Coach Brown to stay with all-freshman starters
De Sousa earned stay in lineup by making impact
“Throwback Night” is planned for Saturday at SEFCU Arena, as the University at Albany pays homage to its 175-year school history by wearing vintage basketball uniforms, but there is nothing nostalgic about what the Great Danes are doing on the court.
Will Brown, a coach who historically has shown an aversion to using inexperienced players, suddenly has become the Steve Fisher or John Calipari of the America East.
Brown said Friday that he will start five freshmen for a second
consecutive game when Maryland-baltimore County visits. They may not be the four- and five-star recruits that Fisher had at Michigan 28 years ago or Calipari at Kentucky more recently, but the Great Puppies who started Thursday night in an impressive 74-70 road victory over Stony Brook all made contributions.
Malachi de Sousa will get his second career start as the Danes
(10-17, 5-7) try to extend a two-game winning streak against the Retrievers (1810, 10-3), the reigning America East champions. The other freshmen — Cameron Healy, Adam Lulka, Brent Hank and Antonio Rizzuto — have started together for the past 15 games.
“He (de Sousa) impacted the game without scoring a point,” Brown said. “He missed two shots that he would normally make, but (with) his length and his athleticism, he blocked three shots, he had three assists, his defense was good. Those are the things that we need him to embrace doing until he gets stronger and more confident offensively.”
De Sousa’s unexpected start sent junior point guard
Ahmad Clark to the bench. Clark, who still played 27 minutes and had six points against Stony Brook, had been Ualbany’s scoring leader all season until Healy passed him Thursday night with a 24-point effort.
“He needs to take a deep breath and relax,” Brown said. “He’s putting too much pressure on himself trying to make plays and create something out of nothing. It’s a credit to him when you draw so much attention because you’re talented offensively, but there’s got to be nights he’s willing to only take five or six shots and maybe score six or eight points, but get eight or nine assists.”
Ualbany did not open
practice to media Friday, so players weren’t available for interviews.
Clark’s removal from the starting five means that the only two returning scholarship players from last year — senior Devonte Campbell is the other — are now reserves. Campbell had started 47 consecutive games when Brown decided to put freshman Antonio Rizzuto into the lineup.
Campbell still ranks fourth on the team at 27.9 minutes per game. The Danes’ bench now has some experience with Campbell, Clark, senior Rayshawn Miller and junior Kendall Lauderdale. Even sophomore Sasha French, who played three total minutes in
January, contributed against Stony Brook, a necessity after Campbell and Lulka got into foul trouble.
“It makes you a more dangerous team when you can get contributions from multiple guys off the bench,” Brown said. “I was worried when we had Lulka and Campbell with four fouls with nine or 10 minutes to go in the game. You sit there, and you’re like, ‘Which one do you play? I don’t want to play either this early.’ It just happened that Lauderdale (17 points, nine rebounds) was playing well, so Lauderdale was going to stay on the f loor.”
UMBC is coming off an even more impressive victory, ending Vermont’s 24-game road conference winning streak with a 6556 victory Thursday night in Baltimore.
The Retrievers have won their past four and nine of their previous 10, including a 65-64 overtime victory over the Danes on Jan. 19 in Baltimore.
“We have to do a good job of defending the 3-point line,” Brown said, “and we have to keep their point guard, K.J. Jackson, out of the lane. Probably the most important thing is that we cannot turn the ball over. They’re No. 1 in our league in forcing turnovers (15.9 per game).”