Chaotic season comes to this: win or go home
Ualbany isn’t taking tourney opener vs. New Hampshire lightly, despite 2 previous wins
Most of the University at Albany women’s basketball season has been played with a vast amount of uncertainty. With four program stoppages and numerous schedule changes, all caused by the COVID -19 pandemic, the Great Danes never know what might happen from one day to the next.
“It was almost like every time we had a good practice,” Ualbany coach Colleen Mullen said, “we were like, ‘Are we going to go on pause?’”
The anxiety should end soon. The Danes and five other America East schools — four others opted out before the end of the regular season — are in one-and-done territory with the start of the conference tournament.
As the fourth seed, Ualbany (6-10, 5-7) plays host to No. 5 New Hampshire at 5 p.m. Sunday at SEFCU Arena. The winner will advance to a semifinal next weekend at No. 1 Maine or No. 2 Stony Brook. The loser can stop worrying about COVID tests, as the season will be over.
“The whole year has been like this,” Mullen said, “where you’re like, is this our last game? Are we one-and-done here? Is this going to be our last practice? Is the season going to be over? There were so many unknowns, you almost felt like it was do-or-die during the conference season. You tried to be grateful for every practice you had and every time the ball went up in the air, because even before the ball went up in the air for the jump ball, you just didn’t know if you were going to play the game or not.”
In this abbreviated season — the
Danes played only two-thirds of their conference schedule — Ualbany and New Hampshire managed to meet twice, back on Jan. 23 and 24 at SEFCU. The Danes won both, 59-47 and 63-50, but they are taking nothing for granted.
“Those two wins don’t mean anything at this point,” Ualbany senior point guard Kyara Frames said. “It’s a new season. It’s 0-0. If we go in here too confident,
they can end up taking that win.”
Both teams enter the game on threegame losing streaks. The Wildcats (5-14, 5-11) are led by second-team all-conference selection Amanda Torres, a 5-foot-7 senior guard who scored 29 in the two games against the Danes. The UNH roster includes 5-11 freshman guard Bella Stuart, a Shenendehowa graduate who averages 1.4 points, 1.7 rebounds and 8.6 minutes per game.
A key for Ualbany in those victories was a 64-45 combined rebounding advantage.
“UNH changes their defenses consistently throughout the game,” Mullen said. “We saw multiple defenses — we saw 1-3-1 (zone), we saw 2-3 zone, we saw a triangle-and-two, we saw player-toplayer, we saw pressure. They’re definitely going to try to control the tempo with their changing defenses, and offensively, they’ve got a nice player in Amanda Torres.”
Ualbany came off its fourth pause of the season on Feb. 19, getting three practice sessions in before Monday and Tuesday games at Stony Brook, followed by three more practices. The Danes admit they’re far from midseason form, but few teams are in these pandemic times.
“We need to make sure that we leave everything on that court,” said Grace Heeps, an East Greenbush native who had her career high of 17 points in the second New Hampshire game. “We don’t know if our season is going to end. Going into UNH, we have to play one game at a time. We can’t look ahead to who we’re going to play next because we don’t even know we’re going to play that game.”