Time to Start a New Streak...
Albany 53, Vermont 65
Burlington, January 18, 2006
10-7, 5-1 AE
Albany has gotten a few monkeys off of their back this year. One monkey that remains is winning in Burlington, where UA has never won before and won't until next year at the earliest, unless we go back to Vermont for the AE Champioship game.
The loss is sort of disappointing as the Danes played their worst game in quite some time, as no one could shoot. That is, other than Jamar, who did everything he could to take matters into his own hands, except stay out of foul trouble. Despite the loss, I liked Will Brown's professional and assertive comments in the post-game interview, courtesy of the TU: "We are still in first place ... and if we can take care of business in these next two (home) games and get to 7-1 we will forget about this Vermont loss very quickly. And when we play them again we will be ready." This is no time to back down, even after getting smoked by a conference rival.
However, we must give credit where credit is due-- Lonegran correctly recognized their size advantage and started a bigger lineup that dominated us on the boards. Vermont outrebounded us 19-10 in the first half and 34-23 for the game.
I was actually a little surprised we weren't able to shut down Trimboli a bit. Maybe he's the real deal-- based on the radio call, Trimboli impressed the heck out of me. It'll be interesting to see him live.
Trimboli and Cieplicki combined to shoot 11-17 from the floor (6-8 3-pt range), and 7-10 from the line for a total of 35 points. Anytime you get that efficient a performance from your guards, your opponents are going to have a tough night. On this particular evening, their combined guardplay was better and we could not handle their inside game. Again, based on the call, Vermont impressed me tonight.
That being said, anyone who thinks Albany is going to shoot 1-15 from 3-point land again doesn't know much about the Danes. If we make some of our shots early and force Vermont to play man-to-man, we have a much different ballgame. Maybe we still lose, but we're at our best when we make shots and teams have to matchup against us man-to-man.
I was surprised that Vermont shot such a high field-goal percentage, considering all of the emphasis the team has placed on defense. Hopefully it was just one of those nights. Not much more to say-- everyone knows about Jamar's stellar evening. Not to second guess, but I'm surprised we didn't see more of Levi tonight, especially given Levi's last performance and his size. After all, Levi was our second leading scorer tonight (6 points) in 22 minutes of action. Brent was clearly bothered by his sprained thumb and despite his uncharacteristically off-night, Brent still played 39 minutes tonight and led the team in rebounds with 7.
Binghamton at Hartford tonight-- Go, Hawks. I hope Adeleke drops 50.
Incidentally, Mike Yocum had a nice night. I wasn't initially impressed at how he ran up and down the court. However, Mike had a few nice offensive rebounds that resulted into points. I was told that Mike also had a steal to seal the "W" for Episcopal. I do like the fact that he comes from a basketball hotbed and is well-coached-- sort of like all those NFL teams that were just drafting anyone from Miami.
Final tally on Yocum-- 9 points and 13 rebounds-- very solid.
Burlington, January 18, 2006
10-7, 5-1 AE
Albany has gotten a few monkeys off of their back this year. One monkey that remains is winning in Burlington, where UA has never won before and won't until next year at the earliest, unless we go back to Vermont for the AE Champioship game.
The loss is sort of disappointing as the Danes played their worst game in quite some time, as no one could shoot. That is, other than Jamar, who did everything he could to take matters into his own hands, except stay out of foul trouble. Despite the loss, I liked Will Brown's professional and assertive comments in the post-game interview, courtesy of the TU: "We are still in first place ... and if we can take care of business in these next two (home) games and get to 7-1 we will forget about this Vermont loss very quickly. And when we play them again we will be ready." This is no time to back down, even after getting smoked by a conference rival.
However, we must give credit where credit is due-- Lonegran correctly recognized their size advantage and started a bigger lineup that dominated us on the boards. Vermont outrebounded us 19-10 in the first half and 34-23 for the game.
I was actually a little surprised we weren't able to shut down Trimboli a bit. Maybe he's the real deal-- based on the radio call, Trimboli impressed the heck out of me. It'll be interesting to see him live.
Trimboli and Cieplicki combined to shoot 11-17 from the floor (6-8 3-pt range), and 7-10 from the line for a total of 35 points. Anytime you get that efficient a performance from your guards, your opponents are going to have a tough night. On this particular evening, their combined guardplay was better and we could not handle their inside game. Again, based on the call, Vermont impressed me tonight.
That being said, anyone who thinks Albany is going to shoot 1-15 from 3-point land again doesn't know much about the Danes. If we make some of our shots early and force Vermont to play man-to-man, we have a much different ballgame. Maybe we still lose, but we're at our best when we make shots and teams have to matchup against us man-to-man.
I was surprised that Vermont shot such a high field-goal percentage, considering all of the emphasis the team has placed on defense. Hopefully it was just one of those nights. Not much more to say-- everyone knows about Jamar's stellar evening. Not to second guess, but I'm surprised we didn't see more of Levi tonight, especially given Levi's last performance and his size. After all, Levi was our second leading scorer tonight (6 points) in 22 minutes of action. Brent was clearly bothered by his sprained thumb and despite his uncharacteristically off-night, Brent still played 39 minutes tonight and led the team in rebounds with 7.
Binghamton at Hartford tonight-- Go, Hawks. I hope Adeleke drops 50.
Incidentally, Mike Yocum had a nice night. I wasn't initially impressed at how he ran up and down the court. However, Mike had a few nice offensive rebounds that resulted into points. I was told that Mike also had a steal to seal the "W" for Episcopal. I do like the fact that he comes from a basketball hotbed and is well-coached-- sort of like all those NFL teams that were just drafting anyone from Miami.
Final tally on Yocum-- 9 points and 13 rebounds-- very solid.
posted by L3K at 6:24 AM
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