In warmer weather, fans welcomed
Albany Patroons general manager and head coach Will Brown has been pleased with the fan support so far this season. He only hopes it keeps up as the weather gets nicer.
The Northeast Division-leading Patroons (16-3) will host the Syracuse Stallions (12-5) at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Washington Avenue Armory in a The Basketball League game that was postponed from April 23 because of positive COVID -19 tests within Syracuse’s team.
“That’s the dangerous thing,” Brown said. “This is a makeup game. No idea what type of crowd we’ll have (Wednesday). Weather’s nice, especially on the weekends. All these young kids are playing baseball now and traveling. There’s concerns. I think the support’s been good. The community’s been good, but once that weather is nice, people want to be outdoors.”
There was no official home attendance figure available for the Patroons. Team president Michael Corts
estimated Albany draws between 1,200 to 1,300 per home game.
Brown wondered if the TBL might be better off going back to a more traditional season in the winter. The Patroons’ opener wasn’t until March 4 and the season could go deep into the summer if the Patroons make a long playoff run. Albany has four more regular-season games left and their regular-season finale is May 28.
“I originally thought the TBL moving the season away from college basketball, ‘Oh, that’s a good thing,’” Brown said. “I think they should go back because basketball season, so many people are in basketball mode. That weather gets nice, baseball mode, there are kids playing youth soccer. In the winter time, everything ’s indoors.”
Fans who show up Wednesday will see a rematch from Sunday’s game, which Syracuse won 106-99 in Liverpool.
“Definitely, this is the matchup that we want,” Patroons guard AJ Mosby said. “We’re looking to come in right off the bat and just go right at them.”
The top three teams in the Northeast Division will make the playoffs, with the second- and third- place teams meeting in a best-of-three series for the right to play the division winner.
Mosby, Albany’s leading scorer at 19.8 points per game, scored only five points on 1-for-13 shooting in Sunday’s loss to the Stallions.
“I just had a bad night,” Mosby said. The Patroons might not have forward Isaiah Jackson (16.3 ppg, 8.9 rpg) on Wednesday. Brown said Jackson was due to have an MRI on Tuesday after hurting his leg on a hard foul on Sunday. He is experiencing knee pain and ankle swelling, according to Brown.