Danes can’t shoot straight
UAlbany shoots less than 30 percent in loss to Stony Brook
The University at Albany men’s basketball team might as well have been shooting at a literal lidded basket Saturday night.
The Great Danes shot a season-low 29.7 percent from the field in a 66-50 loss at Stony Brook.
“I couldn’t tell you, honestly. I mean, I have no answer for that,” senior Jamel Horton said when asked about the scoring difficulties. “It’s going to be hard to win games when nobody makes shots.”
Horton led the Great Danes with 14 points on 6-for-17 shooting and added six assists.
“I thought they did a good job of kind of playing off some guys, and I thought it made them a little bit indecisive, so we secondguessed ourselves a few times,” coach Dwayne Killings said. “I thought we shot way too many perimeter jump shots for our team.”
UAlbany was 8-for-30 from 3-point range.
The Seawolves held graduate Matt Cerruti to just four points on 2-for-10 shooting. After Horton, the Great Danes’ best scorer was freshman Aaron Reddish, who had the last five points of
the game to finish with 11. Graduate Jarvis Doles added seven.
“We really didn’t get the typical flow from them (Cerruti and Horton) because I think it’s credited just to how Stony Brook played on the perimeter defensively,” Killings said.
The loss moves the Great Danes (13-16, 9-8 America East) out of a tie for the No. 2 seed in the conference and into a tie for third with New Hampshire.
Stony Brook (17-13, 9-8) is not eligible for the championship tournament, but they still came out with plenty of intensity at home on Senior Night to help senior Jaden Sayles, graduate Omar Habwe and redshirt junior Alex Christie finish with a win over their rival.
“People were playing their hearts out tonight,” redshirt junior Anthony Roberts said.
Roberts had 15 points and eight assists, helping Sayles score 15 points.
“The majority of (the assists) were off middle ball screens where we were able to really roll hard down the lane to keep it off the sideline,” Roberts said.
UAlbany’s field goal percentage, total points and rebounds (26) were opponent lows for Stony Brook this season.
“I think they just beat us in every facet of the game,” Horton said. “The same shots we hit, we started to miss them. I think they just wore us down on both ends.”
Redshirt junior Tykei Greene led all scorers with a doubledouble of 18 points and 12 rebounds.
Horton wasn’t surprised by the energy of the Seawolves, who don’t have a postseason to play for.
“I’m not surprised with the intensity they played (with), I’m surprised we didn’t match it and exceed it,” he said.
“This is going to bother me, because at my court, competing is really important. And there was some possessions where we just did not compete the way we’re capable of,” Killings said. “I thought they did a great job of controlling and dominating the game.”
Early on, it was UAlbany that appeared to be in control. The Great Danes led by as many as seven in the first half after an 11-2 run that included six points from Reddish. The Seawolves answered with a 16-2 run to take a seven-point lead of their own into halftime, then scored five points to open the second half and never looked back.
“We did real good on the defensive board tonight and I think that played a big part of us pulling away with the lead,” Sayles said. He had seven rebounds of Stony Brook’s 48.
Doles twice cut the lead to single digits, but the Seawolves made a statement each time with a 3-pointer from redshirt sophomore Tyler Stephenson-Moore and a dunk from Sayles that sent the crowd into an uproar.
“I think there was a little panic in us,” Killings said.
The Great Danes threatened again, closing within 50-37 with 7:50 left after a 3-pointer each from junior Trey Hutcheson and freshman Ny’Mire Little. But Habwe scored his first points of the night with a layup on the next possession to help put away the game.
“We may play again, we may never play again. I don’t know,” Stony Brook coach Geno Ford said. “But I know we won tonight, and that’s what matters right now.”