Danes can’t rally from early deficit
Ualbany falls behind by 15 after shooting 23 percent in 1st half
Life on the road is supposed to be a little easier this season for college basketball teams, thanks to COVID -19 precautions that have most schools playing with no fans, but the University at Albany didn’t find any comfort Saturday afternoon at New Hampshire.
Ualbany shot a seasonworst 23 percent in the first half of its America East game against the Wildcats at Durham, N.H., digging a 15-point hole that proved to be too much to overcome as the Great Danes lost to UNH, 71-64.
Thanks to 54 percent shooting in the second half, the Danes (3-6 overall, 3-4 conference) crept to within two points with 3:41 remaining but couldn’t finish the deal.
“We played 13 minutes of rock-solid basketball, but it’s a 40-minute game,” Ualbany coach Will Brown said. “The game was lost in the first half.”
New Hampshire (7-5, 6-3) led wire-to-wire but missed 12-of-13 field-goal attempts in one stretch and had to erase memories from last season, when the Danes stole a victory after trailing most of overtime.
“I told the kids at halftime,” UNH coach Bill Herrion said
of his team’s 35-22 advantage at the break, “I thought we played well, but they’re not going to go away. They’ve got too much pride, they’re too well-coached. They’re talented.”
Brown said he thought the first four minutes of the second half would be pivotal, but the Danes merely added to their deficit. It was 46-31 with 15 minutes to go before Ualbany began its charge, putting pressure on New Hampshire in the backcourt.
A 9-0 run cut the Wildcats’ lead to 48-43 with 81⁄2 minutes to go before redshirt freshman Nick Johnson (18 points, 10 rebounds, almost triple his season averages) stopped the bleeding.
“I figured the best thing for us to do was to try to change the tempo of the game,” Brown said. “I did not think they would attack our pressure looking to score. I thought they would try to get the ball over half court and run set plays. I thought we could potentially speed them up a little bit, maybe get some more possessions in the game, get us a little more energized.”
Point guard Jamel Horton scored 17 of his team-high 19 points in the second half for Ualbany, which shot 2-for-15 from 3-point range and was outrebounded 44-34.
“They went right down our throats in the second half,” Herrion said. “They just isolated us one-on-one. We couldn’t handle it, so I’m sure that’s going to come right back at us tomorrow.”
The teams finish their twogame series at 2 p.m. Sunday in Durham.
Three times in the second half Ualbany cut the deficit to two, but foul trouble seeped in. At one point four Danes starters — everyone except Horton — had four fouls. Jarvis Doles (nine points) and Kellon Taylor (seven) eventually fouled out.
“We’ve got to tighten some things up,” Brown said. “We’ve got to be ready from the opening tip. We can’t let Johnson go for 18 and 10. You credit the young man, he played his butt off. We’ve got to look at his season averages, and if we can hold him to season averages, we’ll have a chance to win.”
Notes: Ualbany junior Adam Lulka, who had no points and no rebounds in 5:22 of court time, did not play the second half. “We need him, just like the rest of the team, to play with more energy and more physicality,” Brown said. Sophomore Trey Hutcheson played 17 minutes, his second-highest total of the season . ... Junior Cameron Healy, slowly working his way back into the lineup after an oblique injury, played 121⁄2 minutes, contributing three points and three rebounds.