UAlbany needs to pass final at Pritchard

ALBANY >> The University at Albany men’s basketball team is heading into enemy territory.

The No. 4 Great Danes will take on second- seeded Stony Brook in the championship game of the America East tournament on Saturday morning at Pritchard Gym on the Stony Brook campus. With a second-straight title and a trip to the NCAA tournament

on the line, the Great Danes know that playing on the road won’t be easy, and it will be especially challenging in a gym like the Seawolves’.

“Pritchard Gym is right on top of you,” UAlbany coach Will Brown said. “You can’t hear yourself think in that place.”

One of the original buildings built on the Stony Brook campus in the late 1960s, Pritchard Gym is one of the smallest arenas in the entire America East, seating 1,700 in what the Stony Brook athletic web site dubs an “intimate setting.”

Unlike most D-I basketball gyms, Pritchard offers only one level of seating, with fans completely surrounding the court.

“We’re going down there in a hostile environment,” senior forward Gary Johnson said. “It’s a small gym and they’re probably going to have all the tickets. It’s just going to be us there and we just have to stay together.”

Coming into this game, which is sold out, UAlbany was allotted less than 400 total tickets for students, donors and season-ticket holders. The Great Danes know that the majority of spectators this weekend will be wearing Stony Brook red.

“It’s going to be tough, it’s a championship game atmosphere,” Danes leading scorer Peter Hooley said. “We played up at Vermont last year, which was crazy as always.”

UAlbany won at Vermont, 53-49, in last season’s A-East title game. The Great Dames again need to win on the road if their season is to continue.

“We’re expecting nothing different from the Stony Brook crowd. It’s a small gym, it’s going to be different but we just got to play harder than them.”

UAlbany has spent part of this week’s practice schedule not only going over the general gameplan, but also trying to prepare for the kind of environment that Pritchard Gym presents.

“We know the feeling, walking into the gym, even though it’s early in the morning and hearing nothing but silence,” Hooley said. “We’ll be prepared and we have to make sure the new guys understand what they should be ready for.”

In this kind of game situation, the biggest thing for the Great Danes is controlling the tempo and the movement on the court. Since there isn’t much room to really work with, UAlbany is looking to control the game in the halfcourt and make sure that the Seawolves can’t get out in transition or allow America East Player of the Year Jameel Warney to get into a rhythm.

“They found ways to score, this group in particular wants to score the basketball,” Brown said of the Seawolves. “I think we match up well in the half court. If this becomes a track meet and this game becomes up-tempo we could get into trouble. So I think this has to be a half court game, who executes better.”

While the game environment may present a challenge to a UAlbany squad that has been consistently hampered by under-performing on the road, the Great Danes are feeling confident after a strong performance so far in the A-East tournament.

Bolstered by that confidence, UAlbany is simply looking to head into Pritchard Gym and play basketball.

“When it comes down to it, there’s still two hoops and one ball,” Hooley said. “We’re going to have some fans there regardless. As long as we stop them putting the ball in the basket, then that’s all that really matters.”