Bingo

[Dane Pound]

Jamar's early fouls in the Bing game were almost an exact copy of what happened against Northeastern at home. Two early charging fouls within the first 5 minutes. I wonder if sometimes he comes into certain games too fired up and wants to make something happen by going to the rim. Generally what's even worse is that he is such a terrific defender on the ball handler and he can't be as aggressive when playing with the fouls.

[Harrier74]

I was at the Binghamton game -

 

Overall, we played the WORST game I saw all year (the word pathetic comes to mind). Binghamton totally dominated with stifling defense and effective ball-handling. They easily broke our press, made shots over our defense, stole the ball (seemingly at will) and clearly came to play. They hammered us with their physical brand of ball and we succumbed. Freshmen Fithian and Gordon will definitely improve Binghamton's run down the stretch

 

We threw the ball away, played out of control, missed most of our shots, and played very inconsistent defense. Patch's statistical analysis accurately reflected how different this game could have been, but to SEE how poorly we played was disheartening. The Danes did not show up.

 

The fans in Binghamton (a stong following) expected Albany to lose in their house. They must think our season is an aberration. I was sitting there quietly waiting for us to turn this nightmare around. There was no fear of that coming from the Bingo crowd. We gave them exactly what they expected - a guaranteed win.

 

If we play like this tonite, Maine will prevail. I expect MUCH better performance from every player.

 

By the way, Binhamton's arena is excellent. A great venue to watch a game. They truly will be tough to match up against in the tournament with a real home crowd advantage.

[alum73]

I too was there and agree with harriers post. We just threw in a total clunker. Much like the last 10 minutes at Wagner.

[Urban Barrister]

A loss at UNH makes your recent win over Albany meaningless. If we win and you lose today, you are back in the hole.

Binghamton beat New Hampshire. With the win, Binghamton moves into fifth place. (Bing wins the tie breaker against Maine thanks to its sweep of the season series against the Black Bears.)

 

Don't look now, Dane Fans! That growling you hear coming up behind you is a big, bad Bearcat!

[GODANESGO]

Sorry, we can't hear purrrs that are a full two games behind us.

[Urban Barrister]

Fair enough -- but I have a feeling they might start sounding louder after you play Vermont and we play UMBC on Wednesday night . . . .

 

Seriously -- I don't expect Bing to catch Albany in the standings. Realistically, the Bearcats will have to play great just in order to finish out the season at 3-1, but that's not even a gimme, since we've always had some trouble winning at Hartford. To finish 4-0, we'd need to beat BU, which, even at home, is going to be pretty tough.

 

As for the Danes, it's probably most reasonable to expect you guys to finish out 2-2 (with losses to NU and Vermont), which means you'll still have a game on us in the standings. Granted, of course, you stand as good a chance as anyone of upsetting either Vermont or NU, so a 3-1 finish is not completely out of the question.

 

Then again, as Statefan pointed out earlier, it's probably all a moot point anyhow, since, save for bragging rights, the difference between the 4 and 5 seed will be meaningless. Bing will have home-court advantage either way.

 

So, I guess it'll all come down to how each team plays in Events Center on Saturday, March 5th. Should be a great game.

 

See you all in Vestal!

[AlbanyObserver]

Urban Bannister -

 

We appreciate your constructive comments. Such a shame that your school doesn't have a cool fan message board like ours

 

However, I am pretty confident that the Danes would beat the Bearcats by 10 on a neutral floor. But, that won't happen and not the case. You have the advantage because of the home court. That is why you should be favored if your team secures the 5th seed against Albany at the four.

 

Binghamton will be tough out (home court) as well as Albany. The Great Danes have as much athleticism as any team in the league and can really beat anyone.

 

Albany is better than Binghamton for this reason alone:

 

Albany's average margin of defeat against the top three (BU, at BU, Northeastern and at Vermont) > 6 points

 

Binghamton's average margin of defeat against the top three (at Vermont, at Northeastern, Northeastern, at BU) > 17.8 points

 

I expect the Great Danes to give Vermont a good scare on Wednesday. I don't think they will lose by 28 which is your average margin of defeat against the first place team.

[statefan]

Following the weekend's results, I am now 100% convinced that it'll be us vs Bing in the 4-5 game on March 5. Does anyone know if there is a time-schedule showing what time the 4-5 game will be played? Or, do they leave it open so that the home team plays last, as many conferences do?

[AlbanyObserver]

If Binghamton plays Albany in the quarterfinals, it would make sense to be the second game of the evening session. The evening session games would probably be 6 and 8 or 7 and 9.

 

However, since the AE does things with no logic, they might do the opposite and do what they have done for the past two years. BU, the host, played the first game of the first session last year and second game of the first session the year before.

 

I really have no idea why they would do it that way. Why do you want the host to play that early???

[reeder]

Last year, the 4 - 5 game was Saturday at noon

[Patch]

The 1 vs 8 and 2 vs 7 should be the evening session as the 7 and 8 had played the previous night and deserve 24hrs between games.

[AlbanyObserver]

There is your answer then.

 

We would play at 12:00 or 2:00 on the Saturday. Playing at those times makes sense to me since the play-in games are played the day before.

[statefan]

The 1-8 and the 4-5 are always the same session, so that the turnaround time for the next day is as close to equal as possible. I believe that when the MAAC is in Albany, Siena always plays the last game and so they set the brackets to accomodate that result. It seemed they didn't do that in the AE since we've been in the league, but it didn't matter because the host city had two teams.

[AlbanyObserver]

So using that logic, we would probably be the first game of the day (as horrible as it sounds). They would give the team playing Vermont an extra couple of hours to regroup from playing the previous evening.

[AlbanyObserver]

Now that I think about it. Why should the league try to accommodate the 7 through 10 seeds that advance to play on Saturday??? It is their own fault that they put themselves in that situation in the first place. Punish them, don't help them.