Hartford 62, Albany 75

RACC, January 4, 2005
Who's .500? 6-6

I am starting to amass a pretty extensive collection of Albany t-shirts. Tonight's t-shirt giveaway, courtesy of CDPHP, features a great dane doing a reverse dunk. Little did we know that this was going to foreshadow a couple of tonight's highlights. In the first half, Brian Lillis goes baseline and throws down a monster reverse dunk that sent Hartford's bench into shock. Their bench looked incredulous,as if to ask, "how'd shaggy pull that off?" The crowd went bananas. However, it wasn't the first time Brian pulled off something like that. Next to Kirsten and Zo's alley-oop in the Brown game, the highlight of the season (that I've seen) so far. In the second half, Kirsten had a reverse dunk of his own to open the second half that didn't quite match Brian's but was still something to get the crowd going early on.

Tonight was easily the best game I have seen the Danes play all year and it was in sharp contrast to the Brown game. The Danes did a good job staying out of early first half foul trouble- though they committed more fouls than I thought initially-- they played much more crisp defense tonight than in the Brown game. Anytime you can limit your opponents to 4 foul shots in a half as the Danes did tonight, you're going to put yourself in a position to win. The Danes also did a nice job passing the ball, inside, around the perimeter and on the break.

Jamar led the way with 29 points, protected the ball, hit 11-13 free throws, came up with a few nice defensive boards, six assists and exuded a swagger and intensity that resulted in a few benign shoving matches along the way. Nothing but a little friendly competition that ended up with the players shaking hands. Jamar also played the full 40 minutes tonight. Nicely done, Jamar. Brent threw in an other 16 on 4 of 9 shooting, as he is beginning to emerge as probably the most consistent player on the team.

Brian Lillis and Lucious were steady. Brian added 3 steals to an all-around solid defensive effort by the team and created another turnover. Lucious had 11 points, including a nice 3-pointer early in the game that helped get the team and the fans going early and a tip-in to give the Danes a 54-50 lead with 6 minutes left. Levi got some quality minutes and gave a solid effort. He had some good looks that didn't fall and went up strong for some good offensive rebounds. The effort is there and hopefully his shots will start falling soon. Levi hit a big three in the second half that helped us pull away. Levi also hit a shot from midcourt to end the game that unfortunately did not count.

Iati saw very little action, as Coach Brown may have been trying to use a bigger lineup to help shutdown Adeleke, which worked for the most part tonight.

Coach Brown did a nice job rotating players to guard Hartford's Kenny Adeleke. Sure, Kenny had 21 points, but it was a quiet 21. It really didn't feel like he dominated us inside the way Kwimbe Trim of Sacred Heart dominated. Of course, Trim had 29 points that game, but Trim truly felt like a force on that night. We made him work for his points, and if I recall correctly, Kenny went a while before scoring his first points of the night. Credit Zo, Levi, Brent and Covington for the job on Adeleke tonight.

It really felt like we were in the driver's seat for most of the game yet the score didn't reflect that feeling. We controlled the first half, yet went into the half with a six point lead. Of course, we missed two layups on breakaways (one was a brutal no-call on Jamar by the refs ( on replay, maybe it wasn't so bad a call), which would have put us up by 10.

In the second half, Hartford kept the game close, tied and briefy took the lead, thanks to some good, early second half three-point shooting led by Aaron Cook. However, the the Danes eventually pulled away, thanks to good play on both ends by Lucious, made a nice run late in the game. Brent also had a big three with 3 minutes to play to extend the lead to double-digits. Jamar's free throw shooting down the stretch helped solidify the lead and the victory.

Hartford has some talent, and anytime you have players of Adeleke and Cook's talent, you have a chance to be dangerous. Carter and Ruffin also had solid games tonight. I certainly agree with the senitment on the AE board that Hartford could be a very dangerous squad come AE tourney time. Problem is, Hartford does not have a very deep squad.

Overall a nice crowd considering the Texas-USC game, a weeknight and no students in town. I think I read 1500.
I'll try to update if I get a chance to watch the replay.

Random notes:

The pep band leader who also plays guitar needs to start soloing-- just ridiculous J. Mascis or Hendrix-type leads that go off into outer space. That'll get the crowd going!

Every halftime seems to feature the same kids shooting baskets. One kid, a lefty who wears the #2 jersey, can't be older than 5. He has better range than most AE players. I love watching the kid shoot and I hope the University is able to get a verbal commitment once he's able to speak.

Once again, the blindfolded shot experiment almost results in complete disaster. Tonight, a blindfolded girl stands right underneath the basket, beams the ball at the hoop only to have the ball richochet off the front end of the basket, almost hitting her in the face. This is a terrible idea that should be cancelled immediately.