mbb 2022 Game #10: 12/5/22 - 7PM at UMass

[Dane96]

The level of talent on Lowell is another level to Albany.  Doesn't matter if UMASS wins the game, Lowell has played ridiculously hard, fast, composed, within a framework, and can shoot. 

Lowell, Bryant, UMBC, UNH, Maine, and Vermont are definitely the class of the league from what I have seen so far (with UVM being at the back of that pack).  

Edited December 9, 2022 by Dane96

[Dane96]

Lowe; plays very good defense.  Physical. 

[UA'08]

 

1 hour ago, Dane96 said:

TO get an idea of just how bad Albany is this year, Lowell absolutely is HANDLING (throttling) UMASS, at UMASS.  It isn't even close.

Pat Duquette (great guy I've shared coffee and cocktails with at my neighborhood sport cafe) runs a very similar ship to the other coaches who have been successful in this league.  No flash, no fancy, no bull$iena.  Just get players and play in a system.  

I am so happy Jon Iati is doing well over there, and Lowell did a good job navigating the portal.  It is precisely why I say this "give a coach 3-4 years" thing is nonsense in the modern college game.  If you have a plan, hard workers, and build a team...you should be able to put out a good squad.  

They’re 39-57 in the America East since they went D1 and had had 10 seasons to put together a good team so I’d say it’s about time. Now if the 3-4 years to develop is now nonsense, what is considered a good team in your eyes? Where should this Albany team be this year at this point. To me this season had the potential to be a mess just with not having a home or a real practice court. Injuries on top it’s a mess. How many more games should they have won? 

 

 

Edited December 9, 2022 by UA'08

[Clickclack]

55 minutes ago, UA'08 said:

 

They’re 39-57 in the America East since they went D1 and had had 10 seasons to put together a good team so I’d say it’s about time. Now if the 3-4 years to develop is now nonsense, what is considered a good team in your eyes? Where should this Albany team be this year at this point. To me this season had the potential to be a mess just with not having a home or a real practice court. Injuries on top it’s a mess. How many more games should they have won? 

 

 

I find myself wondering how different would this team be with Nealy, it's no secret I love the kids game. He's tenacious, leads by example, rebounds the rock....I had high hopes for him this year as a leader as well. OH well....I think he would have been a big help. 

[Dane96]

1 hour ago, UA'08 said:

 

They’re 39-57 in the America East since they went D1 and had had 10 seasons to put together a good team so I’d say it’s about time. Now if the 3-4 years to develop is now nonsense, what is considered a good team in your eyes? Where should this Albany team be this year at this point. To me this season had the potential to be a mess just with not having a home or a real practice court. Injuries on top it’s a mess. How many more games should they have won? 

 

 

Sigh.

[cwdickens]

The final score UMass Lowel 85 - UMass Amherst 80 ...not dominating but a win for Lowell ... I am not surprised .... UMass Amherst is not a dominant program and has experience bouts of poor play now for four games in the row .... UMass - Lowell played a decent game put loss at Rutgers ... then again, a head coach with game time experience and a Iati on the sideline as an assistant ... sounds like a winning combination Lowell now 10 - 1

[UA'08]

12 hours ago, Clickclack said:

I find myself wondering how different would this team be with Nealy, it's no secret I love the kids game. He's tenacious, leads by example, rebounds the rock....I had high hopes for him this year as a leader as well. OH well....I think he would have been a big help. 

Looking at numbers from last year for Patel, Kellog and Edmead, all had significant minutes and had decent numbers all for all D1 teams. Two of them avg close to double digit points. I can’t say the team is full of non-D1 players. The portal is always hit or miss and I’d have to agree that the coaching here is terrible. He can recruit he just is lost with putting it together on the floor.

[godanesgo99]

2 hours ago, UA'08 said:

Looking at numbers from last year for Patel, Kellog and Edmead, all had significant minutes and had decent numbers all for all D1 teams. Two of them avg close to double digit points. I can’t say the team is full of non-D1 players. The portal is always hit or miss and I’d have to agree that the coaching here is terrible. He can recruit he just is lost with putting it together on the floor.

Team still has the one of the lowest D1 experience levels in all of D1 - it might be the lowest when you look at total D1 games played and not "years". Yes some of the transfers had good years at other schools, but we have a team that has played only a handful of games together and is full of players that are Fr/So/Never played / missed season because of injury. I'm still trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt - especially considering the SOS this year. 

Yes they have looked beyond terrible for long stretches of every single game, there have been some bright spots. I am back to my give DK three years before being OVERLY negative. Obviously negativity at moments will happen and comments that are too harsh will be made in the heat of the moment, but I still think we all need some more cautious patience. 

[dslyank]

18 hours ago, Dane96 said:

Lowell, Bryant, UMBC, UNH, Maine, and Vermont are definitely the class of the league from what I have seen so far (with UVM being at the back of that pack).  

Not that I love vt; but they have played the most difficult schedule of the group mentioned. While I think Lowell & Bryant  are the real thing [and vt will be in there in the end]; I am not convinced any of UMBC, Maine or UNH are particularly good. IMHO, I would say they fall in the league is "down" category. That is not to say UA will beat them; I'm still on the fence that UA could go winless in conference play. I am trying very hard to stay optimistic & positive 🤒.

[cwdickens]

42 minutes ago, dslyank said:

Not that I love vt; but they have played the most difficult schedule of the group mentioned. While I think Lowell & Bryant  are the real thing [and vt will be in there in the end]; I am not convinced any of UMBC, Maine or UNH are particularly good. IMHO, I would say they fall in the league is "down" category. That is not to say UA will beat them; I'm still on the fence that UA could go winless in conference play. I am trying very hard to stay optimistic & positive 🤒.

 The Great Danes are likely to prevail in 3 maybe 4 games as other teams may have an off game while for some unexplained reason, we play better.

[godanesgo99]

1 hour ago, cwdickens said:

 The Great Danes are likely to prevail in 3 maybe 4 games as other teams may have an off game while for some unexplained reason, we play better.

UNH has one good win but they are behind UA in pretty much all metrics so far this year and we've played a harder schedule.

I still think we could pull off 8-10 conference wins if things go right and have a shot at an upset or 2 in the conference playoffs, but we are more than likely looking at entering conference play with 2 division 1 wins, and finishing the season with 5 or 6 total division 1 wins.

This team, as it's currently constructed and currently playing, has shown they have the ability to compete with every team the have faced so far for 2/3 of each game. It's not far fetched to think they could do it for an entire game as they gel as a team. There is little to no evidence that will actually occur, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to go 6-2 or 5-3 when we play UNH/Bing/Maine/NJIT, and get 2-3 wins in 8 games against UMBC/UVM/Bryant/UML.

Chances of the above are less than optimal, but again very possible.

Edited December 9, 2022 by godanesgo99

[Eli]

This is a <10 win (for the whole season) team folks. No sugar coating. I would consider it a success if we get 10-12 wins and a smashing success if we are .500.

[bob87]

37 minutes ago, Eli said:

This is a <10 win (for the whole season) team folks. No sugar coating. I would consider it a success if we get 10-12 wins and a smashing success if we are .500.

Warren Nolan site currently has Albany predicted to be 1-15 in the AE with Binghamton also being 1-15. So no wins except vs each other. A total of 2 d1 wins this season. That might be a little harsh, but from what I saw so far much closer to reality than a 500 or better league record and sadly with a chance to lose 24 or more games. At least they do have 1 win so they can't match LCC (0-24, .000) record in patsos last season 

They have to improve a lot to just be in games for the whole 40 minutes . Whether our second year coach has it in him to get the team to improve remains to be seen. While I hope so, I am not optimistic at this point. 

 Benson wanted his own man to be the basketball coach so the results so far speak very poorly on Benson as well. 

 

[godanesgo99]

15 hours ago, bob87 said:

Warren Nolan site currently has Albany predicted to be 1-15 in the AE with Binghamton also being 1-15. So no wins except vs each other. A total of 2 d1 wins this season. That might be a little harsh, but from what I saw so far much closer to reality than a 500 or better league record and sadly with a chance to lose 24 or more games. At least they do have 1 win so they can't match LCC (0-24, .000) record in patsos last season 

They have to improve a lot to just be in games for the whole 40 minutes . Whether our second year coach has it in him to get the team to improve remains to be seen. While I hope so, I am not optimistic at this point. 

 Benson wanted his own man to be the basketball coach so the results so far speak very poorly on Benson as well. 

 

My favorite analytics sites is Bart Torvik's. All free, pretty damn accurate, and some really cool ways of looking at players and teams. His site has Albany going 5-11 in league and is only favored in 4 of the remaining games, only 3 in league, it assumes 2 upset wins based on probability. Only games team is favored to win are at home: LIU, NH, NJIT, and Bing. Has us as dogs on the road against those team and in every other game.

I suggest bookmarking this site: https://barttorvik.com/team.php?team=Albany&year=2023

There are decades of history available on the site for every team, and so many cool features like looking at teams with similar resumes and rankings and where they finished, and lots of fun geek stats. It works much better on a computer. It works in your phone but shows much more limited information. More shows in landscape mode than portrait, but even more shows in desktop mode (or on a computer)

 

[Clickclack]

19 hours ago, Eli said:

This is a <10 win (for the whole season) team folks. No sugar coating. I would consider it a success if we get 10-12 wins and a smashing success if we are .500.

The two non-d1 games do not count towards this....