healy, lulka, Rizzutto, Hanks and De Sousa. I would toss JoJo in that mix too) but this years team was talented. Was it frustrating to have a completely new team, sure, but they were good and had talent. Like someone else mentioned, if we didn't get canceled with two bottom feeders this year UA may have been a #3 seed. I will be disappointed if they move on from Brown, but I am uneasy about Benson being the one to make the decision. His excuse will be that he couldn't hire his own guys, but sometimes you don't have to. Isn't Lacrosse on the way down under Bensons watch too? So all the sudden these coaches just forgot how to coach and win?? Doubtful. Also... Interested to see how Castellana plays into this. Wonder if he has any input or say. What if he doesn't want to move on from Will??

2 years ago we were starting all Freshman and we felt pretty good about it. Where did that get us?

I agree with what many of you have said about the state of the program. I too used to never miss a game, schedule events around games, go in person by myself or with my kids and read this board constantly (without posting for a long time, until recently). Its not exciting anymore. I don't feel like the offense being "boring" is the problem. Lets face it, in 20 years we haven't had teams that throw up 80 points a game. We are used to a hard nosed grind. The boring part is we don't win and we aren't even really competitive anymore. We can't beat high majors anymore. Will Brown used to say when we would show up to play the high majors "Why show up if you don't plan on winning?" And we would hang tight more times. I don't think we could even hang for 10 minutes since Nichols and Cremo left years ago. I am glad to see that this board hasn't turned against the players with really harsh criticism like last year, but I am also disappointed to see how apathetic everyone and everything has become around this program. There are so many times where I have no idea who is on the floor for Albany. I used to know everyones jersey number and name. I used to know the schedule so I could tune in to road games. I used to be really engaged in what was happening and look forward to it. I am sure we can get back there, and will, but I don't know how and who is there when we do.

I agree with those saying we should not run kids out of the program. There are already enough spots to fill with JUCOS, we don't need anymore. All of these players have desirable traits and the ability to improve. If some of them returned to their freshman year form, this team will improve. If they had played as well as they did their freshman year the team would have improved this year. Now I would love to see a larger step forward than that, but they all have plenty of room to improve. I do think its interesting though how a lot of posters are writing that Rizzutto is one of the kids who should be back no problem, no questions asked. A lot of people here wanted him bolted to a bench halfway through and said he isn't a D1 player. He struggled, but played through it and improved. Same thing a lot of these kids will have to do all off season. Improve!

Last years stats mean nothing as there have been numerous complaints about all the players and their stats this year and their regression. If the stats are facts, I would take Hansen over all of them. He is much more productive in his minutes than Lulka was this year in the minutes he played. Lulka Played the first 3 games then nothing for a while. As stated earlier, we will have to agree to disagree. Give me Hansen ALL DAY against ANY of our other bigs. He will make them ALL look foolish

Name a better option at the 4 or 5 spot. Even in the beginning of the year before all the injuries.

If they are going to give up a scholarship on a one year guy shouldn't they let the guy play extended minutes? If you are going to give him a scholarship knowing its only for one year then you must have identified him as an impact player that is going to move the needle for your team. Otherwise, why do it? You have to let them play. Besides, he is significantly better and more athletic than any other big man on the roster even if he made a mistake every other 4th play.

Someone mentioned in a post that Hansen that has been mismanaged this year. That was on full display last night. He played excellent! I thought Clark was great too. A couple rushed shots but who else would you rather taken the shots? The kid has guts and plays hard.

I think Foster was used completely wrong. He was a talented player who was handcuffed in his time here. He was an impact guy on both ends.

I have always been against the JUCO heavy route we take too, which is why I felt better about this roster going forward. Unfortunately like most of you, I don't feel good about it today. Our starters and core are mainly 4 year guys. Healy, Rizzutto, lulka, hanks, Desousa, hutchinson. Dougherty was a 4 year guy who was supposed to be solid. Thats a lot of 4 year guys getting significant minutes. I thought finally we restocked with 4 year guys who will develop and hopefully lead us into the next good run. Doesn't look like that will happen sitting here tonight. Things could be different next year, and I hope they will be. As for the extension part, not sure how you could extend anyone at this point in time. Unless a real crazy run comes in the tourney and all these sophomores show up and show up big, I think any extension would be tough.

Sadly, his quote at the start of the year was something like, "only people who can score the ball will be in the starting 5. We need scorers on the floor" He has 1 scorer and the rest are complimentary pieces. The one scorer leaves this year and then what do we do?

One horse race in this league

This offense is brutal. Maybe it is a great coaching job because we are in third place?

A few things to add... I am not a numbers guru and don't dig in to the stats at the highest level, but has Desousa really regressed? I don't think he has lived up to expectations, but I hesitate to say he has regressed. There was a reason he didn't see the floor a ton last year, and he had highs and lows when he did. I am interested to see what next year brings for him. I know many of us are interested to see what next year brings as well. It is probably an all or nothing year. Live and Die by the three is going to make for nights like what happened against UMBC, and also UML. The bigs are pretty brutal on the offensive end. The dropped entry passes into the post are brutal and have not corrected themselves. I know we are in good position to stay in the top half of the league but we hanse't beaten any of the team in the top half. We are essentially the best of the worst, that concerns me. As for Eli and Click... As far I know no one banned them. They can begin posting again whenever they want if they choose. They were HYPER critical on so many levels of these players, people commented on the overall feel and climate of the board, they didn't like it so they took their ball and went home and never came back. Its interesting that people didn't really name names, they just discussed the overall negative and personal vibe of this board, and those two (who smashed and criticized the players harder than everyone) got angry and left. Can dish it out, but can't take it.

Hopefully this is the every game dry spell happening early tonight. YIKES