Danes jell at right time
Ualbany advances after most complete game of the season
Fifteen games are all it took for the University at Albany basketball team to put together a complete game.
In most seasons, that’s barely halfway through the schedule, leaving plenty of time to grow.
For Ualbany, the coming of age Saturday arrived in the postseason America East Tournament with a 76-66 rattling of New Jersey Institute of Technology
in a first-round game in Hartford, Conn.
“The score of the game was probably not indicative of how well Albany played,” NJIT coach Brian Kennedy conceded afterward.
Whether the Great Danes’ wire-to-wire victory was a trend or an aberration may be answered quickly. Ualbany (7-8), seeded fifth in the tournament, meets No. 4 Hartford on the Hawks’ home court at 3 p.m. Sunday in the quarterfinals.
Because of COVID -19 concerns, which created numerous schedule disruptions and caused the program to be put on pause three times, the Danes haven’t stirred up much momentum, let alone field a full roster, to this point. They may have gotten to that point Jan. 24 in an 83-64 victory at New Hampshire, but the pro
gram was put on pause two days later and went 19 days without a game.
Ualbany appeared to be at full strength and in full stride against NJIT (8-13), seeded eighth and in its first season as an America East member. In the opening 20 minutes, Ualbany shot 56 percent, committed just four turnovers and outrebounded NJIT 19-11 to grab a 39-23 lead.
“When we’re going like that, it’s pretty hard to stop us,” said guard C.J. Kelly, who finished with 20 points. “It’s just crazy, as good as we played, one of our best players, Antonio Rizzuto, wasn’t even out there much because of foul trouble. Just imagine when he gets back out there. It’s even scarier.”
Rizzuto, the team’s secondleading scorer, was scoreless in 11 minutes. He sat out the final 10:17 of the first half after his second foul, then committed his third with 11 seconds elapsed in the second half. He played another 61 seconds midway through the second half before collecting his fourth foul.
“Antonio’s been so good this year for us, and he’s our best perimeter defender,” Ualbany coach Will Brown said. “The problem is he’s so physical defensively, sometimes a little too physical. That probably hurt him a little bit, but I’m proud of our guys because Tone sat for a long time.”
Jarvis Doles, a 6-foot-9 forward, stepped up offensively with a career-high 21 points, including 4-for-4 from 3-point range. Kelly was 4-for-5 from long distance, leading to Ualbany’s season-best 50 percent shooting from beyond the arc.
The Danes shot 55 percent overall. Their three highest shooting percentages of the season all came against NJIT, all Ualbany victories.
“It wasn’t like we weren’t guarding them,” Kennedy said. “We came out blasting the balls screens, and they had a great night shooting . ... I’ve known
C.J. since he played high school, and I know what he’s about, but I didn’t know Jarvis had that 3-point shooting ability.”
In Rizzuto’s absence, Chuck Champion came off the bench to contribute 14 points in 30 minutes. Point guard Jamel Horton had 12 points, six rebounds and a season-high seven assists.
Ualbany led by as many as 20 before some sloppy play late — the Danes had 11 second-half turnovers — enabled NJIT to get within seven in the final minute. Once Kellon Taylor scored the game’s first basket, leading to a 7-0 start, Ualbany led for the final 39 minutes, 31 seconds.
“I don’t even think we were at our best, honestly,” Doles said. “We still have another level to go. We talked about that. We still have another gear, but today was definitely one of our better nights.”