Hartford Goes Down Swinging

HARTFORD, Conn. – Based on the box score, this one was a laugher: The University of Connecticut Huskies 99, the University of Hartford Hawks 56. End of story, right?

Hardly.

“The final score was in not indicative of this game,” reflected UConn head coach Jim Calhoun after his clubs victory.

“I thought it was a great night for our program. I think what we really wanted to accomplish, outside of what’s on the floor, was to show more people in the city of Hartford, and around Hartford, is what University of Hartford basketball is all about. And I think we did ourselves proud,” said Hawks head coach Dan Leibovitz.

As crazy a notion as it may sound, the Hawks’ 43-point loss, the largest in the America East conference this season, may have been the league’s best performance on the young season.

Make no mistake, the final 13 minutes of the game were an absolute beat down, as Uconn closed out the game with a 44-7 run. But up until Jeff Adrien’s dunk with 12:55 remaining to start the run, Hartford played the Huskies as well as any team in the country could have.

Encouraging signs abounded for the young Hawks’ title hopes, and should give the rest of the America East Conference reason to worry. The Hawks never backed down, never gave up, and for an amazing 27 minutes, played as equals with the number two team in the nation.

The Hawks performed brilliantly in an incredibly hostile environment during the first half, and showed signs of a low-post game that was a huge question mark entering the season.

From the opening warm-ups, it was clear that UConn did not respect Hartford. The Huskies jogged through the Hawks’ pre-game stretches, and brushed against their layup lines as the headed for the locker room after shoot around. And each and every Husky stared down the Hawks when UConn retook the floor with 20 minutes to go, the floorboards shook as the XL Center’s sound system was cranked up to maximum, blaring Young Jeezy’s “Put on.”

It was enough to put a chill in the spines of even the most hardened power conference team. But one look into the eyes of Hawks senior captain Michael Turner, star Joe Zeglinski, and reserve David Bookman told the whole story: the Hawks had no fear. They were unflappable.

“These guys really believed they could win this game coming in, and they believed it once we took the court, they believed it at halftime, and they believe it right now after the game,” said Hawks head coach Dan Leibovitz.

You couldn’t make up a better metaphor for the David versus Goliath matchup than the opening tap, when UConn’s 7’3″ center (and future NBA lottery pick) Hasheem Thabeet stepped to center court and stared down at 6’1″ Jaret Von Rosenberg. (Leibovitz had Von Rosenberg take the opening tap, opting to have his other four starters already in defensive positioning.)

And perhaps no moment better summed up the Hawks’ heart than when Von Rosenberg swooped in and ripped Thabeet’s opening tip out of the hands of three Huskies.

Three times in the first half UConn pushed the lead to ten points or more, and all three times Hartford fought their way back against the Huskies and the deafening crowd. Every time UConn made a run, Hartford ratcheted up their intensity level and made a run right back.

“They got really jacked up and excited, and that’s a tribute to them,” reflected Calhoun.

Despite being vastly undersized, the Hawks, who played no one taller than 6’9″, were able to get both Thabeet, and 7’1″ Charles Okwandu in foul trouble thanks to their relentlessly scrappy efforts around the hoop, effectively taking them out of the game in the first half.

“We tried to be physical, tried to be scrappy,” said Hartford head coach Dan Leibovitz.

The Hawks were carried in the first half by the phenomenal point-guard play of Von Rosenberg and freshman Andres Torres.

“We executed the game plan pretty well in the first half, I want to say we only had six turnovers at half time, which is something you can hang your hat on as a coach, that’s our philosophy,” said Leibovitz. “When you don’t rebound the ball the only way you can make up (for it) is to take care of the basketball.”

Von Rosenberg’s ability to control the ball was questioned at times last year, but against one of the most talented backcourts in the country, the scrappy Von Rosenberg unveiled just how far his game has come over an offseason. He not only broke the Huskies’ press, but did an amazing job of getting to the rack, scoring 7 of his 11 points in the opening frame, and did a terrific job as a floor general with team leader Michael Turner on the bench because of foul trouble.

While Von Rosenberg kept Hartford afloat early on, it was Torres who kicked the offense into overdrive. Torres, a pint-sized guard from Puerto Rico, has game-changing speed, and showed flashes last season of being an impact player on the floor. Against the Huskies, Torres proved just how good he can be, blowing by defenders, getting into the lane and creating offense during the first half, as he seemed to be the catalyst for every Hawks first-half rally.

“He’s explosive, he’s the one guy on our team who can create opportunities off a make, he can just sprint the ball up and get us an early offense, “said Leibovitz. “I’m still trying to harness it, but he has some great ability, and I don’t care who you put in front of him, he can get by somebody.”

The Hawks went into the half trailing by nine, and the buzz courtside was that Hartford had already earned their own victory by keeping it close for a half. But no one expected what came next, as the Hawks opened the second period with a 10-2 run.

“We took a nine-point lead and almost turned it into a deficit, where it was only a two-point game, and that was Hartford’s (level of play), clearly,” said Calhoun.

Sophomore Kevin Estes was huge in the Hawks’ surge after the half, fearlessly taking the ball at Thabeet, the nation’s most intimidating shot-blocker. Estes silenced the Huskies faithful when he cut by Thabeet on an inbounds play and threw down a two-handed slam. Estes’ dunk made it a 43-39 game with 18:07 left. After a Zeglinski three, Estes took the ball right at Thabeet again on the right block, banking in a fade-away hook shot over the Huskies’ mountain in the middle, cutting the lead to one, 45-44, with 16:39 left.

Estes’ play was especially encouraging for Hartford, as low-post scoring was viewed as a big question mark entering the season. After scoring nine points on 4-6 shooting in Hartford’s opener, Estes scored eight on 4-5 shooting against one of the best frontcourts in the country, and is beginning to display a knack for getting to the bucket on the offensive end.

“He (Estes) really knows what he’s doing, on some of those slips on out-of-bounds plays are just reads,” said Leibovitz. “Those aren’t things that are drawn up. Kevin, when he comes around and slips to the rim, he sees how he’s being played, and that’s maturity.”

Leibovitz also believes that Estes will improve on the glass as well. After a freshman year marred by a bad concussion and a bout of the flu, Estes has shown no hesitation to play physical and throw his body around in the post

“I think that you will find that as the year goes on he will do a better and better job as a rebounder,” Leibovitz said of Estes.

6’9″ freshman center Genesis Maciel also flashed his potential on an incredible left-handed reverse layup, as he bumped Thabeet out of position on the low-blocks, and finished off a terrific spin move.

Morgan Sabia was solid all night, scoring a game high 15 points and showing no signs of any hangover from his 1-7 shooting night to open the season.

The story of the night for the Hawks, however, was the play of Zeglinski, who was coming off of the worst game of his college career, a 1-10 shooting night against Quinnipiac.

Zeglinski was fearless on the court in every aspect of the game, and not only ran the floor as an equal with the Husky guards, but got into the post and mixed it up physically with Thabeet and Jeff “The Incredible Hulk” Adrien. Zeglinski finished with only 11 points on 4-14 shooting, but his game was so much more than his numbers, as he was everywhere, fighting for rebounds in the paint (he finished with 5 boards), disrupting passing lanes (3 steals), and fighting for every inch on the hardwood.

“Joe’s a winner, he’s a special kid, and you can pretty much bank on him coming back every time he has a tough night,” said Leibovitz.

Zeglinski’s performance won him high praise from those in attendance, including former high school All-American and fourteen-year professional Bobby Martin, who was taking in the game.

“That kid Zeglinski is a winner. That kid would be a baller on any team, he’s a little bulldog, you just can’t teach that,” gushed Martin, who played his college ball at Pitt. “He’s a little bulldog in there, and he really won me over when he got in there underneath Thabeet and was wrestling him for a jump ball, and then when right back and started fighting Adrien with everything he had on the low block.”

“He’s aggressive, he’s fearless, and he’s everything to our program,” said Leibovitz.

In the end, the Huskies were simply too much for the Hawks, who were fighting exhaustion, a bigger, stronger, deeper, and more talented bench, and even it seemed the officials. But Hartford had absolutely nothing to hang their heads about, and Hawks fans, and those of the conference in general, should have felt honored to have been represented by the Hawks. Even after UConn began to blow the doors off, the Hawks never panicked, never began to jack-up threes, and kept their composure until the end.

“I think (the fans) left here and said ‘hey, that’s a team that knows what their doing, they play together, they play the game the right way, their pretty scrappy, and the game got away from them but hey, Hartford’s doing some things around here,” reflected Leibovitz.

Matt Wolff Comes Back

The Terriers’ Comeback Kid

by Sam Perkins

BOSTON – Boston University opened the 2008 season with as much fanfare as the program has seen in its 100-year history. The crowd buzzed in anticipation of the most talented Terriers squad to take the floor in five years, as BU tipped off against the best opening-night atmosphere in school history: 4,624 fans packed the state-of-the-art Agganis Arena. BU celebrated its centennial by honoring the 50th anniversary of the 1958-59 Terriers, the most successful team in school history, and by retiring the jersey of Jack Leaman a captain on the 58-59 squad who went on to become a successful coach at UMass-Amherst).

There were stories galore in the season opener; the crowd was treated to a thriller, as George Washington edged the Terriers 63-58 in overtime. John Holland was terrific (22 points and 8 rebounds in what head coach Dennis Wolff called “The best game John Holland has played since he’s been here, in every area”), Corey Lowe was flat-out bad, and freshman Jake O’Brien burst onto the scene, showing a sweet shooting touch, and toughness in the paint that few outside the team expected.

“This was as good a first effort by a freshman forward that we’ve had here in a long, long time,” said Wolff.

Lost largely in the Terriers’ preseason expectations, Holland’s spectacular play, O’Brien’s debut, the electric environment, and the 100-year celebration, was the play of fifth-year senior Matt Wolff.

Wolff’s five points, eight rebounds, and four assists might have seemed pedestrian, but he got my vote for player of the game, doing a bit of everything to keep BU in the game.

Wolff has earned his status as a veteran: a team captain and the longest-tenured player on the roster. Yet it was Wolff, who has been around college basketball longer than anyone else in the conference (he’s the son of the Terriers’ head coach), who found himself fighting the same pre-game butterflies he felt as a green-around-the-gills freshman in what seems like a lifetime ago.

“I was just as nervous as the freshmen, I was excited about the game,” he reflected.

Who could blame him? It’s been three years since Wolff was himself, three long years of recovery from injury, three years of wondering whether he would ever get back, physically, to the player he was as a promising freshman.

“I haven’t played a full four years,” he reflected following the Terriers opener.

No one in the conference has fought more to simply get back on the court than Wolff over the past three seasons.

“I’m really proud of the effort that Matt has put in, and the attitude he has had, just to get back out on the floor,” his father stated during an interview a few weeks ago.

It’s been a long road for Wolff, who came to BU in the fall of 2004 having been named an All-Scholastic by the Boston Globe, and member of the Massachusetts high school Dream Team by the Boston Herald after leading Walpole High to two straight league titles and a Division II state championship.

In just the second game of his career, Wolff showcased his all-around game, scoring a career-high 17 points to go with 9 rebounds and 5 assists in a win over Fordham. Wolff enjoyed a solid freshman season, averaging 4.3 points and 2.1 rebounds per game while providing defense, shooting (.349 from behind the arc), and overall heady play off of the bench.

Wolff’s season, and career, came crashing down around him four games into his sophomore year, as he landed awkwardly pursuing a rebound, and tore his ACL.

What ensued was three years of rehab and setbacks. After rehabbing for a year in hopes of being ready to rejoin the team halfway through the 2006-07 season, Wolff re-injured his knee, which meant another round of medical procedures and rehab. Last season was largely a wash, as Wolff struggled to regain his feel for the game after two-years away from live action.

It’s been more than just the physical pain that has made Wolff’s comeback so daunting, as he has become far and away the most verbally abused player in the conference. Insults rain down on him nightly from not only opposing fans, but also the Terriers’ faithful.

Wolff was always an easy target for fans; that comes with the territory of playing for your father, but his lack of production while fighting his way back last season painted an even bigger target on his back. Wolff is never going to be a guy who scores fifteen points pet game; he probably won’t even average double figures, and many fans can’t understand how he play the minutes he does based on his sheer numbers.

But what Wolff does is lay everything he has on the court for forty minutes, and provide all the little things that a good team needs to win. Wolff’s hustle and heads up play were on display Friday, as he did a little bit of everything to keep the Terriers in the game.

“I feel like my role is what it is. I’m not going to be the leading scorer, I’m not going to be the leading assist man, but I’m comfortable in my role, I have a lot of pride in my role,” he reflected after the game.

Wolff seemed to be the first man on the floor after every loose ball, played hard-nosed physical defense, and set numerous screens, including one vicious pick that knocked Wynton Witherspoon of George Washington out of his shoes. Wolff also shined as the team’s leading distributor; he may have only come away with four assists, but he lost another half-dozen because of poor shooting by his teammates. He also did a magnificent job as a help defender in the low post in the absence of starting center Scott Brittain, frustrating high-flying Rob Diggs for much of the night.

“Matt made a million hustle-type plays,” said coach Wolff following the game.

When tempers flared late in the second half, Wolff was the first player into the shoving match to back up his teammates. But more importantly, he showed his true veteran leadership pulling his teammates away and getting their focus back to the game itself.

Wolff showed glimpses last night of being more than a role player. Physically, Wolff is a different player than he was last year, as he took the court in the best shape of his life at a ripped 6’6″ 215 pounds.

“My body is in better shape than I was coming in last season,” he said.

Wolff was the quickest and most athletic that he has been in his entire career at BU, and he showed parts of his game that he had never display. Where last season he was only good for one dribble and a hand off, it was Wolff who brought the ball up court and broke the Colonials’ press several times last night. And it was Wolff driving the paint and kicking out to an open man to jump-start the offense in the end of the first half.

No play better showcased the new Matt Wolff than when, during the overtime period, Diggs elevated for what looked like an uncontested two-handed slam, only to have Wolff fly in from the corner and reject his shot, something unthinkable from the Terriers guard-forward last season.

Wolff also displayed several hesitation moves and crossover dribbles while handling the ball, and the ability to change speeds while on the break, all of which were absent from his game last season.

While Wolff is never going to be the kind of player who changes a game on offense, he doesn’t have to be: The Terriers have scorers galore in Holland, Lowe, Brittain, Carlos Strong, and Tyler Morris. And BU needs a glue guy like Wolff to do all of the dirty work that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet in order to win, a role that he relishes.

“If it’s taking the open shot, if it’s going to the glass, and or trying to be a better defender, then that’s what I’m going to do,” said the senior.

Boston University hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2002, nor a conference championship game since 2003. It’s no coincidence that during those two season the Terrier’s were lead by point guard Kevin Fitzgerald, who like Wolff was never a statistical superstar, but who was arguably the most importantly player on some of the best teams in school history, running the offense, operating as a floor general, and doing all the “work in the trenches” that never shows up on paper. While Wolff isn’t a point guard, he is the closest thing BU has seen to “Fitz” in years, and whether fans like it or not, he will be critical in any run the Terriers make this year.

America East Preview

Jon Iati’s Long And Winding Career

A True Gunslinger rides off into the sunset

by Sam Perkins

“I have no problem taking a big shot, at the end of the game, I have no problem taking it, I don’t know that I’m always going to make it, but I have no problem taking it.”
-Jon Iati

When the University of Albany Great Danes’ season came to an end at the hands of Boston University in the America East Tournament quarterfinals, it meant the end of the careers of seniors Brian Lillis, Brent Wilson, and Jon Iati. Throughout the season Albany fans, and the America East as a whole, were abuzz with the phenomenal play of Lillis, a do everything All-Conference guard-forward. Likewise fans commended Brent Wilson’s four-year career.

But little was said down the stretch about the prospect of losing Iati, Albany’s longest tenured player. Perhaps it was what wasn’t said that stood out the most, or more accurately what wasn’t said during head coach Will Brown’s post game press conference. There, the unfathomable happened: the outspoken and always quotable Brown was silent for several seconds while trying to compose himself when asked just what fifth-year senior Jon Iati had meant to his program during his time at Albany. Just how special Jon Iati was to the Albany program, and the league, may not resonate with many fans, but it certainly has never been lost on Brown, as there has never been a harder worker, or a more selfless teammate than Albany’s smallest player.

When he did collect his thoughts, Brown, choking back his emotions, gushed about Iati, saying “He should be an inspiration for everybody that (has heard) ‘you can’t do this, you’re too small, you’re not strong enough.’ We list him at 5’10″, he’s like 5’7″. People don’t know the true story about Jon, Jon’s had two shoulder surgeries, two broken toes, and he had major back surgery in August and he was told by two doctors that his career was over.”

Fans tend to know Brown as a brash, at times boisterous, coach, never shy to speak his mind. But he showed a different side of himself when talking about Iati, as it was touching to hear him talk about his fifth-year senior. “The last thing you think when you see Jon Iati in street clothes is that he was a basketball player, maybe you think he was a DJ or something like that, but not a basketball player, and I’m going to miss him,” said Brown, adding, “He’s just persevered, I wish that he had a healthy career, because he still scored over a thousand points, was the Rookie of the Year, two championship rings, but I just think that he could have done so much more because he was a tireless worker. Unfortunately for half of his career he wasn’t allowed to work on his game because he was injured.”

Uncanny parallels can be found between Iati’s career at, and the atypical Clint Eastwood character from a long list of gritty Westerns (Pale Rider, High Plains Drifter, and Unforgiven all come to mind). Sure, on the surface the comparison seems preposterous: at a very generously lifted 5’9″ Iati bears no physical resemblance to the imposing characters played by Eastwood, nor does Iati have any of the gruff, rough around the edges persona of Eastwood. But if you look at them within their respective elements (Iati as a basketball player, Eastwood’s typical gritty hero), and the comparisons are almost endless, as the America East has never seen a quicker draw, or a bigger and more fearless shooter than Iati. Like Eastwood, Iati does little talking, as you will never see him get in an opponent’s face, or get more animated than the occasional fist pump. He lets his actions speak for him. And like Eastwood, despite a career full of heroics, a battered and bruised Iati walked off into the sunset with slightly less than a storybook ending.

Jon Iati grew up in York, Pennsylvania loving the game of basketball, and from an early age he was a gym rat. By the time he reached high school, Jon Iati could flat out shoot the basketball. In his four year career at York Catholic, Iati re-wrote the school record book, graduating as the Irish’s all-time leading scorer with 2,216 points (a record since broken by his brother Jacob), was a three-time All-Star, led York to its first tournament birth since 1999 and a District 3 title, was an AP Class AA first-team all-state selection, was featured in Sports Illustrated’s “Faces in the Crowd,” and set a school single-game record in erupting for 56 points in the best game this reporter ever saw a high-school player have. And yet, despite all his accolades, Jon Iati was anything but a hot commodity coming out of high school, as many coaches could not see past Iati’s shortcomings.

But Iati caught the eye of Brown, whom had taken over the University of Albany two years earlier, and whose program was still in its infancy. “A lot of people couldn’t see past the fact that Jon was very undersized: He was a 5’7″ scoring guard who hadn’t really played the point, he was small, needed to get in the weight room, he wasn’t much of a defender, and there were all kinds of questions about whether he could even set foot on the floor against Division I players,” said Brown. “But Jon was a gym rat, and I love gym rats, I loved his mentality. He was so fearless out on the court, and the kid just wanted to play, he had this drive. At the time we were desperate to fill roster spots, and I felt he was the kind of kid that could help me build the program.”

For Iati, the chance to simply play Division I basketball was a dream come true, and he jumped at Brown’s scholarship offer. Before Iati stepped foot on campus his work ethic was apparent to his new head coach. “I told Jon coming in that he was going to have to work on his ball-handling skills, because being able to play the point would really help his chances of playing, and he would have to really dedicate himself to a strength and conditioning plan to get physically stronger in order to compete,” Brown recalls. “Jon dove into it head first, I really felt bad for Mr. Iati (Jon’s father) though, because he was Jon’s workout partner before he arrived here, and I think Jon might have taken a few years off of his life running him into the ground. During his time at Albany, Jon’s sheer will to succeed, and work ethic are second to none.”

Iati almost bit off more than could chew as neither he nor his coach, however, could have foreseen just how much he would play during freshman campaign, as the Danes entered the season with a bare-bones roster made up of Iati, Levi Levine, Jamar Wilson, and some fringe Division I players and walk-ons. Albany’s roster shortcomings were further magnified early in the season as they lost Wilson, the team’s star, for the season due to injury. Without Wilson, and with a roster so thin that the Danes actually finished one game with only four players on the court, Iati was thrust into the role of point guard and go-to scorer.

During the 2003-2004 season as a true freshman Iati averaged 14 points per game, numbers more impressive when you consider that because of the lack of Division I talent on Albany, teams often doubled down on both Iati and Levine without having to fear being burned by anyone else on the floor. Even more amazing, however, was the fact that Iati led the nation in minutes played, averaging over forty a game (thanks to some overtime games).

“Jon Iati five years ago as a true freshman played 40.9 minutes a game, he used to ask me to come out and I used to chuckle at him, I said you see this bench, we got seven guys in uniform, I said you’re playing my man, you wanted an opportunity to play at the division I level and I’m giving it to you,” joked Brown. Iati was rewarded with the America East Rookie of the Year award, but he would never reproduce his numbers from his first season.

Iati got off to a solid start during his sophomore year, averaging 11 points per game while shooting an astounding 47 percent from downtown. Iati was never bigger than against cross-town rival Siena, as in front of a packed house at the Pepsi Arena, Iati poured in 20 points to lead Albany to the biggest win of his young career. Brown was beginning to bring in top-flight talent, and the Danes were on the verge of turning the corner and becoming a team to be reckoned with in the America East, and the sky seemed to be the limit for both Albany and Iati.

However, soon after Iati tore his labrum and missed the rest of the season following surgery. When Iati returned the following season, the Danes had a completely new look, as two years of talented transfers and solid recruiting classes put Albany at the top of the conference. But the drastic increase in talent pushed Iati to the bench, uncharted waters for him as prior to his injuries he was the focal point of the Danes offense. Upon his return he played limited minutes, serving as instant offense off of the bench when the Danes needed some long range firepower.

Most players in Iati’s situation would have sulked; many would have developed a chip on their shoulder. It’s not easy to go from being the man with the ball in your hands to riding the pine and watching much of the game from the sidelines. But Jon Iati isn’t like most people, and while every competitor like Iati wants to be out on the floor, he is also becoming a dying breed in the era of “me first” athletes: a player who puts his team’s needs above his own, and who wanted to do everything within his power to help his team win.

“I never expected to be playing like I was as a freshman” said Iati, “I was brought in here to be a complementary player, so while it was terrific to play that much, and I grew a lot as a player my first year, I never expected it to last. And I mean, we won five games, sure an ideal situation would be to be starting and being a top scorer on an NCAA team, but that wasn’t a reality. I’ll gladly trade in my numbers and playing time to help us win, winning is much more rewarding to me than individual accolades.”

Iati’s quick transition to his new role also won his coach over even more, as Brown reflected, “Jon Iati has done everything that I have asked of him and more from day 1. He took less playing time without making a peep so that we could become better as a team. That’s not an easy thing to do, or to expect of a young man, Levi Levine struggled with that same transition greatly here. It’s a credit to Jon, and to the kind of kid that he is that he was able to put the team first. That’s something that lots of players preach, but very few actually do.”

But Iati could still play, as he continued to fire away fearlessly from downtown, and he had several memorable moments during the Danes’ magical two year run from 2005-2007 in which they made their first ever NCAA Tournament appearances, in back-to-back seasons no less. Early in the 2005-2006 season, Iati erupted for 23 points to lead all scorers against 16th-ranked UCLA, almost carrying the Danes to victory. The following year, he come off the bench to put Albany up for good against Utah, a memory that his coach will hand onto for a long time.

“Against Utah Jon comes in and with under three minutes to go and the game tied, he launches one from I swear 28 feet out, and he is back-peddling down the court before the ball swishes through. I could have killed him for taking that shot, but I sure loved him after it went in.” Iati also nailed seven three pointers and scored 25 points versus Utah Valley State.

But for Iati, as magical as his career has been, it has also been marred greatly by injuries, as he had battled through two shoulder surgeries and a broken toe prior to his senior year, and then had to endure a bombshell. After experiencing severe back problems, he was told by a doctor that his back was inoperable and that he would never be able to play again. A second doctor told him that surgery was a possibility, but that he would still have to give up playing. It wasn’t until he found a third doctor, back home in Pennsylvania, that he was given a glimmer of hope that he could play out his career. There were times when Iati thought about the possibility of never being able to play again, but he put them out of his mind and launched himself head on into his rehab, like he has done with everything else.

“When I first got the news of how bad my back was, and when the first doctor told me that my career was over, yeah I got down. I love basketball. But after a day or two I decided that I had to give it everything that I had, that I’d come too far and sacrificed to much to just walk away,” reflected Iati.

Iati’s senior season was, like the rest of his career, filled with ups and downs, as for much of the season Iati could not practice with the team because of his back. He hit another roadblock when he broke a toe in his foot. That may seem like a minor injury, but to a shooter, who relies entirely on balance and footwork, it’s devastating. “When I broke my toe, it really made it hard to not only run, but really hard to shoot, because I couldn’t push off for my shot anymore. It messed up my footwork, and my whole approach, and for a lot of the season I had to shoot in a different way than I had my whole life because of it,” reflected Iati.

But Iati got healthy at the right time, looking like his old self in a 20-point eruption versus Maine, and helping the Danes right their ship and earn the No. 3 seed for the America East Tournament. Iati’s career didn’t end the way he would have hoped, as the Danes fell in overtime to Boston University 68-64 in the first round, but it wasn’t due to any fault of Iati’s, as in his final game he left it all on the line. In what has been the trademark of his career, Iati hit some daggers, pouring in 16 points and going 4-6 from downtown.

To the end Iati showed why he was the conference’s resident gunslinger, drilling a pair of threes on quick catch and shoot plays, and another off of an inbounds. But none of his threes were bigger than the one he hit with under ten seconds play in regulation, as with the Danes trailing by three, Iati broke free of his defender and launched a high-arching 25-footer over 6’9″ Scott Brittain. The minute Iati released the ball, both he and everyone else in the arena knew it was going in. However, the moment that most stood out from his final game came on a lose ball, as Iati launched himself into the seats after sprinting the length of the court. Iati couldn’t quite come up with the ball, but the sheer determination and lack of regard for bodily harm summed up his career for the Danes, and resulted in a standing ovation from the crowd.

Iati and the Danes came up short in their quest for a third NCAA birth, but Iati left every last ounce he had out on the court, and no one could ask anything more from a player in their final game. “It’s not the storybook ending, you want to end your career at the NCAA tournament, you don’t really want to end it in the first round of the conference tournament,” said Iati, “You knew potentially it was going to be your last game so you wanted to give it everything you got.”

The imperfect ending to Iati’s career was much in the same vain as Eastwood’s characters from Unforgiven and Pale Rider, as Iati rode, or perhaps limped, off into the sunset having put the good of his cause (his team) above himself, and having come up short, but he has no regrets on his time at Albany. He refuses to dwell on his injuries and the “could halves.” “I have no regrets, I mean I’ve had an amazing career here. I scored over 1,000 points, made two NCAA appearances, scored 23 points at UCLA, won the Rookie of the Year, and got to be a part of something really special here helping to build Albany’s program.”

While Iati’s dream was to play professionally after he graduated, injuries have curtailed his plans. “Up until my back surgery, despite everything else, it was still a goal of mine to play after college. But I don’t think I’ll have anything left now, I guess that will always be a dream,” said Iati.

Iati has a tremendous head on his shoulders, and truly lived up to the billing of student-athlete. He earned his B.S. in sociology with a minor in education in four years, and has used his fifth year of eligibility to work towards a Masters in Albany’s liberal studies graduate program, something he will finish during the fall semester next year. “I’m no brain,” said Iati in self-deprecating fashion, “so I have no regrets, regardless of the injuries, or anything else, Basketball got me to college and I’ve used it to not only graduate, but to earn a Masters degree, something I never thought I would do.”

And while Jon won’t be pursuing his dream of playing professionally, he has a new dream on the horizon: to become a coach. “If I could get into coaching, so that I could be around basketball for the rest of my life, I couldn’t ask for anything more than that,” reflected Iati, who will spend the fall working closely with Brown in his office, getting a first-hand look on what it takes to become a coach.

“I think Jon will need to work on becoming more of a vocal leader to become a coach, but as far as basketball know-how Jon has everything you need, and I think if it’s something he wants to do, I have no doubt that he will achieve that goal,” reflected Brown.

More America East Off-Season News, Notes, Analysis

America East Off-Season News, Notes and Analysis

by Sam Perkins

The off-season can be a hard time to take for college basketball fans, and it can be a downright death valley for fans of small conferences like the America East, in which off-season reporting from news outlets is even rarer than a good haircut on Greg Ostertag.

So once again, here’s some news and notes from around the conference, along with some other thoughts.

• Hartford coach Dan Leibovitz has taken what is, unfortunately, the road less traveled in the America East when it comes to his schedule for next season. Instead of lining up an array of low-major opponents (or even non-DI if you’re north of Massachusetts), Leibovitz has already put together one doozy of a schedule, which is rumored to include Stanford, URI, Penn State, Connecticut, and an array of solid mid-majors. Expect one more big, big money game to be added against a big-time opponent before all is said and done.
• Fire codes put the kibosh on Hartford’s plans for connected seating all the way around the court in Chase Arena, but they are still putting in all chair backs along both sidelines, and it still gets my vote for hosting the America East tournament (provided that Mohegan Sun never comes to fruition). The way I look at it, it is going to come down to Albany and Hartford, and Hartford is just a nicer venue: better lighting, better sound, better appearance on TV. At either venue, however, for the tournament something is going to need to be done in the way of food, as right now both have insufficient concession stands.
• It’s always hard to tell what you are getting in a “drop-down” player, meaning a player who comes to the America East from a much higher conference. Some, like Kenny Adeleke completely dominate, but far too many fail to live up to the billing, putting up no better (sometimes worse) stats then they did then when they played in bigger conferences. So I am hesitant to go to gaga over Michigan State transfer Maurice Joseph, who will be playing for Vermont next season. But it is really, really hard to not get really excited about Joseph, not because he gives Vermont the athletic guard they have been desperately needing (which he certainly does), or because he has a bulldog’s mentality (the kid is unshakeable). The big reason is because during his transfer year, a year in which he could not suit up for the Catamounts, Joseph emerged as the team’s unquestioned leader, not through ego or brash talk, but through his work every single day in practice. No one cared more or worked harder than Joseph, and he is the player that the other Catamounts look to for guidance and leadership.
• Dane DiLiegro is going to be a very, very good player. This is a feeling not only shared by his coaching staff, but by most opposing coaching staffs around the conference. DiLiegro’s numbers on offense this year (4.2 ppg) were pretty pedestrian, but in the America East, freshmen bigs in the 6’8″ range rarely produce. New Hampshire fans need look no further than former Wildcat Ben Sturgill, who as a freshman was a 6’8″ beanpole with little game, but by his senior year had turned into an All-Conference performer. DiLiegro has tremendous athleticism to go with his 6’8″, 240-pound frame, and his lean muscular build would seem ideal for putting on muscle, and another 20 pounds within the next two years is certainly feasible. Already a tremendous rebounder, and a vicious finisher around the basket, DiLiegro struggled with staying out of foul trouble during his freshman campaign, but a year of college basketball can do wonders for a player’s development, and the coaching staff expects big things down the road from DiLiegro.
• Speaking of talented bigs, Hartford might have a steal on their hands with incoming freshman Malcom Campbell. Campbell joined the Hawks from prep school halfway through the year and sat out as a redshirt. Campbell is a basketball 6’10″ with a tremendous wingspan, solid athleticism, and runs the floor like a deer. The America East sees very few players Campbell’s size with his skills and athleticism, as he certainly is not in the Kyle Robbins or Brent Gifford mold. Don’t get me wrong, Campbell is a project – he is still growing and physically maturing, and may struggle to pick up the Hawks’ incredibly complex offense and defense. But by his junior year he should make a very big impact on the court.
• Perhaps no player in the league takes as much verbal abuse night in and night out as Matt Wolff. I suppose that’s in the cards when you play for your father. Wolff may be a limited player on the offensive end, but he doesn’t deserve the flack he takes, as he has turned into a very solid role player, who gives it everything he has every night. Wolff is a very heady defender, and was the one player on the Terriers who brought physical toughness to the court consistently day in and day out. Wolff showed a complete willingness, and even eagerness, to get in and mix it up, something the Terriers need more of from the rest of their roster.
• BU has a ton of perimeter talent, and if Tyler Morris can return to his freshman form after battling injuries, and Corey Lowe and John Holland continue their skyrocketing trajectory, the Terriers are going to be one tough team to play. But BU needs a presence in the low blocks to be a real contender. Scott Brittain is a nice player with a soft touch around the hoop, but he is not the physical presence BU needs. Too often this year BU was physically pushed around, especially in the low blocks, something that never happened when Jason Grochowalski, Ryan Butt, Rashad Bell, and Billy Collins were wearing the Crimson and White. The America East may be a perimeter-oriented league, but BU is not going to be able to separate themselves from the pack, nor go dancing, without someone who can do some damage in the post.
• With the addition of freshman Bryan Dougher and JUCO transfer Jonathan Moore, the Stony Brook Seawolves will have (barring any unforeseen departures) five, that’s right, five point guards on their team next season with Eddie Castellanos, Nick Carter, and Chris Martin all returning. You have to wonder why coach Steve Pikiell needs this many distributors when the team doesn’t seem to have many people to distribute the ball to. Stony Brook has some talent in the low post, especially in Demetrius Young, but they ran a game plan that was devoid of any passes into the paint. The Seawolves need a go-to scorer, one true multi-talented offensive weapon to keep defenses honest. They seemed to have that two years ago with Tre Cunningham, a 6’4″ wing who could do a bit of everything, but Cunningham transferred, and the Seawolves really need to find a replacement.
• I like Rio Pitt, who will be a junior next year for Stony Brook, as he has nice size (6’7″) and very good athleticism. More importantly, he showed flashes this year of an array of low post moves. The question is, will the Seawolves ever develop a game plan for their low-block players?
• UMBC added seven-foot transfer Robbie Jackson from Marshall. Jackson won’t be a star, and likely won’t dominate, but he’s a seven-footer with a good frame and decent skills, and he will certainly alter shots and some game-plans.
• UMBC wing Matt Spadafora is going to be a very, very good player in this league. As a sophomore Spadafora’s game improved by leaps and bounds, and when senior Brian Hodges went out with a leg injury, Spadafora took over his starting role and shined. Already a lock down defender, Spadafora went from a shaky outside shooter as a freshman to a deadeye this year. More importantly, by year’s end Spadafora became aggressive on offense, driving to the basket and using his great leaping ability and length to elevate in traffic at will, even showing off a soft touch on jumpers and hooks around the hoop, not to mention turning a few heads with some big-time dunks.
• Maine has been hitting the recruiting circuit really hard, having already locked up 3 players for next season (and talented ones at that). But my real question remains: how does Ted Woodward re-energize and engage a team that seemed to completely quit on him down the stretch?
• Maine junior forward Philipe Tchekane-Bofia has regressed every season for the Black Bears. As a freshman, Bofia showed off some incredible low-post moves and instincts, and looked to have all the tools to dominate the league, but his production has dropped every year along the way, and he seems to have become more and more of a disruptive influence to the rest of the team. This season he seemed content to shoot threes and joke around on the bench, when he should have been dismantling teams in the low block and leading the Black Bears emotionally.
• I really hope that coach Kevin Broadus brings in a freshman or two. While he has certainly brought in some big-time talent with transfers for next year, the big complaint with Al Walker was that he didn’t bring in enough freshmen to build a consistent program, instead relying on JUCO transfers. Broadus is toeing a fine line of going down that same road.
• I was once again awestruck and dumbfounded when I took a step back and really looked at exactly what Marqus Blakely has become. I really think that the league should have a Most Improved Player award, but when I was going over who the most improved player was, it took me a few days to realize that it would be Blakely, hands down. It is absolutely shocking when you look at the fact that Blakely was the Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the year, led the league in scoring, rebounds, blocks, and was an AP All-American (Honorable Mention) all in only his sophomore year, and it becomes even more shocking when you realize that as a freshman he played less than 14 minutes a game. And the kid has only scratched the surface of his potential.
  Blakely may have the most raw potential, athleticism, and talent out of any player to come through the league since Malik Rose, and he isn’t simply a great athlete for the America East, he’s as athletic a player as you will find in the country. Blakely averaged 19 points, 11 rebounds, and shot 55 percent from the floor despite really not possessing much of an actual game. Blakely was able to dominate the America East, and compete against top-flight teams by relying simply on sheer athleticism. Blakely really didn’t display any type of low-post moves, no jump hooks, drop steps, or much of a jump shot from more than four feet away, yet he was able to score by simply jumping over people. Furthermore, Blakely didn’t practice for much of the season, and was playing at only about 75 percent due to a foot injury which hindered his explosiveness. It is truly scary to think of what kind of player he can become if he develops a real game to go along with his athleticism, he could literally score 30 points a game in the America East.
  But the best thing about Blakely is he hasn’t let it get to his head, and he is not only a tremendous talent, but a workout warrior. In fact the word “ego” very well might not exist in his vocabulary. Word from Vermont is that Blakely is shooting hundreds and hundreds of jumpers and threes every single day, sometimes multiple times a day to expand his offensive arsenal. Teams were able to finally clamp down a bit on Blakely towards the end of the year when they really crowded him around the basket, because he didn’t have any kind of a consistent jumper. However, if Blakely develops a mid-range game, teams are going to have to guard him away from the hoop, and by drawing defenders away from the basket Blakely will then be able to break them down and beat them regularly off the dribble, and really put up some jaw-dropping numbers.
• After a period in which three-guard offenses were the trend in the America East, the conference as a whole seems to be shifting back to a conference of true wing players. This is very encouraging, because the America East of the past few years, with most teams starting a trio of guards 6’2″ or below, made matching up against top-tier teams, or even squads from the Colonial and A-10, incredibly difficult. But the three-guard trend seemed to change this year, and for the first time since 2003 – when the league had the likes of Billy Collins, Jerrell Parker, Javorie Wilson and others – true small forwards made a resurgence.
  BU’s John Holland, a 6’5″ wing with a smooth outside shot, a guard’s ball handling skills, and tremendous hops and finishing ability won the Rookie of the Year award, and wings such as Spadafora (UMBC), Brian Lillis (Albany), Mark Socoby and Troy Barnies (Maine) all made big impacts. And it only gets better, as all but Lillis of this year’s wings return, and the returning wings coupled with the incoming freshman will give the AE one of the best collective groups of small forwards in a long time.
  The two most talented incoming freshmen for next season, Hartford’s Drake Uu, and Vermont’s Jordan Clarke are true small-forwards who can light it up from outside, put the ball on the floor, attack the rim, and finish with authority. At 6’7″, 235 Clarke is built like a tight end with athleticism just a bit below Blakely’s, and has Vermont head coach Mike Lonergan salivating at his potential. Uu may well be the best freshman in the conference next season, and is at least an A-10 level player. (Most west coast recruiters swear that he is a Pac-10 level player). At 6’5″ and 230 pounds of rock-hard muscle, Uu is already built like a man, and the word is that he is a far superior shooter to current Hawk Morgan Sabia, whom was easily the deadliest player in the conference this season from behind the arc. Uu can handle the ball like a point guard, play lock down defense, and has the athleticism to drop jaws with a tomahawk dunk or windmill in traffic. Albany incoming frosh Logan Aronhalt is another uber-athletic wing in the 6’4″-6’5″ mold, and UNH will gain the services of James Madison transfer Colby Santos, a good athlete and lock-down perimeter defender who sat out this season.
• By the way, Hot Dog and Jesus, for the record, Andres Torres speaks perfect English and was born in Puerto Rico, making him just as much of a legal US citizen as you or me.

Looking Back At America East

Looking back, looking ahead, news and notes on the America East

by Sam Perkins

Well, another College Basketball season has come and gone, and while the America East’s RPI and rankings as a conference were down this year, it was anything but a dull season. Unfortunately almost the entire league was in a rebuilding phase, resulting in a poor non-conference performance by a league collectively getting acquainted with the college game.

One team, however, that was not rebuilding was the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers, whom led the conference from start to finish, compiled an impressive non-conference record, and dominated the conference slate on their way to the best season in school history and their first trip to the big dance.

The Retrievers fielded a team of “grown men” with three high-impact transfers (Cavell Johnson, Darryl Proctor, Ray Barbosa) blending seamlessly in with returning four-year players. The Retrievers were head and shoulders above the rest of the conference as they could score from behind the arc, inside the paint, play defense, and were led by the best point guard in the conference in Jay Greene.

While UMBC will certainly be taking a step down next year with the loss of Johnson, Barbosa, and Hodges, the league as a whole should be drastically improved, with Vermont, Hartford, and New Hampshire all essentially guaranteed to be much improved. Both Boston University (provided certain players don’t transfer), and Binghamton (depending on how their high-impact transfers assimilate) have the potential to also be greatly improved. Maine should also improve with the loss of only one senior (and possibly a few non-impact departures via transfer), while Stony Brook has only one direction to go in (hint: it’s not down). Only UMBC and Albany stand to drop significantly, and the Danes have a solid freshman class coming in, with UMBC still returning several good to great players.

So here are a few odds and ends that I never got to during the season, as well as some thoughts on the future, in no particular order:

• Will Hartford please extend Coach Dan Leibovitz, who in two years at the institute has established himself as the best coach in school history? Hartford will never get a better coach, or even as good a coach, as Leibovitz as long as they are in the America East conference, so why not lock him up now while they have the chance?
• UMBC should take a step down next season, however it can not be understated how much this season could help recruiting, the one area where Coach Randy Monroe and his staff have struggled. This season, Monroe proved that he could win with talent, and he is actually quite the X’s and O’s guy, but the Retrievers have struggled to bring in consistent talent. Although they have hit it big with graduating senior Brian Hodges, junior Jay Greene, and sophomores Justin Fry and Matt Spadafora, they have missed far too often. Monroe has also gotten bashed for building a winning season on transfers instead of four-year players, however, fans need look no further than within the conference to Albany to see how much winning, even built on transfers, can help a program. People forget that it was not until Albany brought in transfers Kristen Zoellner, Lucious Jordan, and Jason Siggers that the Danes went dancing, and look how much the talent of their recruits has risen every year since.
• I want to go on record as saying I am going to miss Albany’s Jon Iati, mightily. Iati was, as head coach Will Brown described best, the ultimate example for all kids playing the game that just because people say you are two small, too slow, etc., that does not define who you are, or what you can become. Iati ate, drank, and breathed basketball for his five years as a member of the Great Danes, and he was a joy to watch on the court, as there has never been a more fearless or bigger shooter than Albany’s smallest player. In the world of basketball there are “chuckers” and there are “gunners”, and there is a big difference between the two. Iati was most certainly a gunner, and the league lost a true class act in his graduation.
• Lazar Trifinovic, a talented forward for Binghamton has transferred out of the program. This does not come as much of a surprise, as he and Kevin Broadus never seemed to be on the same page. Trifunovic was brought in as part of former Coach Al Walker’s final recruiting class, and was certainly an offensive talent. However, his questionable work effort and dire lack of effort of any kind on the defensive end did not sit well with his new coaching staff. By the end of the year Trifunovic seemed more interested in talking trash and instigating verbal sparring matches on the court than in actually fitting in to the team concept.
• Speaking of Binghamton, Broadus has brought in quite the class for next year, with transfers Malik Alvin, Tiki Mayben, and Theo Davis. While Alvin has no off the court issues, both Mayben and Davis are still serious question marks (let’s just say that the Gonzaga coaching staff was more than happy to see Davis out the door, and Mayben was a seriously disruptive influence at Umass). Broadus did a great job of handling a situation with freshman Devon McBride and transfer Milos Klimovic, both of whom are no longer on the team. However, whether fans want to admit it or not, it is much more difficult to boot a star talent off of a depleted/rebuilding team than it is to boot role players off of a team that has someone like Mike Gordon on it to shoulder the load. If Binghamton’s transfers pan out, they could be a legitimate top-dog, as Broadus is a terrific coach, but if they don’t, 2008-09 could be a long year in Vestal.
• In other transfer news, as seems to have become par for the course, rumors have been flying all year that Corey Lowe, Boston University’s best player, and in my opinion the most talented guard in the conference, will be leaving after this year. Now rumors are just that, and anyone can start them anonymously. Unfortunately, the reality is when a program has as many players leave abruptly as the Terriers have in the past few years, these sorts of rumors are going to start flying. The scuttlebutt from behind closed doors of Lowe contacting current UMass players during the season did not help things. However, Lowe played like anything but a player on his way out all season long, and I have a hunch he will be back in the red and white next year. Lowe is a tremendous player, and with him coming back BU will be loaded in the back court with the most collective talent they have had since the 2003-2004 season.
• Hartford is going to be good next year; so is UNH, mark my words.
• Vermont can be scary good next year if Mike Trimboli can mature, and can improve his decision making in the clutch, but much more importantly if Trimboli can accept being the second, and sometimes third option on offense with Michigan State transfer Maurice Joseph and freshman Jordan Clarke. Trimboli had great difficulty at times this year accepting that he was no longer “the man” (to use a Nick Billings phrase), with Marqus Blakely supplanting him as the teams star.
• Hartford reserve forward David Bookman is easily the most entertaining player to watch in the entire conference when it comes to pre-game lay-up lines, as the Hawks sophomore is a blur of energy, flying through a dizzying assortment of spin moves. Bookman has been labeled one of the most important players to the Hawks by his coaching staff because of what he contributes off of the court. Bookman is the ultimate chemistry guy, a player who everyone loves, and who just raises the mood and attitude in the clubhouse tenfold. Bookman is the kind of player that every team needs, as despite being buried on the depth chart, he is the ultimate example of a kid who truly loves every second of his time on the team, and everyone in the conference should tip their caps to the kid.
• Boston University is a school with a strong fan tradition – that is a tradition of being completely devoid of fans. This year the Terriers built up a small, vocal, die-hard fan base of some colorful characters, which was nice to see. The leaders of this pack were known as “The Hot Dog and Jesus” and were two freshmen who, well, dressed up as a Hot Dog and as Jesus. Their enthusiasm was refreshing to see in the normally morgue-like Case Gymnasium, but their antics could be a bit overboard, and at times completely classless. Nowhere was this more evident than when the Terriers hosted Hartford and the duo showered freshman Andres Torres with a verbal barrage that was at best idiotic and at worst racist. I love the energy, and I’m going to chalk-it up to freshmen antics and excitement, but there’s being clever and there’s being classless when it comes to taunting an opponent, and this definitely fell into the category of the latter.
• When New Hampshire hosted Maine this season, UNH assistant SID Eric Coplin filled in as the in-game announcer, and did a fantastic job. Especially enjoyable was his “Alvin A-brewwwwww” calls following every bucket by Wildcats’ freshman Alvin Abreu (that’s pronounced “A-brew”).
• Speaking of Abreu, he is part of a trio of terrific freshmen for the conference along with Hartford’s Morgan Sabia, and Boston University’s John Holland. Holland deservedly won the conference’s Rookie of the Year award, as at 6’5″ with freakish athleticism he possesses the most impressive package of skills and raw athleticism out of the three, and is certainly the most talented wing to suit up for the Red and White since Billy Collins graduated. By the end of the season Holland was raining threes from all over the court, proving to be a disruptive influence at the top of the 1-3-1 zone, and of course throwing down an assortment of highlight-reel dunks.
  However, while Holland had the best year of the three, neither Abreu nor Sabia should be shorted, as they are certainly on the same level. At 6’8″ Sabia proved to be the conference’s best three-point shooter, hitting right around 45 percent from downtown. Sabia is also no slouch when it comes to athleticism, and also has an array of low post moves, which once he puts some weight on his skinny frame should prove a dreadful match-up for the rest of the conference.
  But the jewel of the freshman class in my eyes remains Abreu. While his numbers trailed off down the stretch, a few things need to be taken into account: teams began to focus their defensive strategies around stopping him first and foremost, something neither Sabia nor Holland faced. Secondly, unlike BU and Hartford, UNH began running exclusively man-to-man defenses, with Abreu being locked in on the other team’s best scorer. Thirdly, Abreu’s drop in offensive production coincided with his being asked to take over the team’s point guard duties.
  Abreu has a skill set that will make him, in my opinion, the next of the league’s great guards, as he has all the tools to wind up on the same level as Jose Juan Barea, T.J. Sorrentine, and Jamar Wilson, and could certainly graduate as UNH’s all-time leading scorer. This may seem like quite the burden I am putting on Abreu, but he has the kind of mentality that I doubt he will pay it a second thought, which is exactly why he is, to me, the premier freshman in the conference: his mental makeup. Alvin Abreu is not only a terrific player, but a terrific human being, a kid who has been through more in his young life than most people could ever imagine. No player in the conference works harder than Abreu, and none plays with more drive or determination, as the Wildcats’ freshman has already established himself as a team leader, with a maturity level through the roof. And oh, by the way, the kid is a baller as well, with a hybridized game of Kevin Reed mixed with Chaz Carr.
• Coaches and fans alike love to dismiss the non-conference season as simply preparation for “the real season,” or the conference slate, saying that is what counts, And they are certainly right in that only one team from the America East is going to make it to the NCAA’s, and they do that by winning in conference and the conference tournament. However, did anyone ever notice that it only seems to be the coaches whose teams play poorly during the non-conference schedule who make that analogy? And furthermore, the goal of any team should not be to simply make it to the NCAA tournament, but rather to compete and put up a good showing, more over to win a game. This is next to impossible if a team stinks it up during the non-conference schedule because they will get a very poor seeding in the tournament field.
• UMBC fell victim to circumstances far beyond their control this year, as the Retrievers were more than respectable during the non-conference slate, and with their talent and record, they should have been a 13-14 seed had anyone else in the conference carried even half of their weight during the non-conference season. Cornell was a 14 seed, and as someone who saw Cornell half a dozen times this year, they weren’t close to being on UMBC’s talent level. The Retrievers were pulled down by the rest of the conference resulting in a 15 seed.
• When Mark Socoby hit a 30-foot bank shot to force overtime in the America East tournament play-in game against Stony Brook, Socoby, Junior Bernal, and Kiamondre Owes were ecstatic, while the rest of the team had the look of “oh great, now we have to play five more minutes before our season is over.” With an entire team returning except for Brian Andre, you have to wonder just how head coach Ted Woodward goes about getting a team that seemed to bail on him this past season, to start listening to him again.
• Will Stony Brook ever put it together and play as a cohesive unit on the floor? Will they ever learn how to run an offense? You have to think that with his pedigree that Steve Pikiell will put it together, but it has been tough to stomach his first three years at the helm. However, one thing that is encouraging, despite losing, his players absolutely love playing for him.
• Desmond Adedeji, a transfer from Dayton who will be eligible for Stony Brook next season is large.
• There seem to be four possible schools to host next year’s conference tournament, as Albany, Hartford, Binghamton, and possibly Boston University will put in bids to hold the tournament. I for one feel that Hartford is the place to go, and there are some reasons:
  • First off, the league wants the host school to be playing in the semi-finals, so that they attract the home fans to two days worth of basketball, and the Hawks look to be the most sure thing out of the group to finish at the top of the league standings.
  • Secondly, Hartford is the most centrally located out of the schools, thus making them the easiest for collective travel by fans and alums of the rest of the league.
  • While Binghamton did a great job of acting as the host school, and while attendance was great when the Bearcats played, the crowd was pretty sparse when the Bearcats weren’t playing. It was certainly not a good enough turn out to simply hand the tournament over to the Bearcats again without giving someone another chance.
  • Boston University’s Agganis Arena is the premier facility in the conference, and the nicest college basketball arena in New England. However, BU has failed miserably at even making an attempt to market the tournament. Boston is the perfect city to hold it in, but until the BU shows that they actually care about filling the seats, the tournament should go elsewhere.
  • Albany’s SEFCU Arena is just too drab a place to hold a tournament. While it is certainly nicer, it has the same feel as the Walter Brown arena at BU – ugh, way too much grey and poor lighting. Granted Albany would get a good student turnout, but the Danes are looking at a rebuilding year, and two years in a row of the host school getting bounced in the quarterfinals would be a disaster for the league.
  • That brings us to Hartford, as Chase Family Pavilion would seem to be the best place to hold the tournament. Chase has terrific acoustics and architecture that is very conducive to crowd noise, and Arena itself is very visually appealing. Furthermore, it is rumored that Hartford is going to tear out all the bleachers facing both benches and replace them entirely with chair-backs, and that the Hawks are also going to add more seats around the court, connecting all seating with each other 360 degrees and giving the Hawks a true “Arena” feel.
  • The one event that could throw a monkey wrench into the whole thing is the prospect of hosting the tournament at Mohegan Sun, something that has long been speculated on chat sites and blogs is now actually being discussed by the conference. It’s a long shot, but it would be the best possible venue to hold the tournament.
• UMBC faced more open opposition and doubt from within the conference, from fans, administration, prognosticators, and coaches, than any other conference champion in recent years. The doubt is best summed up in a post on a conference message board stating that if they made the NCAA tournament that they would be the worst conference representative in 20 years. It was a ludicrous statement, but it got me thinking: I would certainly put this year’s UMBC squad well above the T.J. Sorrentine-less Vermont team that represented the conference in 2003, as Vermont had a just blossoming, and still jump shot-oriented Taylor Coppenrath, still a maturing sophomore, carrying the team, followed by a roster of role players at best. This year’s Retrievers squad would eat those Catamounts alive.
  I would also put UMBC right up there with last year’s top 2 teams, Albany (NCAA representative) and Vermont (NIT rep and regular season champ). Albany had Jamar Wilson, one of the best players to come through the AE in the past ten years, and Jason Siggers, a scorer and athletic defender. But Siggers was banged up, Brian Lillis was still a role player, and the Danes would get destroyed by UMBC’s forwards in such a match-up. The Retrievers’ four-some of big-time shooting guards, while not having a singular talent to match Wilson, could certainly go shot-for-shot with the Danes on the perimeter. Like Albany, last year’s Vermont squad simply could not match up in the low post with UMBC’s combination of athleticism and skill. Chris Holm was a gutsy player in 2007, but his numbers were a product of an absolute lack of any competition in the post. Martin Klimes was a tough-as-nails defender, and smart player, but he would be helpless against either Johnson or Proctor. Vermont fielded a backcourt that was identical to this year’s team, but a year younger and less experienced, and rough around the edges, and one needs only look at how UVM’s backcourt faired against the Retrievers this season to get an idea how last year’s squad would have done. Marqus Blakely played seven minutes a game, had to deal with mono, and was not the player he has morphed into this year, and Freshman stud Joe Trapani was, well, a freshman (no freshman in recently history, no matter how talented, has proven to be the difference-maker to an AE squad, and as good as Trapani was last year, his hype was even greater because of his potential down the road), he also dealt with injuries and by the second half was no longer an impact player.
  The point I am making is simply this: UMBC was good, very good for the league, and they would have finished no lower than third in the conference in any of the previous six seasons.

UMBC Wins America East

Vindicated Retrievers

by Sam Perkins

CATONSVILLE, Md. – Confetti spilled from the rafters as most of the crowd, a record attendance for the RAC Arena, spilled onto the court in celebration. Jay Greene leapt on top of the media table and then into the throngs of fans. Cavell Johnson and Ray Barbosa, both of whom have talked about making the NCAA tournament for all five years of their intertwined basketball odyssey, embraced amid the mass celebration at center court. Justin Fry danced up a storm as Pop Bottles by Birdman blared over the speakers. Brian Hodges, quiet and reserved for his entire career, yelled at the top of his lungs and joined Greene in leaping atop the media table. And head coach Randy Monroe may well have hugged every resident of Baltimore County. The celebration carried over long after the game, as the entire Retriever family had a gathering at the “Sports Zone” on campus.

This was the scene following the best game the UMBC Retrievers have played all year, an 82-65 rout of Hartford University, a fitting culmination to their historic title run and the first NCAA Tournament appearance in their 22 years as a Division I school. The “old guard” around the America East has dug for every flaw, or rather excuse, in the book to find fault with the Retrievers during a season in which they have clearly been the class of the conference from start to finish, but following UMBC strapping on their dancing shoes Saturday afternoon, the only thing their doubters can now resort to is burying their heads in the sand. With three impact seniors, this was UMBC’s season, and with one game separating them from the NCAA Tournament, a dream of everyone on the roster, there was no way they were going to let anything stop them.

“We have had our sights on this goal all season, and we weren’t going to let Hartford or any other team get in the way of that,” said UMBC guard Jay Greene.

Saturday’s championship game was truly a showcase of the Retrievers’ all-around team game, as the most dangerous offense the conference has had since the Sorrentine-Coppenrath days at Vermont was firing on all cylinders. The Retrievers only play seven, but they are the best seven in the conference, and all of them got into the act. It wasn’t simply the number of points that UMBC was putting up that was so jaw-dropping, as the complete diversity and depth of their scorers, something the conference hasn’t seen in some time. This wasn’t Taylor Coppenrath being fed the ball over and over in the low blocks, or Jose Juan Barea taking the ball coast to coast for an entire game. This was seven different players all on the same page, all unconscious from the floor. This was hooks and up-and-unders from the low post, leaners and fade-aways from outside the paint, and a bombardment from behind the arc.

The Hartford Hawks came into the game riding high, and with a quiet confidence about them that was the perfect mindset for an offense. They also could flat-out put the ball in the basket, something that wasn’t lost on Monroe. “They have some shooters,” Monroe said. “They have some guys who are very offensive-minded. You don’t average 70-plus points a game just by passing the ball around. Those guys are very dangerous, as you could see.”

Hartford looked to be firing out of the gates in the opening minute, as freshman Anthony Minor corralled the ball off of the opening tap and hit Jaret Von Rosenberg in mid stride for a nifty lay-up.

After UMBC’s Barbosa nailed a three, Minor responded with a two-handed dunk in traffic, bringing a loud response from the Hartford faithful. Minor’s dunk was just the kind of play early on that a team can feed off of and use to get into a groove, but after weathering the brief Hartford flurry, it was UMBC whom would make it rain.

Justin Fry was crucial in the opening minutes for the Retrievers, ripping down several key rebounds, before opening the Retrievers’ onslaught with a jumper off of a beautiful up-fake and dribble drive. “Justin is incredibly unselfish, and very skilled,” said Monroe, adding “I can put Justin in the game and take him out for Cavell, and he’s always ready, he’s not coming out with an attitude of ‘why are you taking me out of the game?’”

After Fry’s jumper the Retrievers simply went bananas from all over the floor. If you blinked, you would have missed it, as UMBC hit 12 of their first 15 shots and a close game was blown open in the opening minutes behind a tornado of Black and Gold. Darryl Proctor came up with a steal, Matt Spadafora nailed a three, Jay Greene hit a three from somewhere near UMBC’s dining hall, Proctor hit a fadeaway, Proctor hit a deeper fadeaway, Fry picked Joe Zeglinski’s pocket and Proctor hit a hook in the paint, Greene hit a three from the Baltimore beltway, Barbosa hit a twisting lay-up in the lane and then stole the inbounds pass, Cavell Johnson nailed a jump-hook, Barbosa hit two free throws, and Brian Hodges swished a three. It was a 25-2 run for the Retrievers over an eight-minute span.

“I’d like to think I had something to do with that,” joked Monroe, the conference’s Coach of the Year, “but I can’t lie to you, we have some guys that can score. Not only did we make shots, but I liked the execution of moving the basketball around.”

“We lost to an outstanding team today, a group of men with experience who were ready to take the next step,” Hartford coach Dan Leibovitz said.

Warren McClendon briefly interrupted the Retrievers’ scoring with a huge two-handed slam, but the Retrievers never skipped a beat, and went into the locker room with a 41-23 lead and points from all seven of the players in their regular rotation.

For the Retrievers, coming out firing right out of the gate was huge, as UMBC had struggled lately with slow starts, often having to claw their way back from big deficits to start the game. “I think we were able to impose our will, and that’s something that we had been talking about for a few days” said Monroe.

With 9:44 left in the game McLendon brought the Hartford cheering section back to life with what was easily the conference’s dunk of the year. The Hawks 6’6″, 260-pound center ran at full tilt on a fast break, effortlessly handled a Zeglinski bounce pass, and in one fluid motion explode to the hoop while throwing down a tomahawk dunk directly over Cavell Johnson. And one possession later when Michael Turner completed an old fashion three point play, bringing Hartford to within 10, 61-51 with nine minutes left it appeared to once again be a ball game.

For UMBC to open the game back up was particularly encouraging, as despite their offensive firepower, the Retrievers have made many games a little too close for comfort this year, and a dunk in the fashion that McLendon made his could have proven to be momentum changing, but the Retrievers buckled down and stepped up their defense.

“We definitely held our composure, and made some plays down the stretch and got some stops and that’s why we won the game” said Greene.

Indeed, lost in all of the Retrievers’ scoring, was the terrific job they did on the defensive end against a Hartford team scoring over 70 points per game, and playing its best basketball down the stretch. “I thought our defense today and our rebounding was the big difference today it ignited our offense,” said Monroe.

With three and a half minutes left Spadafora added the icing on the cake, leaping high above the rim to corral a Barbosa air ball and flushing it through the hoop to put the Retrievers up 78-55, officially ending any chance of a Hartford comeback. Said Monroe: “Matt Spadafora has come light years away from where he first started, he’s playing terrific basketball for us.”

No where UMBC’s defensive presence more evident than in the low blocks on McLendon, as Hartford’s center was fresh off of two straight double-doubles in the conference tournament, and had not only proven to be a difference-maker, but was looking like the best low post player in the conference as of late. After struggling to fit into the team’s system for much of the season, McLendon played a huge role in Hartford’s run to the championship game, and had seemed to bring his best games against the Retrievers, averaging 20 points and eight rebounds in his previous two meetings with UMBC. But Proctor did a phenomenal job making McClendon fight for position every time down the court, and other than his two dunks, McLendon went without a field goal for the entire game.

“I figured that he couldn’t dominate all three games against us,” joked Proctor, before adding, “before he gets in his position my goal was to just get in front of him and make him work for everything he got.” It was yet another tremendous defensive effort from Proctor, who in UMBC’s semi-final win over Vermont held conference Player of the Year Marqus Blakely to nine points, less than half of his season average.

Proctor was equally important on the offensive end all season long, and versus Hartford he proved unstoppable, pouring in a game-high 23 points on an unconscious 10-14 shooting. Standing somewhere around 6’2″ yet somehow finding a way to dominate in the low post all season long, Proctor’s game runs on all heart, and his three-game conference tournament averages of 19 points and 7.3 rebounds landed him a spot on the All-Tournament team.

When it comes to heart, however, no one’s is bigger than the conference’s smallest player, Greene, whom needs to stand on a few phone books to come close to his listed height of 5’8″. Greene’s court vision and passing have been unconscious all-season long, as he is one of only two players in the nation to be in both the top ten for assists and assist-to-turnover ratio. Against the Hawks, as he has done all season long, Greene put on a clinic, dishing out eight assists to one turnover, bringing his tournament totals to an astounding 25 to three total.

It would be easy for many people on paper to dismiss Greene’s totals as simply the bi-product of having so many scorers around him, but in actuality he makes the scorers, as UMBC’s offense runs on Greene driving the lane, drawing defenders, and then hitting open men. It was something that Hartford prepared for all season long and yet, like the rest of the league, was unable to stop. Greene truly put on a passing clinic, making no look and behind the back passes with ease. Greene also displayed how deadly an outside shooter he is, and earned the Tournament Most Valuable Player award.

“He’s just a great point guard, he knows where every one of us likes the ball, and he gets it too us in positions where we can score,” said Brian Hodges.

“He is one tough hombre. If I’m going to go to war and be in the foxhole, I’m going to have Jay Greene with me,” said Monroe. “I think there are a lot of people seeing it not only here at UMBC’s RAC Arena, but people around the world had a chance to see one of the best point guards around. He finds a way to make his team better, he finds a way to make players on his team better.”

For UMBC the day was one of pure, unbridled joy, and signified the complete transformation of a program that two years ago made news waves for all the wrong reasons, as Monroe banned his team from using the locker room because of an attitude and work ethic that he felt could prove cancerous. However, as embarrassing as the events may have been at the time, it’s where Greene feels the program’s transformation can be traced back to, saying, “That was some motivation for us. Any time you get kicked out of the locker room, maybe you don’t know what you’re supposed to be thinking, but I think that was a turning point for this program, where we realized that we weren’t doing things the right way.”

That transformation was fully complete Saturday, as the ever-animated Randy Monroe made it through the entire game with his tie on, something unheard of. “It’s a good sign for us, we don’t really worry about it too much, but it is a nice tie so I’m sure he didn’t want to get it dirty,” joked Greene after the game.

The unbridled joy displayed on the hardwood and cutting the nets down in celebration was shared by the entire Retrievers family, but it had an extra-special meaning to senior Brian Hodges. Hodges is a terrific player and an even more amazing person whom completed his degree in three years and is now working on a masters, and endured the leanest of years during his underclass days at the RAC. But his storybook year wasn’t without a rocky patch, as he missed four games with a badly sprained ankle, and after leading the team in scoring for much of the season, had looked like a shell of himself since the injury.

Hodges rebounded to play by far his best basketball since the injury Saturday, scoring 13 points on 5-10 shooting, including 3 big three-pointers.

“My first year, nobody was in the stands, to see the accumulation over the years is just a great feeling,” said Hodges, who wore the net that the team cut down around his neck during the press conference. “It’s a great feeling, four years of hard work have paid off.”

Added Monroe, “One of the things that I wanted to do personally was just make sure that Brian Hodges had one of these things (nets) around his neck before he left here, and Brian you got it and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you, you deserve it.”

The win was equally meaningful for Monroe, whom has spent 14 years as a part of the Retrievers basketball program, the first ten as an assistant coach. Despite winning the conference’s coach of the year award, Monroe’s coaching abilities have been too easily dismissed by too many people, whom have credited UMBC’s winning simply to the talent he has on the floor. But it must be remembered that Monroe compiled the talent, as he recruited the likes of Greene, Hodges, Fry, and Spadafora, and mixed in transfers Johnson, Proctor, and Barbosa.

And even more incredibly, he got the players buying in to his system completely, as there has never been even so much as a glitch when it comes to team chemistry. Seven legitimate scorers have never feuded over touches or playing time, with Hodges, Johnson, Spadafora, and Fry switching between starting and coming off of the bench at various times this season without uttering so much as a peep.

“Everybody has an ego when their playing this game,” said Monroe. “It says a lot about these guys willing to give it up for each other, and that’s why we’re 24-8 and that’s why we’re America East champions. No one allowed selfishness to creep in. And even if they allowed selfishness to creep in, they did a great job of disguising it. Because it’s one of the things that we talk about as a basketball team – if were going to be the team that we can be this year selfishness was a thing that we had to eliminate, we consider selfishness as a distraction, and both Brian and Cavell have done a terrific job of just coming in where we need them.”

“I don’t think any other team in the nation can say that they have two all-conference players coming off of the bench” added Hodges.

Monroe also showed his X’s and O’s ability by drawing up game plans to neutralize the two of the best low-post players in the conference, and out-coached Hartford prodigy Leibovitz Saturday.

UMBC earned its time in the spotlight, and there was no way that Monroe was going to let anyone take it away from them, not even himself. Despite his coaching accolades, Monroe didn’t want it to be about anyone except his players.

“For me, the greatest moment as a coach is just watching the guys just sit back and enjoy cutting down that net, embracing one another, embracing their families, embracing friends, watching former players come down here from when I was an assistant coach fourteen years ago, there were a slew of former players here, that is what coaching is all about,” he reflected.

Watching the players’ celebration unfold, and watching a happiness and excitement that was so pure envelope the entire UMBC community Saturday was touching, as the Retrievers would let nothing interfere with there celebration, “One thing we can do is enjoy this precious moment,” said Monroe.

But don’t think that the Retrievers are going to simply be happy with making an NCAA appearance, as ecstatic as they may be about it. This is a team that has fought all season long, and they plan to make a strong stand as a heavy underdog in March Madness.

“We’re not satisfied, this is definitely a great thing for this university, and it’s a great feeling for us, but we know that we can compete with other teams around the country,” said Greene. Added Proctor: “We’re UMBC, but we wouldn’t mind making a George Mason impression from a few years ago.”

For Monroe, the tournament is all about keeping an even keel – don’t simply be happy to have made it, but also don’t get so wound up that you don’t enjoy the amazing accomplishment. As he described it, “Let’s go for a ride, let’s go for a nice ride, that’s how we look at this thing.” What a ride it has been.

Last Call For America East Seniors

For America East Seniors, there was no tomorrow

by Sam Perkins

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – When the America East conference tournament tipped off this past Friday night, it was much like that of any other one-bid conference in the country: under-hyped, under-publicized, and under attended. Mid-majors (and perhaps more accurately “low-majors”) just don’t attract the fan base of power conferences. They don’t have the allure of producing National Champions or a plethora of future NBA players. However, in their own unique way, the America East conference is as fun and compelling as any conference in the country, as you would be hard-pressed to find a collective group of players who play with more heart, more determination, and more pure passion than those who took the floor this past weekend in Binghamton.

There are no delusions of grandeur amongst America East basketball players. Future NBA players are rarer than once in a blue moon: only four current NBA players have spent any time in the America East conference, and only one, Jose Juan Barea, played in the conference within the past five years. Most will be wearing shirts and ties once their college careers are done, and the closest they will get to prime time is as a spectator in the stands, or by catching the highlights on the nightly news. A rare few will be able to make some decent cash playing professionally in Europe, but with that lifestyle comes the isolation of being alone in a foreign land, and overseas basketball is a job without the camaraderie and bonds that come with the college game. The here and now of college basketball is as good as it gets, and those who took the floor in Binghamton played with a passion that conveyed this.

Nowhere was the passion and desire more evident than in the conference’s seniors, for all of whom a loss would mean the end of their college career. That’s why Vermont’s Timmy McCrory took the court for six minutes and somehow managed to swat one final shot into the seats despite a badly separated shoulder. It’s why Jon Iati, coming off of serious lower back surgery, flung himself into the seats after a loose ball that he had no chance at corralling. And it’s why Mike Christensen took multiple elbows from Warren McClendon, whom outweighed him by roughly sixty pounds.

One loss would end their dreams: the chance to reach the “big dance,” which drives every player in the conference, and the chance to simply be able to lace of their sneakers and take the floor for one more day. But what truly makes these players, and this conference, so special is the kind of individuals playing for their final time in Binghamton, and the stories that each of their distinctive careers tell not only about their love of the game, but of what kind of men they are.

The one common bond between them, however, is how much their college basketball experience has meant to them, and how much it hurt to watch it vanish in upstate New York. “Our time here was a struggle, we were just trying to win, to win games, but I wouldn’t have rather been through it with anybody else,” reflected Stony Brook senior Ricky Lucas following his team’s 76-60 loss to UMBC.

“You knew that this could be your last game, so you just had to give it everything that you got,” said Albany senior Brian Lillis after playing 45 minutes in the Great Danes’ overtime loss to Boston University, before adding, “It was my last game, I was full of energy, I didn’t want to come out. Coach asked me a couple times if I wanted to come out. I wanted to make sure I went down with a fight.”

Few players have had more of an impact on their programs when it comes to leadership than Vermont senior Kyle Cieplicki, the only three year team-captain in Vermont basketball history, whom has set the standard for Catamounts during his time in the green and gold. But even after holding back tears as the final seconds of his career ticked away, it was never lost on Cieplicki just how special his experience in Burlington has been.

“The past few weeks, obviously it’s been hard not to think about it, but it’s been great,” said Cieplicki. “I’ve been able to meet a lot of great people and learn from a lot of great people, a lot of coaches, and I’ve played with great guys. It’s really been a great experience and I couldn’t ask for anything more, except another win I guess.”

What was also evident was not only the impact that college basketball has had on these young men, but the lasting impact that they have made on their team, their school, and their head coaches, and just how special the relationship can be between a head coach and his players.

“You don’t really appreciate what you have until it’s gone,” said a choked up Albany head coach Will Brown, in talking about seniors Lillis, Iati, and Brent Wilson. “Those guys have meant a lot to this program.”

“I’m sad for our seniors” said Vermont head coach Mike Lonergan following the Catamounts 73 to 64 loss to UMBC. “They’re classy guys, they’re great guys, and I think they all got a lot out of what they had talent-wise. Timmy McCrory, finally got him playing the best basketball of his career, putting up a couple double-doubles. And he was a hard guy to motivate – he was a laid back southern guy, but he was playing really well, and that’s why I feel bad for him getting hurt on senior day. Chad, like I said, the intangibles don’t show up – he dives for loose balls, the slowest guy for us but he’s guarding the quickest guy on the other team. And then Kyle is a coach’s dream, you can coach him, you can be hard on him, he understands the game, he gets it.”

“I’m real proud of our three seniors. I have three great guys, Ricky is graduating here in the spring, and has just been tremendous. Manu played in the Olympics for the Angolan national team, and I’ve just been proud to coach these guys, along with Mitchell Beauford, who’s been here for five years. First class kids, and three kids that are all graduating and graduating on time,” said Stony Brook head coach Steve Pikiell about seniors Emanuel Neto, Mitchell Beauford, and Ricky Lucas following his team’s loss to UMBC.

First-year Binghamton head coach Kevin Broadus only had one year with his seniors, and the Bearcats at times enjoyed and at times endured a season of peaks and valleys, but despite little time with a coach whom they were just getting to know and sometimes disagreed with, Broadus’ three seniors left a distinct impression on him. “We had some good senior leadership with Mike, Richie, and Gio. I wish them well in life, and I’m pretty sure they will do well,” Broadus reflected.

Perhaps no one player in the tournament was more compelling than Stony Brook’s Emanuel Neto, a big man from Angola with an even bigger heart, whom has gone through more this year than most could ever imagine. For those who are unfamiliar with Neto’s story, he came to America for the first time four years ago, and after two years at a junior college, transferred to Stony Brook. Neto’s fiancée and daughter live in Texas, and outside of his basketball family he is alone on Long Island, with no family nearby.

Neto’s career at Stony Brook has been solid but unspectacular, while playing for a team that has finished last and second-to-last in his two seasons on the conference. Off the court, Neto’s life was thrown upside down this season as his mother, the driving influence in his life, suffered from life-threatening kidney failure. Neto’s team and school rallied around him, as Stony Brook’s medical department pledged 49 different doctors to aid in his mother’s kidney transplant, and also found a donor in his aunt. However, such aid would violate NCAA regulations governing student athletes. After petitioning the NCAA, a body known largely as a heartless entity in cases such as Neto’s, amazingly the NCAA gave Stony Brook the green light to help. However, it was too late as Neto’s mother passed away shortly there after. Somehow Neto found the inner strength to return to his team, where he has established himself as the emotional leader, and played out his season with his mother in his heart.

Watching Neto and the Seawolves gut out an overtime victory against Maine, and then give everything they had versus top-seeded UMBC was a sight, as the Seawolves never once played like the conference doormat that they have been over the past two seasons. Neto left everything he had on the court, banging against 310-pound Brian Andre for thirty minutes against Maine, and scoring 13 points to go with five rebounds and a block in his final game against UMBC and the best front-court in the conference.

Neto’s emotional salute to the Stony Brook pep band and fans was moving, but his press conference was a downright tear-jerker, as you would have to be lacking a heart to not be brought close to tears by his words regarding his time as a Seawolf, as he had nothing but unabashed thanks for his school, coaches, and teammates.

“This school is great, the athletic department, the people in our school, everybody is great, my teammates, and Coach Pikiell has been a father to me for two years. I’ve been here by myself, no family at all, I have my teammates and coach Pikiell, and my school staff, that’s all I have, but they have been brothers to me,” he began. Neto then added, “It’s been by far one of the toughest years of my life… the help that people have given to me, I live in New York, my girlfriend and my daughter live in Texas, and being away from them, and then knowing that my mother was sick the whole time, and then the school offered to help. You just can’t imagine what Coach Pikiell, and Mr. Fiore, and everybody did to try to help us, to help me and my mother, it was just great. There is nothing I can ever do to show how grateful I am.”

While Neto’s farewell may have been the most gut-wrenching, it certainly was not the only touching moment from the weekend, as it seemed that every senior stepped their game up in the face of the prospect of their career coming to an end. Binghamton’s Mike Gordon will go down as one of the best players in school history, and the ultimate team player. Gordon began the season looking like a first team All-Conference guard, but a terrible back injury left him severely hobbled.

But Gordon, the ultimate gamer, toughed out the season despite being unable to practice, and earned the respect from teammates and opponents alike. Gordon poured in 23 points in Binghamton’s 65-57 quarterfinal loss, the last game of his college career. It would be fitting to say that Gordon earned the respect of his opponents in his final game, except that Gordon had already done that a long time ago. Watching Gordon dive after loose balls, taking shots from long range, and generally refusing to let his team give an inch down to the wire is impossible to put into words, as was the farewell salute he gave to his home crowd. “It’s a sad feeling, I’ve been here for four years now, and the crowd and the community have been behind me, and the program, one hundred percent, through our ups and downs. I just wanted to show my appreciation for them, for the coaches and the other teams, they showed respect and I just gave my respect back,” said Gordon.

Vermont’s Mike Trimboli shared an embrace and several words with Gordon after the game, and listening to Trimboli speak about Gordon echoed the impact that Gordon has had on teammates and opponents alike.

“Me and him are really close, we’re good friends on and off the court, and I just wanted to let him know that he played his heart out, and that I really respect him and his game, and that I hope he can do great things after this,” said the junior guard.

Gordon’s influence was no more evident than on his head coach, Kevin Broadus, whom took the team over prior to the season. The combination of a first-year coach, and a fourth-year senior who spent the first three years of his career playing for someone else could have been disastrous, but in the face of change Gordon was never more of a team player.

“He was a treat to coach,” said Broadus. “He was a coach on the court. He sounded like he believed everything I told him. He put forth one-hundred percent every day, lunch pail, hard-hat on, punched the time clock and gave his all, and if we could get thirteen Mike Gordons, we will win this league.”

Broadus added, “He’s one of the best players I have seen, in his own way, the way he goes about things, the way he goes about his business on and off the court. Those are the kind of student-athletes we want. Thank god, he’s a good kid, a great kid, and I am sure that whatever he does, he is going to be successful because he gives one-hundred percent.”

“Honestly, it hasn’t really hit me yet,” said New Hampshire senior Mike Christensen following a last-second loss to Hartford. “It seems like yesterday, two years ago, I was sitting here after we beat Hartford. It’s tough man, especially losing like that, if there is a way to lose, you want to lose close. We played hard, we made big plays, I love the guys I played with, it’s tough, a tough way to go out.”

Christensen is a player whom has never gotten the credit he deserves, as he played his heart out for four years in a situation that no athlete ever wants to enter. New Hampshire was in a rebuilding phase for all four years of his eligibility. Worse yet, the Wildcats seem poised to turn the corner this off-season from plucky spoilers to legitimate contenders – one year too late for Christensen. Christensen may have worn his heart on his sleeve, and at times let his emotions get the best of him, but he could never be faulted for not giving his all. He couldn’t have given more than he did in his final game as he poured in twenty points while being forced to cover Hartford man-hulk Warren McClendon, twice rejecting McClendon dunk attempts. Christensen’s last time on the court earned him high praise from head coach Bill Herrion, with whom Christensen’s relationship was at times rocky.

“A credit to Mike Christensen, he played,” said Herrion. “That’s how a senior is supposed to play. I told him that in the locker room, I said if you’re going to look back on your last game as a college player, that’s a hell of a game to look back on because he really played his tail off tonight.”

But Binghamton didn’t end in heartbreak for all seniors, as two teams remain alive, with their hopes of an NCAA Tournament bid and putting off retirement for one more day on the line. For UMBC seniors Cavell Johnson, Brian Hodges, and Ray Barbosa, an NCAA tournament appearance has been a goal for their entire careers. The thought of being one game away, combined with the reality of a career ending, brought Barbosa to tears in the post game press conference following UMBC’s last-minute victory over Vermont.

Another touching story is that of Hartford senior Rich Baker, who has been the backbone of Hartford’s basketball team for five years. Baker looked to be a game-changing point guard as a freshman five years ago, but has spent much of his career on the bench as a result of a slew of injuries. A hip injury early in this year forced Baker to be little more than a glorified spectator for much of the season, and would have ended the careers of many players in his position. However, Baker has pulled through, and provided invaluable minutes during Hartford’s post-season run to the championship game despite his hip refusing to heal, his motivation being one last chance at achieving a dream, an NCAA Tournament appearance. “It means everything to me,” reflected Baker on the possibility of making the NCAA Tournament.

One thing is for sure, it has been a wild and memorable ride for Emanuel Neto, Mitchell Beauford, Ricky Lucas, Brian Andre, Richard Forbes, Giovanni Olomo, Mike Gordon, Mike Christensen, Shawn Tobey, Jon Iati, Brent Wilson, Brian Lillis, Kyle Cieplicki, Timmy McCrory, and Chad Powlovich. But all good things must come to an end, and this past weekend in Binghamton, for this amazing group of seniors it did. Ray Barbosa, Cavell Johnson, Brian Hodges, Rich Baker, and Brian Glowiak have delayed the inevitable another day, but sooner or later it will end, and all of these amazing seniors, who don’t play for a future paycheck, endorsement deals, or face time on TNT, are going to have to deal with a huge void in their lives, as Mike Christensen put it best: “This is hard, man, where do you go from here?”

Hartford Handles Everything

Flying High: Young Hartford Hawks on the Verge of History

by Sam Perkins

It was fitting, or at least in keeping with the way the Hartford Hawks season has gone. Scheduled to practice at Loyola College Thursday night in preparation for their Saturday conference championship match-up against top seed UMBC, the Hawks were already running late, after their team bus traveled at a crawl down Baltimore’s narrow streets. Things were further complicated when they had difficulty finding Loyala’s athletic complex, and continued to snowball as head coach Dan Leibovitz and the Hawks could not find an entrance to the basketball arena. When all was said and done, Leibovitz had roughly half the time he had originally allotted to practice when his team took the floor.

But, just like the Hawks have been doing all season, Hartford rolled with it, as Leibovitz ran his squad through an incredibly crisp and fast paced lightning round of preparation.

“We just fit three hours worth of practice into an hour,” remarked Leibovitz.

And if it hasn’t already become apparent, this Hawks team can handle anything that fate, or the America East, can throw at them, and that the many trials and tribulations that they have faced during the season have only made them stronger.

The Hawks were beaten up during the conference’s toughest non-conference schedule, hobbled through injuries, dealt with more than their share of growing pains that come with a young team learning how to play together, and were torched from behind the arc. The Hawks never packed it in, never gave in to self doubt, even when the season threw one gut check after the other at them, none more severe than the 97-66 thrashing the Hawks were handed by the Boston University Terriers, yet Leibovitz’s young squad never let it get to them, and now stands forty minutes away from the first NCAA tournament appearance in school history.

“This is one of the calmest teams I have ever been involved with. These guys are all focused, but they are as far from intimidated as possible,” remarked Leibovitz.

Truly, if you watched the Hawks going about their business off of the court as the hours ticked down to Saturday’s tip off, you would never know the Hawks were on the verge of the biggest game of their collective careers. Michael Turner and Warren McClendon joked over magazines while waiting for their flight out of Hartford. The entire team collectively razzed freshman Anthony Minor when he found a seat on the plane next to two young women. David Bookman pointed out the filming location of Omar’s demise on the show The Wire. The players, coaches, and Hartford faculty seemed completely at ease during a Thursday night dinner at Baltimore landmark Sabatino’s (associate head coach John Gallagher deserves a big time assist for that), and the players even led a very off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” to walk-on Clint Kuban, before the whole Hartford ensemble shared some birthday cake.

Hartford was hobbled early by a knee injury to guard Jared Von Rosenburg and a hip injury to Rich Baker, both projected starting guards. The Hawks were forced to rely heavily on four freshmen, while also trying to incorporate talented-transfer Warren McClendon into their system. The injured an inexperienced Hawks were battered around during a non-conference schedule that featured Louisville, BYU, Villanova, and Virginia.

However, as the saying goes, “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,” and the Hawks had stretches of brilliance following their tough non-conference slate. Hartford was greatly aided by the return of Von Rosenburg, the continued progression of star guard and playmaker Joe Zeglinski, and the emergence of Morgan Sabia, who as a rookie established himself as the best shooting in the conference, shooting right around 45 percent from behind the arc. The Hawks got terrific moments from three other fab-freshmen in low post bruiser Kevin Estes, speed-of-light guard Andres Torres, and high-flier Minor.

The Hawks also went through bouts of inconsistency, due in part to the lack of a consistent low post game, due in large part to the sporadic play, and playing time, of McClendon. McClendon’s combination of strength, athleticism and skill made him one of the most talented low post scorers in the conference. However, McClendon struggled greatly to stay out of foul trouble early, and then to simply set foot on the court, as he didn’t seem able to play within the Hawks system. This, combined with the Hawks inability to defend behind the arc, made every game a challenge, as no wins seemed to come easy.

But the Hawks put it together down the stretch, winning five in a row before running into yet another obstacle, as they collapsed versus Vermont, and were run off the court by BU in successive games. Losing the way Hartford did with only one game left before the conference tournament could cripple some teams, yet the Hawks rebounded, winning their final game by one over regular season conference champ UMBC. They earned the number 2 seed, and led to the Hawks making the best tournament run in team history.

Hartford won a dog-fight in their first tournament game, as they watched New Hampshire miss three last-second shots from behind the arc and held on for a 68-65 win. New Hampshire never went away, but the Hawks were playing with a determination that few teams posses “These guys are playing for a dream right now,” said Leibovitz.

The Wildcats came in to the game as one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country, and earlier in the year had bombed Hartford into submission from behind the arc. But Hartford finally put it all together, and played their best defense of the season (at least until the following day), holding the Wildcats to thirty-one percent from behind the arc.

“I said before the game the key was going to be the three-point line. If they were going to make ten, eleven, then we were going to have to make them shoot thirty of them, and they were eleven for thirty-five,” remarked Leibovitz.

Joe Zeglinski played like a First-Team all-conference player, an award he won the day before, pouring in 22 points while fighting in the paint for every one of his 11 rebounds, a true testament to his grit and toughness considering his 6′ stature. The other difference was that of McClendon, finally shaking off the foul trouble that had plagued him for much of the season, and having earned his way back onto the court. McClendon played like the best low post player in the conference, scoring 18 points on an assortment of low post moves and one thunderous two-handed slam, while pulling down 10 rebounds, dishing out two assists, and blocking a shot.

“Anytime Warren gets a dunk like that, it helps us out on defense the next possession momentum wise,” reflected Zeglinski.

“The entire year has been about fitting in, some games I didn’t fit in to the offense and defense, and some guys were fitting in better than me. Right now I’m fitting in,” said McClendon.

“Warren came up very big for us tonight as a scoring threat offensively, as a presence defensively, and on the defensive boards, and he was an important part of the game,” stated Leibovitz after the game.

With one game between the Hawks and a first-ever trip to the conference championship game, Hartford found themselves face-to-face with the same Boston University team that embarrassed them ten days earlier. Some teams would have lost the game before even taking the floor, with the memory of such a humiliating defeat taking them out of the game mentally, but Leibovitz relished the chance for redemption, and Hartford followed suit.

“I said to my team before the game that the great thing about athletics is that you find yourself with a second chance a lot of times as an athlete, and we had a second chance against a team that just ran us off the floor about a week ago, and I remember thinking that I want to get that team again, I never want the last time you play someone for it to be like that,” the second-year head coach reflected.

Hartford and Boston University staged a defensive struggle in the first half, with Hartford going into the locker room up 26-21. However, the Terriers responded, cutting the Hawks lead to one. That’s when McClendon took over, scoring nine of his 13 points in the second half, including another vicious two-handed slam that appeared to almost take down the entire backboard. His dunk was especially gratifying considering how much abuse he was taking in the low blocks. “Yeah, that felt pretty good” said McClendon, referring to his dunk. McClendon was a monster on the defensive end, rejecting five shots and altering another half dozen more, while pulling down ten rebounds for his second straight double-double in the tournament.

“The difference was Warren McClendon,” later reflected BU’s Matt Wolff.

McClendon’s game displayed just how far he had come over the year, as he stayed out of foul trouble despite being a force on the defensive end and mixing it up in the post. He also kept his emotions in check, as he appears to have learned how to let go when calls don’t go his way.

“I learned you gotta let some go, you can’t get all of them,” McClendon said. “I got into foul trouble earlier in the year because I wanted all of them, I learned you have to choose and pick which ones that your sure you can get.”

McClendon officially broke the game open with a deep three from NBA range, something Leibovitz banned him from doing after the non-conference season. However, it seems that McClendon’s play has earned him the respect of his coach, as Leibovitz said, “Sometimes you love to coach somebody who listens to everything that you say, and there’s always a time where you actually respect the kid for saying ‘you know what, I don’t care what you say, I know I can make this shot,’ and that’s what he did.”

The Hawks’ offense picked up with McClendon and Joe Zeglinkski leading the way. Zeglinski once again played like one of the best guards in the league, outplaying BU star Corey Lowe by scoring 16 points on 7-12 shooting. While the Hawks’ offense picked up in the second half, their defense remained the same, the best they played all year. The Hawks’ defense resembled that of the great Temple teams that Leibovitz was a top assistant on prior to taking the job, as they held the Terriers terrific shooters to 3-20 shooting from behind the arc.

The Hawks are riding high, and playing the best basketball of their season at the right time heading into what should be an epic battle for the conference title. With all that they have been through, their tremendous team attitude, and the conference’s brightest young coach leading the way, the Hawks are as ready for this game as any they have ever played, and there is no one should be shocked if they are dancing after the final whistle Saturday.

Darryl Proctor A Warrior

This is the Story of a Warrior

by Sam Perkins

On February 20th the visiting University of Maryland-Baltimore County Retrievers were clinging to a one point lead with a half a minute left over the University of Albany Great Danes. The Great Danes were surging, having just completed a four-point play, the latest of a half dozen back-breakers they connected on over the course of the night. In front of a boisterous crowd with all the momentum behind them, Albany was on the verge of pulling out a potentially back-breaking victory over the first place Retrievers.

“I told our guys that if we got one stop, the game was over because I had no doubt we’d score on the last possession down one, and win the game,” Albany head coach Will Brown reflected later.

There was no telling of how a loss would affect UMBC, as their validity as a conference favorite had been questioned all year, and with the conference tournament approaching fast, the carry over from such a loss could be significant for a team that had little experience as a conference top dog. And with less than thirty seconds left it appeared that Albany would get the stop that Brown desperately needed, as Retriever gunner Ray Barbosa missed badly with the shot clock closing in on zero, failing to even connect with the rim.

As Barbosa’s shot plummeted towards the floor, a trio of Danes appeared to have the rebound surrounded. But Darryl Proctor, the hardest working player in the conference, swooped in. Proctor, the league’s smallest post player standing well below his listed 6’4″, fought his way through the sea of bodies despite being hobbled by a banged up knee, and in one swift motion corralled the rebound with one hand, and banked a scoop shot off of the glass and in as the shot clock expired, all while getting fouled.

Proctor’s heroics won the game, and told everything you need to know about the Retrievers’ man without a position: Darryl Proctor will never stop fighting, Darryl Proctor can do great things through sheer will and determination, and you are probably going to have to kill Darryl Proctor to get him off of the basketball court.

The Making of a Baller

UMBC Head Coach Randy Monroe has constantly referred to Proctor simply as a “basketball player, a ‘baller’,” and Proctor’s game can be traced back to his roots growing up in District Heights, Maryland, and has an accent that is Maryland to the bone. Proctor grew up surrounded by athletes, and it was only natural for him to follow suit,

“My whole family is athletes,” reflected Proctor. “My mom ran track and played basketball in high school and ran track in college, my father played basketball in high school, my uncles played college basketball, it sports were all around me.”

Darryl’s step father Levi Franklin is an assistant coach at Robert Morris University. As a youngster Darryl played both basketball and football with a passion, and as a standout outside linebacker and tight end, drew serious interest from college recruiters on the gridiron.

However, Proctor’s heart always belonged to basketball, in no small part because of the bond he shared through the sport with his older brother, Steve, who incidentally played for conference rival Binghamton University. “My brother was the biggest influence on me, in my life,” said Proctor. “Growing up, watching him, I just wanted to do everything he did. From watching him play, I wanted to play basketball with all my heart because of him, and if I ever didn’t want to play he made me play.”

Proctor has maintained a close relationship with his brother throughout college, talks to him on a daily basis, and attributes a lot of his success to his brother’s constructive criticism. “He’s probably my biggest fan other than my mom, he’s always criticizing my game, but he’s the big brother,” he said. “And with me being the little brother I don’t want to hear it, but I know it’s going to help me.”

When Proctor stepped on the court in high school, he was a man without a position, and despite being undersized, with his stocky-strong build and linebacker’s mentality, he was thrown into the low post as an underclassman, something which hindered his status as a recruit, but ultimately paid off down the road. “Darryl’s low post game is so advanced, because he developed it at a young age, and being younger and smaller than his opponents forced him to find ways to adapt and succeed,” explained Monroe. “He had to play inside, and he’s developing post moves, learning how to use his body, and develop his hook shot.”

During Proctor’s senior season his team needed him to move to the point guard position. Despite having found his niche in the low post, Proctor never once complained about having to adapt to a new position and move away from his comfort zone. “My sophomore and junior year, I was a low post player, but my senior year what my team needed was for me to bring the ball up the court. I did whatever my team needed and played all positions,” said Proctor.

While adjusting to a new position may have hurt Proctor’s numbers and recruiting status, Monroe feels that in the long run it greatly helped to develop his unique game, saying, “His senior year he’s playing away from the basket and developing an inside-outside game, and a lot of players can’t do that.”

Despite putting up good numbers, Proctor was very lightly recruited, as scout after scout found fault with his game. “Coming out of high school people said ‘your too big and too slow to be a guard, your undersized to be a forward, you can’t jump, you can’t shoot, you should have gone D-III or D-II,’” reflected Proctor.

But Proctor had his mind set on playing Division I basketball, and landed at Coppin State, a small Division I program in the Middle Eastern Athletic Conference, and a school that didn’t care about his lack of a true position, or perceived failings, but rather fell in love with his work ethic and drive. In his first two years at Coppin State, Proctor used all the doubts about his size and game to motivate him, and used and inside outside attack to put up 801 points and pull down 435 rebounds during his two years there (averages of 13.6 and 7.4 a game). Proctor earned the conference Rookie of the Year award in 2004-2005 and had ten double doubles over two seasons.

Moving On and Moving Up

After two years at Coppin State, things fell through for Proctor, and he felt that it was no longer the right place for him. Two people played a large role in Proctor landing at nearby UMBC. One was childhood friend Brian Hodges, who was (and is) starring for the Retrievers, and the other was Don Anderson, the assistant coach who recruited Proctor to Coppin State and had since moved on to coach at UMBC. (Anderson now coaches, ironically, for conference rival Binghamton.)

Despite putting up big numbers at Coppin, many coaches still felt that Proctor’s lack of height would negate his low post game, and Proctor wouldn’t be staring for the Retrievers without the blessing of their Head Coach. But after seeing Proctor in high school and at Coppin, Monroe didn’t have any doubts about Proctor’s lack of a true position; rather he liked it.

“He’s a player without a position and I like players like that,” said Monroe. “He certainly has the ability to play inside, come away from the basket, and he is just what I call a relentless warrior. He’s always in the middle of things, making some big shots, whether he’s hitting a fifteen-foot jumper of posting guys up, he’s playing on high octane. And his teammates feed off of his energy and enthusiasm.”

Above all else, Proctor simply loves to play the game of basketball, and coming to a new school and being forced to watch a year from the sidelines (due to NCAA transfer rules) was hard for Proctor, because he was itching to get out on the court. But he took it in stride, and instead of climbing the walls used it as a way to advance his game. “I was thinking that it was a step through my life, and that I had to sit out the year to better myself for the following year,” he recalled.

Furthermore, the Retrievers forged the bonds that have made them the tightest-knit team in the conference this year during the previous season, when Proctor was joined by fellow Retriever stars (and transfers) Cavell Johnson and Ray Barbosa, as all three were forced to watch from the sidelines. “It definitely wasn’t a hard adjustment, me and Brian Hodges grew up together and played together, and from practicing and doing open practices with Ray and Cavell and JG (point guard Jason Greene) and everybody, we all just got along and the transition was easy,” said Proctor.

The Retrievers, despite being a mixed bag of returning players and transfers, have all known each other in one way or another for much longer than their time at UMBC, making the transition that much easier. “When we were in high school, we all played against each other in some way,” recalls Proctor. “Me and Brian played against each other, me and Cavell are from the same area and I grew up with his cousins. And JG and Ray grew up playing against each other all the time and they played against Matt Spadafora and grew up with him.”

The other added bonus of Proctor’s transfer was getting to watch his brother Steve play out his senior year for rival Binghamton, something the Proctors cherished, saying, “Just getting to see him play was amazing and exciting.”

Watching his brother’s career end also was not lost on Proctor, and served to further motivate him in the hopes of making it to an NCAA tournament, something his brother was never able to accomplish. “Watching it end for him, seeing how much he hurt, that hurt me, too,” reflected Proctor.

A Leader is Born

When Proctor arrived, the Retrievers were desperately in need of a leader, as senior Brian Hodges is a terrific player and teammate, but he is more of a quiet and unassuming workhorse. Proctor was the emotional and spiritual leader of his Coppin State squads, but he didn’t want to ruffle any feathers by appointing himself as the spokesman of the team, and furthermore that isn’t Proctor’s style. However, with Proctor, actions have always spoken louder than words, and his work ethic elevated him to a leadership role.

“The team put me in that role,” said Proctor. “I was a little shaky coming over here, because I was a captain for my two years at Coppin, but I didn’t want to come over here and tell everyone what to do. I was a new guy and it wasn’t my place, and I’m not that type of a leader anyways, and I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. I’m not going to tell you what to do anyways, if I see something wrong, or that I can help you with, I’ll make some suggestions, but I’m not going to tell anyone what to do or get on anyone. I’ll lead by example but not by being loud or commanding.”

For Monroe, it has been equal parts Proctor’s work ethic and nature that have made him a player that everyone looks up to and follows, as well as his refusal to put himself above anyone else on the team. “His heart makes you want to do the same things, in terms of getting out and leaving it all on the court, and it makes your team so much better, because everybody is following his lead.”

Monroe added, “He’s got the personality that he can get along with the devil. He get’s along with everybody, he can fit in with the most difficult of personalities to the most pleasant of personalities. He’s part of a group that very unselfish.”

A Warrior on the Floor

For all of his leadership abilities and perseverance, this article wouldn’t be getting written if he wasn’t producing on the court, as Proctor has been the Retrievers’ most consistent, and possibly most valuable, player. Proctor is third on the team in scoring, averaging 14.7 points per game, and leading the team in rebounds (and is second in the conference) at 8.6 a game, averaging almost a full rebound more in conference games. Furthermore, Proctor has been the team’s most consistent player, having scored in double figures in 27 of his 29 games played, and has posted twelve double-doubles.

His versatility from not fitting in to a true position has been invaluable to the Retrievers, as despite only playing seven players, Proctor’s ability to fill different roles allows Monroe to play an incredible assortment of lineups, from a small one in which Proctor plays the center position, to a big one with Proctor at the small forward or even 2-guard position.

Proctor has seemed to rip down rebounds in traffic and put the ball through the hoop through sheer tenacity, a testament to his determination and mind set. “I figure I’m not the tallest and I might not be the most talented, but if I can work harder than that person that day, then I’ll be the better player that day, and that’s how I have to come out mentally every day, no exceptions, no days off,” said Proctor.

His offensive repertoire is as impressive as his tenacity, as he easily boasts the best low post moves in the conference, and his fade-away jumper is automatic and seemingly impossible to defend. One opponent remarked, “When he’s on, the only thing you can do about that fade-away is close your eyes and pray that he’s going to miss, because you’re not going to block it.”

Proctor has also established himself as the best fundamental rebounder in the conference, as despite giving away height and leaping ability to almost every post player in the conference, he continues to dominate the boards at an incredible rate, thanks to tremendous fundamentals. “In Darryl’s situation, when the ball is shot he’s like a Dennis Rodman and he’s already jockeying for position, and he’s either coming down with it or going up with it while you’re still trying to get into position,” explained Monroe.

But beyond Proctor’s fundamentals on the low blocks is something that you simply can’t teach: incredible rebounding instincts, instincts which his coach has never send before. “His rebounding abilities are something that’s instinctive,” said Monroe. “Sometimes people get the misconception that you have to be the biggest and tallest guy on the floor to rebound. Rebounding is about having a nose for the basketball and it’s all about positioning, and he does a very good job for his size of getting that inside positioning before the ball is shot.”

Proctor also may have the conference’s best, and strongest, hands, and he has been able to make himself taller by actually ignoring the fundamentals, as he has an uncanny ability to rip down rebounds with one outstretched arm. That both amazes, and sometimes aggravates, his coach, as Monroe described. “Sometimes I do have to remind him to grab the ball with two hands, but he can go up there and get it with one hand, and he’s strong with it, you’re not going to take the ball away from him. It’s not something that we taught, his instincts are unbelievable. And he likes to go inside and mix it up and be physical.”

But perhaps the most impressive aspect about Proctor’s game is his sheer physical toughness, as he has never failed to finish a game this season, despite taking a pounding in the paint. It is a rarity for a game to end without Proctor being covered in bruises and hobbling a bit, but the thought of leaving a game will never cross his mind. When asked what it would take to keep him off of the court, Proctor responded, “Until the trainer tells me that I can’t go back out, I’m staying in the game, and if they tell me that I don’t think I’m going to listen. If I can walk, I’ll be on the court, as long as I can breathe I’m going back out on the court.”

Added his coach: “He fights through things. He might be a little sore, but he just fights through it, and that’s having a mindset of who you are and what you’re all about, and I think that’s the difference between being successful and the people who don’t succeed.”

What Lies Ahead

Proctor and the rest of the Retrievers find themselves in uncharted territory for their school. UMBC had never, until this season, won a Division I conference championship, nor has it ever participated in a post season tournament at the Division I level. By winning the America East regular season Title, UMBC ensured itself at least a birth in the NIT, but for Proctor anything short of an NCAA tournament will be a disappointment. “The NCAA tournament is the goal, it’s our goal that we’ve had all year and anything short of it is going to be hard to take,” said Proctor.

Many insiders around the conference have wondered aloud whether the Retrievers are tiring down the stretch with such a short bench and so many minutes in a game, but Proctor feels the opposite. He finds playing almost and entire game every night invigorating.

“People dream about playing this much in college, and we’re getting the opportunity to play this much so we have to take advantage of it,” he reflected. “This year has been great, I’m playing the best basketball that I’ve ever played, and I think everyone on the team is playing the best basketball that each of them has ever played in their lives.”

With his distinct accent and outgoing and engaging personality, if David Simon ever were to bring back a reincarnate of his Baltimore-based drama The Wire, a show that Proctor watches every Sunday, there is little doubt that Proctor could land a recurring role. (Simon has made a point to cast locals for many parts.) Proctor, who is majoring in Sociology, has ambitions of opening up his own night club, but his immediate goal, and his true dream, is to play basketball professionally somewhere. And with his drive and determination, there is no reason to doubt him anymore, as chances are he’s only going to prove you wrong. Even his coach learned this the hard way, when Proctor threw down a dunk in an earlier game this year.

“He got a dunk this year, one dunk,” joked Monroe, before adding with a hearty laugh, “When he dunks in practice, I always kid him, ‘whose been lowering the rims?’ I’m convinced in that game someone lowered that rim to nine feet, I’m trying to find some concrete proof.”

One thing is for sure, when the lights go up this weekend in Binghamton, no matter what happens, Darryl Proctor is going to leave everything he has on the basketball court, and he will have no one but himself to credit.

“Everything he’s accomplished, he’s done himself,” said Monroe. “He didn’t have any hype, no one has handed everything, but he’s gone out there and accomplished everything everyone said he couldn’t, and that is a testament to the tremendous heart in his chest, and I think everyone who ever steps foot on the court can learn something from Darryl Proctor.”

That’s a pretty accurate summation.

Hartford Rebounds For Big Win

The Heart of a Champion

by Sam Perkins

HARTFORD, Conn. – It was fitting that Nelly’s new track Heart of a Champion was blaring over the sound system as Warren McClendon threw down what has become a ritual pre-game dunk-a-thon in warm-ups, as no song better represented the Hawks, who stood triumphant over the conference champion UMBC Retrievers after forty minutes of war, hanging on for a 58-57 victory.

This was a true “character” game, a testament to the sheer will to win that second-year head coach Dan Leibovitz has instilled in his team from the day he set foot on campus. Hartford was coming off of the worst loss of their season, a 97-68 drubbing at Boston University on Thursday night. It was all on the line today for the Hawks, as a win would clinch the number two seed heading into the conference tournament, while a loss could drop them as far down as fifth.

Joe Zeglinski led the Hawks in scoring with 13 points, while Michael Turner did everything and then some on the floor, but it was McClendon’s emergence from the team’s doghouse that was the deciding factor, as he scored 11 while grabbing eight rebounds and blocking four shots.

It took some serious steering from the local media during his post game press conference, but Leibovitz called the victory over UMBC the biggest win in his short career as a head coach. When asked, he responded simply, “Yeah, I would say so.” While this would seem to be a brush-off statement for many of the conference’s outspoken coaches, for Leibovitz, who is the epitome of even-keeled and soft-spoken, this was a big statement.

Many teams who suffered the kind of beating that Hartford did in their previous game would simply fold in this situation, and Hartford certainly had the look of a beaten and dejected team as they boarded their bus home from Boston Thursday night. However, the Hawks bounced back after some therapy sessions with their coach and an inspired practice Friday.

“The last game, I can’t really explain it, but I just didn’t feel like we were ever really into it. The reasons really aren’t important, but we just didn’t play a good game and BU played excellent,” said Leibovitz. “We came back Friday, and I met with each player individually to try to see where they were coming from, if there was anything that was worth while, and I think it helped to open up some lines of communication. We had a great practice and put it all out there, and I said today after the game, that we won the game Friday in practice, and I really mean it.”

“We knew it was a big game, for second place, I knew that we were going to be ready to play. There was no way that this team was not going to show up,” added sophomore star Zeglinski.

Heart was never more important than Sunday, as Hartford dug in before a boisterous crowd on senior day and held off not only the league’s most talented team, but a team that has made a name for itself by pulling out tight game after tight game on pure will, guts, and determination. The Hawks’ heart has never been lost on the opposing coach, as after sharing an embrace with Leibovitz, UMBC’s Randy Monroe complimented the young Hawks, saying, “The University of Hartford did a tremendous job, and the young men (for Hartford) just did a tremendous job,” before adding, “they (Hartford) have some nice players who really play hard and they play passionate, they are really passionate about the game of basketball.”

But Hartford would need more than heart to take down the Retrievers, as the Hawks left everything they had on the Retrievers’ home floor earlier in the season, only to see victory evaporate from their hands thanks to a Brian Hodges three at the buzzer.

“First time we played it was a knock-down, drag-out fight till the bitter end, it was a much more high-scoring game 86-85, but it was a battle to the end,” remarked Monroe.

Hartford knew coming in to the game that their chances of winning another shootout with the Retrievers would be slim to none, and Leibovitz’s squad would need to play one heck of a game defensively to give themselves any kind of a chance to win. What they put out was the defensive performance of the season, as the Hawks, who are last in scoring defense, held the league’s best offensive team to a season-low 33 percent from the floor. The Hawks made the biggest impact on defense around the three-point arc, holding UMBC’s incredibly dangerous foursome of Ray Barbosa, Brian Hodges, Jay Greene, and Matt Spadafora to a combined 4-18 from behind the arc and 7-30 from the floor.

No Hawk has been bigger on defense this year than Michael Turner, who is making a strong run at defensive player of the year. Sunday was no different as Turner found himself covering Barbosa, who went off for 31 points in his last game out, for much of the night. Turner was a blur of energy on defense, harassing Barbosa and the rest of the Retriever shooters around the perimeter, while somehow managing to rip down ten defensive rebounds.

“As far as I’m concerned he’s as good a guy as I have ever had on defense, he plays every position, he knows everyone’s job, and he’s going to be a great coach one day when he’s done playing,” marveled Leibovitz after the game.

As good as Turner has been on defense, his biggest contribution may have come in the strategic capacity, as the junior forward, whose teammates and coaches alike refer to as a coach on the court, took it upon himself to switch up the Hawks’ defensive alignment. Despite the Retrievers’ failure to connect from downtown, Greene, who has no peers in the conference with regard to seeing the court and finding the open man, began to run wild in the first half. The Hawks have run a 2-3 zone all season long, and Greene blew threw it like a tornado, driving to the hoop before hitting Proctor and Johnson with some of the prettiest no-look dishes you’ll ever see at the collegiate level.

That’s when Turner flipped the script, so to speak.

“We started off in our three-two, and that has been effective sometimes and not so effective sometimes, and then we switched over to what we call our ball zone,” said Leibovitz. “Mike was actually the one who came over to the sideline and said ‘let’s go ball-zone’ and he’s the only one I listen to when it comes to defense, because he’s the only one whose been playing real good defense.”

The new defense slowed down Greene greatly, as the Retrievers’ point guard racked up eight assists in the first half but only one in after intermission. “When we went to that defense we did a much better job keeping Jay Greene in front of us, in the first part of the game he was using ball screens and getting right to the rim and kicking out to great shooters,” added Leibovitz.

As good as the Hawks’ defense was around the perimeter, in the early going Proctor and Johnson were unstoppable. Proctor bulled his way around the hoop for put-backs and buried what has become an unstoppable fade-away, and Johnson was flying over and around the Hawks while also displaying a nifty jumper of his own. However, things got a whole lot tougher for the Retrievers with 15:23 remaining in the first half when McClendon checked in to the game.

McClendon, who was billed as a first-team All-Conference type of a player, struggled greatly with staying out of foul trouble, and even more greatly with playing within Leibovitz’s system. McClendon tantalized fans with flashes of brilliance, including a 29-point, 10-rebound explosion in the Hawks’ first meeting with UMBC. However, after Hartford returned from Baltimore, McClendon saw his playing time disappear, with his minutes and touches dropping dramatically, including three of the dreaded DNP-CD (did not play, coaches decision) in the Hawks’ last eight games. Nowhere was this more telling that in the Hawks’ last outing, against a Boston University squad with one of the weakest frontcourts in the conference. If ever there was a time to play McClendon, it would appear to have been versus the Terriers. But McClendon never left the bench, even when Leibovitz threw in his walk-ons for extended playing time in the blowout.

But in the team’s biggest game of the season against the league’s best frontcourt, Leibovitz threw McClendon in, and the Hawks’ mountain in the middle responded, scoring nine first-half points on an array of up and under moves. “He played well against us the first time, Warren’s been a thorn in our side. He’s a Hawk, and he’s a Hawk that has skills, he can do some real damage around the basket, and he’s got a nice touch for a big guy, so when he turns and faces the basket, he knows how to finish, he’s played terrific against us,” said Monroe, before dead-panning, “I wish he could play for our team.”

McClendon’s presence on offense forced the Retrievers to adjust their defense and focus on stopping him on the low blocks, which then opened up perimeter shots for Turner, Zeglinski, and Morgan Sabia. “Warren did a great job down low of producing on offense and playing solid defense,” said Zeglinski.

As big as McClendon was offensively, he was even bigger on the defensive end, which has been his biggest on-the-court failing this season. Despite blocking a lot of shots, McClendon has developed a reputation as a defensive liability, as he often ignores the Hawks’ zone scheme and instead concentrates only on going for the big block, thus resulting in countless easy buckets for Hartford’s opponents.

However, on Sunday McClendon was tremendous, as he followed Leibovitz’s game plan to a T, holding his spot while contesting every Retriever shot around the bucket, coming up with four rejections while altering a dozen or so shots. McClendon made Proctor work for every bucket, even somehow managing to do the near impossible by blocking one of Proctor’s fade-away jumpers. While McClendon only scored one bucket in the second half, it came in spectacular fashion, as he threw down a monster two-handed slam in traffic to give Hartford a momentum boost when they needed it most.

McClendon’s contributions can not be overstated. With the Retriever’s front line, and the ease that they scored when McClendon was not on the court, Hartford would not have won without him, plain and simple.

“I thought Warren was a big factor in the game, without question,” said Leibovitz. “Morgan and Anthony are fighting with their lives, but physically they’re just not ready to stop Proctor, especially physically. Warren changed the game. He really is trying to fit into his role and what I’m asking him to do, and he did today, so he was an important part of this game.”

Even with the Hawks playing the perfect game defensively, UMBC still found themselves in position to win the game in the final seconds, largely in part because of Johnson’s outing. Johnson, whom has been coming off of the bench for most of the conference season, simply could not be denied, hitting big bucket after big bucket from all over the court.

“Since he’s been coming off of the bench he’s been one of our top scorers, he’s just really been playing good basketball, and he’s been improving as we continue to move along in the season. I’m really proud of what he did today, he actually carried us out their all day,” said Monroe.

After thirty-eight and a half minutes of all-out play, the final minute and a half took on a life of its own, as with a 1:20 left Barbosa buried a twenty-six foot three, cutting Hartford’s lead to one, 56-55. It appeared that UMBC was once again going to find a way to pull out a last second victory. After a rare McClendon miss, Barbosa again let fly from well beyond NBA range, a questionable shot for most players in the league considering the large amount of time left on the shot clock, but not for Barbosa, who has the green light from anywhere behind the arc.

Barbosa’s shot clanked off the rim and McClendon came down with the rebound and UMBC was forced to foul with thirty-six seconds left. With the Retrievers still two fouls away from being over the limit, Spadafora picked up a foul before Hartford could inbound the ball, and that’s when things went crazy.

Hartford could not get the ball inbounds following Spadafora’s foul and was forced to burn a timeout and draw up an inbounds play. However, the Hawks still could not get the ball in on their second try, and Turner (the inbounder) was called for a five-second violation, giving UMBC the ball back and another chance to win the game.

“That was coach Gal’s fault,” joked Leibovitz, referring to associate head coach John Gallagher, “I can blame him, I have a couple of inbounds plays, and he always says ‘if you want to get it in I got one,’ and it didn’t work. But he’s been great all season so I can’t blame him.”

Barbosa, who has been the Retrievers’ best scorer down the stretch, once again found himself in a position to put the Retrievers in the lead, as he drove baseline with eighteen seconds left. The Hawks collapsed on him, appearing to free up Proctor for a kick-out, however Barbosa tried to make an up and under basket in traffic and missed, giving the ball back to Hartford.

Proctor quickly fouled Zeglinski, and Zeglinski made both of his free throws, putting Hartford up 58-55 with sixteen seconds left. On the other end of the floor Hodges missed a three, appearing to end any hope for UMBC. However, in almost an identical fashion to his game-winning heroics versus Albany, Proctor came out of no where to grab his 13th rebound and found the hoop to cut the Hawks’ lead back to one with two seconds left.

Following Proctor’s bucket, and in an attempt to avoid another five second call, Turner tried to inbound the ball immediately, but he and Jaret Von Rosenberg missed each other, with Turner’s pass sailing behind Von Rosenberg, who fell down. That gave the ball back to UMBC under their own basket with two seconds left on the clock. Barbosa got a look at a three, but his shot fell short, then Johnson grabbed the rebound with 1.3 seconds left. He appeared to be gang-tackled by two defenders, but no whistle was blown, and the Hawks celebrated their highest ever finish in the conference standings at the Division I level.

Well, almost all of the Hawks celebrated, as even in the post game press conference Turner was still visibly shaken, feeling as if he had almost cost his team the game.

“Myself, I wasn’t too enthused, because I almost gave it away, but it’s a W and we’ll take it,” said Turner.

Hartford now finds itself in uncharted waters, as the Hawks have as good a chance as ever to finally make the NCAA tournament. For Turner, the team’s unquestioned leader, the most important thing for the Hawks is not dwelling on the victory, nor getting to far ahead of themselves.

“We know it’s where we want to be right now, in this position, but we have the tournament next week, and that’s our real goal to win the tournament. But we can’t look past anyone, and right now the only game left for us in New Hampshire, and after that then we can talk about the next game.”

No More Doubters For UMBC

UMBC Is For Real

by Sam Perkins

ALBANY, N.Y. – All season long the sentiment has leaked out from around the America East – from Prognosticators, fans, athletic departments. At times it has come in whispers, at times a dull roar, at times in droves. The notion: the UMBC Retrievers, whom have stood atop the conference all season, have not proven themselves.

All season long, Head Coach Randy Monroe has heard that his team was untested, unproven, and overrated. All season long, he has heard that the Retrievers had too short a bench and too little experience. With every quality win the pundits only found more fault with Coach Monroe’s squad.

After the Retrievers gutted out an 81-77 win in the league’s game of the year, an all-out war on the road in Albany, there is nothing left to argue. The America East has a front-runner, the America East has a favorite, and the America East has a team to beat, and that team is the UMBC Retrievers. The Retrievers may only play seven players (six with Brian Hodges injured), but they are the most talented and most complete team in the conference, as well as the gutsiest.

Wednesday night’s game was billed as a possible preview for a title match, and it did not disappoint, as the Great Danes and the Retrievers went all out for 45 minutes, with neither team backing down or giving an inch. After UMBC came within a hair of running Albany out of the gym in the first half, the Danes came roaring back in the second, overcoming a twelve-point deficit with thirteen minutes to go, three times taking the lead back from UMBC. Darryl Proctor limped through the game after being floored by Al Turley, Jay Greene had a nasty bump above his eye after catching an elbow, and Ray Barbosa twice had to be carried off of the floor while wincing in pain, all while Albany seemed to hit every single back breaker and momentum-shifter possible.

When Brian Lillis hit a thirty-foot prayer with less than a second left in regulation, sending the game into overtime and the already raucous crowd into a frenzy, the writing should have been on the wall: UMBC was running out of bodies and had lost the momentum. Any other team in the league folds like a deck of cards after Lillis’ heroics. But no other team in the conference has the combination of talent, toughness, and sheer will to win that UMBC possesses, and behind the heroics of Proctor, Barbosa, Greene, and Cavell Johnson, UMBC left Albany with maybe the biggest win in school history.

Both teams came into the night riding high, with UMBC in first place and on a six-game winning streak, while Albany had climbed back into the mix at the top of the conference, having won four of five including a huge win at Vermont. UMBC’s winning streak has been especially impressive considering they had won their last four games without leading scorer Brian Hodges (16.5 ppg), out due to a right ankle sprain.

Al Turley opened the game doing his best impression of a bowling ball, knocking over Retrievers like alley-pins (what those familiar with the league refer to simply as “pulling a Cori Spencer”). Turley’s lay-up and foul shot gave Albany an early 5-2 lead, but after that it was all UMBC, as Darryl Proctor went to work.

Proctor has entrenched himself as the heart and soul of the Retrievers all season long, and despite standing much shorter than his listed 6’4″, he has established himself as the best power forward in the league not named Marqus Blakely. Proctor used the league’s best fade-away jumper to put the Retrievers out in front, hitting at will from all over the floor, going 6-8 from the field while scoring 12 first-half points. It seemed that the only defense Albany could employ on Proctor was to hope he missed. After Proctor jump-started the offense, the rest of the Retrievers got involved, and the diversity of UMBC’s scoring options was on full display as Barbosa and Matt Spadafora drilled long threes, Justin Fry scored on a nifty move in the post, and Johnson added a pair of big-time dunks.

UMBC has always been able to score, even without Hodges, so what stood out the most was the Retriever’s defense in the opening frame, as they smothered Albany and the Danes found open looks hard to come by. Nowhere was the Retrievers’ defense more evident than in their efforts against Lillis, Albany’s leading scorer. UMBC shadowed Lillis with Spadafora, an athletic and long wing who held Lillis to two first-half points on 1-3 shooting.

The second half began where the first half ended, with Barbosa taking center stage for the Retrievers. He unleashed a three point barrage, pushing the Retrievers’ lead to twelve (the largest of the night) on a three with 14 minutes left.

“Ray Barbosa hit some shots from I think back in his hometown of Allentown tonight,” commented Monroe.

But the Danes were not done, and began to slowly climb back into the game behind outside shooting and the gritty do-it-all play of Lillis. With the crowd volume at a deafening level, a short jumper by Lillis completed the Danes’ comeback, putting Albany on top 44-43 with 9:44 left.

Most teams in UMBC’s position would have packed it in: the momentum had swung entirely behind the Great Danes, and on their home floor with their home crowd behind them, on most nights Albany walks all over their opponent. But the Retrievers dug down deep and slugged it out with Albany, trading baskets back and forth down the stretch.

“I just think these kids don’t want to lose, and I think that their talented, but more that they find ways to win, to get it done,” said Monroe.

Barbosa appeared to have put the game out of reach when he sank two free-throws with three seconds left in the game, giving UMBC a 68-65 lead. But the Danes still had one more miracle up their sleeves. As Brent Wilson prepared to in bound the ball, Lillis streaked down the middle of the court. Somehow Wilson’s Hail-Mary sailed just over the reach of Cavell Johnson and into Lillis’s hands, and Lillis was able to get off a twisting shot from behind the arc just before time expired. Lillis shot found nothing but net, sending the game into overtime.

Lillis’s shot was the kind of back-breaker that you simply can’t recover from, and after UMBC lost the lead after fighting and clawing to hang on, and was faced with the prospect of having to go for five more minutes, it would have been easy for the Retrievers to have been beaten before overtime tipped off.

“When Lillis hit that three point shot, I’m looking at that shot and I’m saying ‘Is this going to go in,’ and boom it goes in and the place goes crazy,” said Monroe, who added, “And I’m saying ‘uh oh,’ And I’m seeing my guys looking (beaten), it kind of takes the wind out of your sails when someone knocks a shot down like that.”

“I think we felt like we’d won the game already with that shot,” reflected Lillis.

UMBC was faced with an even more daunting task, as Spadafora fouled out at the end of regulation, leaving the Retrievers with only five players who figure significantly into their rotation. But the Retrievers again responded, as Proctor ripped down a rebound in traffic and went coast-to-coast nailing a huge jumper to put the Retrievers on top. His cross-court drive was incredibly impressive considering he was nursing a knee injury suffered in the aforementioned run-in with Turley and was visibly hobbled running the floor.

“Darryl’s a warrior, he’s just so relentless,” said Monroe. “If he’s not scoring a basket for us he’s coming up with a key rebound, he’s playing hard, he’s part of every floor that we play on, you turn around and he’s on the floor coming up with a loose ball, making big plays.”

Barbosa followed suit, snatching a defensive rebound and driving the length of the floor for a lay-up, and UMBC had Albany on the ropes. But near-disaster struck, as Barbosa went down in pain following his lay-up, and was forced to leave the floor.

If UMBC’s lack of depth was ever going to bite them it was now, as without Hodges, Spadafora, and now Barbosa, Monroe was forced to send in freshman Frank McKnight, whom has played sparingly throughout the season.

Jon Iati then nailed a three for Albany to cut the lead to one, and the momentum was once again building behind the Danes. But as has been the case all year, the Retrievers dug in and gutted it out. “I just think these kids don’t want to lose, and I think that they’re talented, but more than that, they find ways to win, to get it done” said Monroe.

And the Retrievers responded, as Greene didn’t hesitate to take a three from well beyond NBA range on the next trip down the court, burying it and eliciting what can only be described as a “colorful” reaction from his head coach. “Jay Greene comes down and makes a big three from I think Will Brown’s bench,” joked Monroe later.

Coming up big has become a recurring theme all season long for Greene, the league’s smallest player, and he was never bigger than in the ensuing series of events, as Lillis, who has almost a foot in height and roughly seventy pounds in weight on Greene, posted up the Retriever point guard and began to back him down. Greene, whom appeared to have no chance to defend Lillis, somehow managed to strip the ball lose in the paint, all while taking a nasty elbow to the face.

On the opposite end of the floor Greene saw an opening and drove to the basket, only to have the Danes collapse on him. Greene’s desperation floater rimmed out, but somehow Greene came up with his own rebound in traffic, and hit McKnight with an outlet pass. McKnight, in the most pressure filled situation of his young career, hit one of two free-throws, putting UMBC up five, 76-71, but once again Albany connected on another hay-maker, as Iati nailed a deep three while getting tackled by McKnight.

Iati’s ensuing free throw, completing a four-point play cut the game to one, and had the Danes looking to land a knockout blow. But Proctor again came up huge, effectively putting the game away. With the shot clock running down, Barbosa (who had re-entered the game visibly hobbled) fired up a three in traffic that missed the cylinder. However, Proctor fought threw a double team, grabbed the rebound with two seconds left on the shot clock, and banked in an off-balance lay-up with the clock expiring, all while being fouled.

Proctor’s put back with twenty-two seconds left was the play of the game, and finally put it out of reach, as the Retrievers hit three of four free-throws down the stretch and walked away with the win.

“The biggest possession of the game was the offensive rebound by Proctor at the end there,” said Albany head coach Will Brown. “I told our guys that if we got one stop, the game was over because I had no doubt we’d score on the last possession down one. Proctor just made a great play.”

“That was a big play,” echoed Monroe, “the one (rebound and put back) Darryl got couldn’t have been more timely, that was a tremendous play for us.”

For UMBC to have left with a victory, after overcoming big shot after big shot, and after seeing their roster as depleted as it is going to get, leaves little doubt that the Retrievers have what it takes to win in any scenario as their talent one through five can not be matched in the conference. With Hodges expected to return to action any day now, UMBC is that much more dangerous. But as talented as the Retrievers are, it’s their heart that truly separates them from the rest of the conference.

“I just want to say how proud I am of our guys and how we gutted it out,” said Monroe. “I can’t tell you how proud of my guys I am to have seen them regroup and really get after it in that last five minutes (overtime) and find a way to win.”

The other story of the night was the perseverance of Cavell Johnson, whom felt the wrath of the Albany faithful early and often, as the majority of the 3,380 fans in attendance waived “Stop DWI” signs and rained profanity on UMBC’s forward. The signs, in reference to a DWI conviction two years ago that led to Johnson losing his scholarship to James Madison, seemed to be a bit much, but Johnson never gave the fans the satisfaction of acknowledging them, and after his game, they might as well have stood for “Dunking With Impunity,” as Johnson threw down a trifecta of high-flying slams.

With 21 seconds left in regulation, and the Retrievers once again clinging to a one point lead, Johnson once again kept the team’s head above water, hitting two free throws amidst a sea of “DWI” signs as profanity rained down on him. In overtime Johnson was single-handedly responsible for two huge defensive stops, altering Wilson’s jumper to open the extra frame before coming from nowhere to reject what appeared to be a wide open lay-up by Brian Connelly less than a minute later. Johnson’s play in the face of adversity earned him a great deal of respect from his coach.

“I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t even see it (the signs),” said Monroe. “I’m glad I didn’t see it. You just don’t do it. I know Will Brown and his staff doesn’t have anything to do with it. Young kids can be brutal and they don’t understand the magnitude. I give Cavell Johnson a tremendous amount of credit and how proud I was of him for just really playing hard and focusing and playing through that.”

America East Notebook

America East Notebook

by Sam Perkins

Heading down the last leg of what has been one heck of a conference season (with the conference standings seeming to shuffle significantly on a weekly basis), I thought now would be a good time to give my take on the All-Conference awards. One thing that should be noted is that my picks are whom I feel are the most deserving for each award – seniority, or transfer status does not factor in, nor does awards won in previous seasons. I bring this up because there are certain trends in the America East that will likely result in some differences between my awards here and the awards handed out by the league at the end of the year banquet.

For starters, the coaches (whose votes decide the awards) always greatly favor players who have played their entire careers in the America East over transfers, who are viewed as “hired guns.” A prime case was when Jamar Wilson won the 2006 Player of the Year Award of Kenny Adeleke. Wilson had a terrific season, and some make the argument that he did it for the best team in the conference, but Adeleke’s numbers were staggering, and on paper there was no comparison between the two. Furthermore, if you took Wilson off of Albany, you would still have a top 4 team in the conference; if you took Adeleke off of Hartford (whom finished 4th in the standings), you would likely be left with the worst team in the league. Chances are, this view towards transfers will likely result in one of UMBC’s transfer trio (Darryl Proctor, Cavell Johnson, Ray Barbosa) being snubbed from an all-conference team.

The league also likes to reward seniority, which could well result in some players who have contributed a great deal to their team and the league during their four years here, but whom don’t merit an award this season, finding their way onto an all-conference team (perhaps Brent Wilson and Kyle Cieplicki, to name a couple). Also, the league likes to try to have a representative from every team on one of the three all-conference teams, even if one team has no one truly deserving of the award. Another little tidbit, Dennis Wolff always seems to get more than one player on an all-conference team, perhaps a sign of respect from his fellow coaches, even if he only has one deserving player (as is the case this year).

So, without further ado, here’s how I think the All-Conference awards should go based on who is the most deserving.

Player of the Year

Marqus Blakely, F, Vermont: Albany Coach Will Brown has been politicking like crazy for his own guy, Brian Lillis, whom he says does everything, both offensively and defensively. Brown has made a terrific case for Lillis; the only problem is the same things can be said about Blakely and then some, as Blakely is anything but a one-dimensional player. Despite standing only 6’5″, Blakely is the best shot-blocker in the conference (2.43 per game), and ranks sixth in steals (only .02 behind Lillis). Blakely has dominated the glass, leading the conference in rebounding with an amazing 10.3 a game. Offensively, Blakely has led the conference in scoring (19.3 per game) despite being double-teamed every game. He has continued to put up points in bunches despite facing extreme physicality in the post, as opponents continue to play rougher and rougher against him, all while shooting a staggering 55 percent from the floor.

First Team All-Conference

Marqus Blakely, F, Vermont: see above

Brian Lillis, G, Albany: Lillis has had an incredible senior season, as he has been the driving force and backbone for the Great Danes all season long. You can’t argue against a senior team leader who’s averaging 15.9 points per game (18.3 in conference), 6.3 rebounds, and 1.76 steals, and ranks in the top ten in points, assists, steals, and blocked shots. Lillis may well be the league’s best defender, and his scoring numbers are even more impressive when you consider that he scored less than seven points per game last season and is always assigned to guard opponent’s top perimeter scorers.

Corey Lowe, G, Boston University: For most of the season, Corey Lowe has carried the Terriers on his back, and without him they have seemed lost. Lowe has been as valuable to his team as anyone in the conference, and while his scoring may have gone down a hair since his teammates have finally begun to play up to his level, his value to the team has not, as he has become a master distributor over the past few weeks. He averages 18 points per game and at times shows unconscious three-point shooting while being the center of opposing defensive schemes. Lowe has proven to truly be a “game-changer,” and is the most talented guard in the league.

Darryl Proctor, F, UMBC: Brian Hodges, a four-year senior, has been the team’s leading scorer, and in his absence Ray Barbosa has taken over, but Proctor has been more valuable than either. Proctor is the best fundamental rebounder in the conference, as despite standing much closer to 6’2″ than his listed 6’4″, only Blakely has pulled down more boards in the conference than Proctor’s 8.5 a game. The ultimate warrior and team guy, he never leaves the court without a half a dozen bruises. Offensively, he’s been shooting close to fifty percent and is tenth in the league in scoring (14.2 ppg), and his fade-away jumper is unstoppable from anywhere inside the three-point line. The Retrievers have also fed off of his energy all year long, and Proctor has established himself as the leader of the best team in the conference.

Jay Greene, G, UMBC: The conference’s smallest player has the biggest heart, as Greene has been the Retrievers’ most valuable player. While he is only averaging 9.1 points a game, Greene has proven that he can score at will when needed. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in his 26-point (6-6 from downtown) performance in a win at Vermont. Greene’s importance goes miles beyond his shooting, as on a team full of scorers, he runs the offense on the floor and makes everyone around him better. The league’s best distributor, Greene is averaging 6.2 assists per game and has a 3.33-to-1 assist to turnover ratio, both tops by a long ways in the conference. Furthermore, Greene is the only player in the country to rank in the top ten in the nation in both assists and assist-to-turnover ratio.

2nd Team All-Conference

Mike Trimboli, G, Vermont: Trimboli’s fiery play has carried his team at times. He is averaging 17.8 points per game, good for 3rd in the conference while handling Vermont’s point guard duties. It may be hard to imagine Trimboli, who was chosen by most publications as the team’s pre-season POY, on the second team, but he has struggled of late and still has not proven that he can be “the guy,” nor that he can deal with defenses that focus on stopping him first.

Joe Zeglinski, G, Hartford: Zeglinski has been one of the most clutch shooters in the conference and is the go-to guy on a Hawks team that has climbed the ladder and finds itself in second place right behind UMBC. Zeglinski is averaging 16.1 points per game (good for fifth in the conference) and crashes the boards amazingly hard for a guard. No one in the conference plays harder, and Zeglinski seems to epitomize the Hawks “never say die” attitude. Zeglinski has also had to carry a share of the load at point guard this year, and has done so without skipping a beat.

Brian Hodges, G, UMBC: Hodges has been hurt and has missed the last four games, however he is expected to return. Prior to his injury, he was the go-to shooter on the Retrievers and his team’s leading scorer, averaging 16.5 points per game (fourth in the conference). While still a big-time outside shooter, Hodges’ game has expanded considerably his senior year, as he crashes the boards and has been posting up opposing guards at a high frequency. Hodges has also stepped it up on the defensive end.

Ray Barbosa, G, UMBC: Barbosa will, in all likelihood, fall casualty to the league’s view on transfers, particularly 1-year transfers as this is his only year of eligibility, and will likely fall to the 3rd team in the awards. However, he has been huge down the stretch, stepping in seamlessly for Hodges. He has hit big shot after big shot in wins over Vermont and Boston University. He is averaging 16 points per game (6th in the league), has hit a team high 59 three’s, and is shooting 45 percent from the floor.

Mike Gordon, G, Binghamton: Teammate Lazar Trifunovic’s numbers may be better, but Gordon is the heart and soul of the Bearcats and has left everything he has on the court night in and night out despite playing through a severe back injury that would have ended the season of most players. Gordon remains a defensive stopper, leading the league in steals with 2.35 per game, and his 11.8 points per game ranks him at 16th in the conference. Gordon’s scoring numbers are more impressive when you consider that he is the team’s point guard, and is third in the league in assists (3.9 per game), and 3rd in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.94 to 1).

3rd Team All-Conference

Lazar Trifunovic, F, Binghamton: Lazar’s numbers (14.3 ppg and 7.3 rebounds per game, third in the conference in the latter category) will likely garner a spot on the 2nd team when it comes to the conference awards. He is a terrific scorer around the post, has a soft touch, and is much more athletic than some would think, leading to some high-flying dunks. However, the word “defense” doesn’t seem to exist in his vocabulary, and it’s impossible for me to overlook his actions versus Boston University, when after being subbed out following a defensive lapse, he refused to take part in the team huddle and didn’t return to the game. In his defense, he has been playing hurt, but those aren’t the actions of a 1st or 2nd team player. His production has also slowed as of late, coinciding with Binghamton’s slip in the standings.

Cavell Johnson, F, UMBC: It is very unlikely that the league elects five players from UMBC to the all-conference teams, but all five deserve it. Johnson has provided some highlight-reel dunks and rejections (2.22 blocks per game ranks 2nd in the conference). He can score from anywhere on the court, scores 13 points per game and is the sixth-best rebounder in the conference, pulling down 6.8 a game. Johnson exploded on to the scene, but his numbers took a dip after getting a very bad case of the flu early in the year. He has been one of the best low post players in the league, and is the only player above 6’5″ (he’s 6’8″) to truly do it on both ends of the floor in the conference.

Mark Socoby, G/F, Maine: Socoby has been an incredible shooter, and has carried a flat-out bad Maine team down the stretch. He almost beat Hartford on his own, and then in essence single-handedly beat UNH later in the week. Socoby is scoring 14.5 points per game (good for 8th in the league), and crashes the boards to the tune of 5.7 per gameto lead his team.

Tyrece Gibbs, G, UNH: There have been times where Gibbs, who’s averaging 14.1 points per game, has just taken over. There are certain games when Gibbs hits fade-away and step-back threes at will. He has truly stepped his game up and become one of the elite guards in the conference, and more amazingly on a team in which he is one of only two (that’s right, count them two) returning scholarship players. There is no telling how good Gibbs numbers would be if he was on a team full of veterans, instead of frosh who are learning the college game as they go.

Michael Turner, G-F, Hartford: Turner has established himself as the league’s best perimeter defender, which is quite an accomplishment considering his competition for the title. Beyond his defensive abilities, Turner has become Hartford’s “glue guy” as Coach Dan Leibovitz puts it, as he has played sort of a point-forward position. When opponents press, he is usually the player whom Leibovitz wants with the ball in his hands. Turner’s 8.4 points per game don’t jump off the charts, or rank in the top 20, but like UMBC’s Jay Greene, Turner’s contributions are far larger than the sheer numbers on a stat sheet. He rebounds (5.7 per game, and Liebovitz calls him the team’s best on the boards), distributes (100 assists), defends, hits from downtown and in traffic, and more than anything has become the team’s quiet leader.

Rookie of the Year

This one is still too close to call, and is a three-horse race.

John Holland for Boston University has been phenomenal over the past month, providing the team with a second go-to scorer. More importantly, Holland has really crashed the glass. However, Holland waited until the last possible minute to turn it on, so he hasn’t done enough yet to have made himself stand above the other two rookies.

Alvin Abreu for UNH has been the opposite of Holland so to speak, as he was tremendous during the non-conference season, and was UNH’s go-to shooter. However, he seems to have hit the freshman wall a bit, and his scoring has dropped off. What has to be considered, however, is that Abreu’s decrease in scoring has coincided with two things. The first is that Abreu has taken over much of New Hampshire’s point guard duties. The second is that the Wildcats have changed from a zone defense to a man-to man defense, with Abreu being locked on to the other team’s best guard.

Hartford’s Morgan Sabia has been the most consistent rookie in the league, and is hitting roughly 45 percent of his three-pointers (best in the league). He has been huge down the stretch as the Hawks have climbed into second place. Sabia has proven to be more than just a shooter, and has become more and more aggressive and assertive in the post as the season has drawn on.

All-Rookie Team

Alvin Abreu, G, UNH
Morgan Sabia, F, Hartford
John Holland, G/F, Boston University
Dane DiLiegro, C, UNH: DiLiegro has struggled to stay out of foul trouble, and his offensive game needs refining, but he has a world of promise and has already established himself as one of the league’s best rebounders and shot-blockers. His dunks have also energized the Ludholm crowds and can be described as “authoritative” to say the least.
Tim Ambrose, G, Albany: Ambrose has taken a long time to adjust to the college game, and is still raw and will have lapses when he just doesn’t seem to “get it”. However, he has had some moments, including 24 points versus Duke and 19 points in a huge win at Vermont. His athleticism is unreal.

Defensive Player of the Year

Michael Turner, Hartford: There is no way that Turner wins this award with graduating seniors Brian Lillis and Mike Gordon, both of whom have won the DPOY award before. However, Turner deserves it. In a league of lock-down perimeter defenders, he has been the best, and his job on Corey Lowe earlier in the year (Lowe shot 1-11 from behind the arc with Turner all over him) was his coming out party of sorts. Turner has done it all year long, and has been a hair better than both Lillis and Gordon.

All-Defensive Team

Michael Turner, Hartford: Lock-down perimeter defender, second in the conference in steals, guards opponent’s best perimeter player.

Brian Lillis, Albany: League’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, lock-down perimeter defender, guards opponent’s best perimeter player.

Mike Gordon, Binghamton: Leads the conference in steals.

Matt Spadafora, UMBC: Lock-down wing defender, has been brought in off the bench to shut down opponent’s best perimeter scorers. He has frustrated the likes of Mike Trimboli, John Holland, and Mike Gordon to name a few.

Marqus Blakely, Vermont: League’s best shot-blocker had eight blocks in one game this year and has also come up with some huge steals in clutch situations.

Coach of the Year

Randy Monroe, UMBC: The job that Monroe has done, taking UMBC from a perennial basement-dweller and turning them into hands-down the best team in the conference has been incredible. Monroe brought in three talented transfers and has been able to blend them in with established veterans, and has been able to get his team to play as a whole and buy into his system. It would be easy for a team like UMBC, with veterans and newcomers having to adjust to each other, to collapse in on itself, but the Retrievers have done the exact opposite, and are one of the tightest-knit teams in the conference.

Honorable Mention: Dan Leibovitz has done an incredible job at Hartford, and has turned them into a contender only a year removed from inheriting a bare-bones team that finished second-to-last.

Also Honorable Mention: Kevin Broadus, Binghamton. The Bearcats have fallen off a bit, but Broadus has done a terrific job in his first year, and already has the team playing a Princeton-style defense (quite an accomplishment).

Albany Gets Much-Needed Win

Great Danes Get Big Win When They Need it Most, Show Growth

by Sam Perkins

BURLINGTON, Vt. – Marqus Blakely had another monster game on the stat sheet, scoring 18 points while pulling down 16 rebounds, but the Albany great Danes learned how to take him out of the equation, as much as possible. They executed a game plan that kept Blakely off balance for forty minutes and exposed some of the few weaknesses in his game. The Great Danes learned how to take advantage of the chinks in Vermont’s armor. Tim Ambrose has seemingly learned how to play within Albany’s system and contribute at the Division I level. Brent Wilson learned when to simply get out of the way.

And the league as a whole learned that when Vermont and Albany meet, no matter which side is surging, which side is struggling, and what the standings are going into the game, it is going to be a war for forty minutes. This time, the end result was a 64-61 win for the Great Danes.

Entering the game, the two teams appeared headed on different trajectories. Vermont had built up a strong head of steam, having won six of its last seven games, and seemed to have all the momentum heading into the game. Albany, on the other hand, was scuttling, fresh off a very disheartening loss at home to Hartford in which the team had fallen apart in the second half. The Great Danes had certainly played their share of good games this season, having already beaten Vermont in overtime earlier in the season, but they had struggled greatly to bring consistent intensity to the floor.

“You are looking at the Jekyll and Hyde team of the America East. When we play with that passion, we’re as good as any team in the league, and when we don’t play with that passion, we’re average at best,” commented Albany Head Coach Will Brown. Monday night, they brought it.

The best analogy for the game could be found in Vermont assistant coach Gabe Rodriguez’ in game attire: Olive-brown suit, pink shirt, and powder-blue tie. In a word, a jumble, equal parts ugly, sleek, and baffling. Both teams held each other scoreless until an Al Turley layup put Albany on top at the 16:46 mark. Thirteen seconds later Brian Lillis, the reigning defensive player of the year did a beautiful job of anticipating a Mike Trimboli pass, picking it off and going coast to coast for a one-handed jam. But after that brief scoring spurt for Albany, the teams went back to a defensive stalemate, and stood tied at ten points with over eleven minutes elapsed in the first half.

Both teams’ offenses sputtered in neutral for most of the first half, not because of incompetence, but rather amazing defensive efforts on both sides. The game featured three of the league’s top players, and three of the top five scorers in the league in Blakely (1st 18.9ppg), Mike Trimboli (2nd 18.6) and Lillis (5th 16.2).. Furthermore, Blakely and Lillis have emerged as two of the three players fighting it out for player of the year honors (with Boston University’s Cory Lowe being the third). Needless to say, the game featured plenty of firepower, yet the teams weren’t able to put the ball in the hoop often, as they entered the half tied at 22. Although the scoring picked up on the second half a bit, the defensive trends remained the same throughout.

Vermont frustrated Lillis into 2-7 shooting in the first half, and 4-14 on the game, by focusing their defensive efforts entirely on Albany’s senior star. Lillis rarely got an open look, and when he did, Timmy McCrory was often there to close it off, annihilating three shots in the first half, five on the night, and altering several more.

But it was Albany’s defense on Vermont’s two stars that was the story of the first half, and the game.

“I said right before the game, that Blakely and Trimboli will probably walk out with there averages, but we have to have low shooting percentages (from them), they have to work for everything that they get,” said Albany coach Will Brown.

The Danes seem to have written the book on how to stop Trimboli, Vermont’s fiery guard, from every getting into a flow and finding a comfort zone. During last season’s conference championship game, Brown drew up a game plan that called for Albany to cover Trimboli with a bigger, physical, defender at all times, which gave Trimboli headaches. Brown once again called upon this plan, as Brian Lillis, Jerel Hastings, and Tim Ambrose gave Trimboli and senior guard Kyle Cieplicki fits, as the two went a combined 1-9 from the floor in the first half and 6-23 on the night. Albany’s guards, bigger and stronger than Vermont’s, played very physical defense, and the Catamounts’ guards couldn’t create separation.

“Coach did a great job of getting us ready for this game” reflected Lillis, who added, “the young guys are finally getting it, and the older guys are getting it too, finally.”

By containing Vermont’s shooters, Albany was able to magnify some of the few flaws in Blakely’s game in the post. Blakely has established himself as the most talented player in the conference, a player who Will Brown feels “is the best athlete that we (Albany) may have played all year, he is right up there with Gerald Henderson from Duke.” Most teams in the conference have tried to fight fire with fire, so to speak, by putting their most athletic forward on Blakely in man situations, and as no one in the conference is even on the same planet as Blakely athletically, this defensive strategy has rarely worked, as Blakely simply out-quicks and out-leaps athletic players.

Albany came at him with a different approach, by putting their biggest and strongest players on the court on Blakely at all times, and by keeping their big men in between Blakely in the basket. For Albany it wasn’t simply about double-teaming Blakely, which he has seen for most of the season, but rather about keeping him off balance, fronting him at times and collapsing down, but above all else playing as physical as possible, as size is one of Blakely’s few weaknesses.

“Unfortunately for him, he’s only six-five,” stated Brown. “I think what happens is, a lot of teams put their power forwards on him. We wanted to put the biggest guys we had on him, and we wanted to keep him off balance. We wanted to keep him off balance, and we wanted a bigger guy on him. Our three big guys did a good job of not letting him get the ball. And when he did get the ball, we crowded him, and then we picked and chose our spots of when to double him.”

Albany would sag off of Blakely whenever he got away from the paint, and collapse down on him once he made his move into the post. Blakely’s lack of a refined post game was finally exploited, as he struggled greatly to maneuver around the volume of bodies clogging the lane, and also missed several shots in close to the hoop, going 2-6 from the floor in the first half, and 5-15 on the game. Albany couldn’t stop Blakely, as no team in the conference can, and he was a monster on the boards, but they contained and frustrated him into a game they could handle. “They got into my head,” reflected Blakely.

If Vermont’s perimeter shooters had found a groove, it would have opened up the floor and Blakely likely would have dominated once again, but Albany’s guards never allowed that to happen.

“We shot three for fourteen from three, when that happens were not going to win many games,” remarked Vermont head coach Mike Lonergan.

Had Blakely been able to draw Albany’s big men away from the basket, he could have broken them down and beat them back to the hoop with his tremendous quickness and athleticism, but right now he simply doesn’t have the skills to demand attention away from the hoop. With Blakely’s skills, it is certainly reasonable to believe he will develop a 10-15 foot jumper in time, but right now he simply doesn’t have one. Albany also did a good job of keeping Vermont from getting out in transition, a scenario that usually ends with Blakely throwing down some form of a monster alley-oop that invigorates the crowd and breaks an opponent’s back.

There was one rare occasion when Vermont did get out on a break, as Blakely went coast to coast for a soaring slam after a steal. There was almost a case of deja vu, as a similar sequence unfolded during last season’s championship game that ended with Brent Wilson being plastered all over Sports Center and Youtube after Blakely posterized him with a dunk. Wilson once again had a chance to make a play on Blakely’s dunk, however this time he chose to simply let Blakely have his two points, and sidestepped him.

But Albany refused to let Vermont swing the momentum, as the Danes ratcheted up the energy as the game went on. Lillis had the highlight of the game, a SportsCenter-worthy dunk that reclaimed the momentum for the Danes, as Lillis, off a baseline drive, took off from the right side of the basket, floated underneath the hoop, and slammed it on the left.

“How about Lillis’ dunk? That was pretty good, huh,” joked Brown.

However, the story of the game for Albany wasn’t Lillis carrying the team as it has been for much of the year, but rather the Great Danes playing as a team around Lillis and complementing their star. “When we get some other guys helping Brian out scoring, we’re very good,” said Brown.

The Catamounts compounded matters by slipping up late in the game defensively, and Jon Iati and Brent Wilson each nailed two huge threes to give Albany the momentum boost that they needed.

“We were at home, up three with three minutes left, unfortunately we had a few huge breakdowns,” reflected Lonergan. “Leaving Brent Wilson, trying to take a charge in the back court and Iati hits a wide open three, and Ambrose takes one of our best defenders right to the rim.”

And as time wound down, it was Vermont who blinked, as Trimboli forced two bad shots late in the game, one on an up and under with his left hand, and the second on a runner with about thirty seconds left.

The other story of the game was the inspired play of Albany freshman Tim Ambrose. Ambrose, a tremendous physical specimen and high-flier, who was easily the most highly touted freshman in the conference coming into the season, has experienced an up-and-down season. He’s shown flashes of brilliance with a 24-point explosion versus Duke, but also large stretches in which he barely played, often due to a lack of a grasp of the college game and a lack of effort and ability on defense.

But against Vermont, Ambrose was a man possessed, taking the ball right at the Catamount guards and to the rim at will. Ambrose also displayed the ability to adapt on the court within the flow of the game, as after McCrory erased two of his shots with big time rejections, Ambrose took a different approach, going around McCrory for two acrobatic lay-ups later on.

“Unfortunately, when Tim dropped 24 at Duke, people put a lot of pressure on he kid, and you saw once again tonight why he’s as talented as he is” said Brown. “The thing with Tim too is, and I don’t play him enough, if I played him like the other freshmen in the league, he would be the leading scorer (among freshmen) in the league, by far. It’s just that I want him to become a student of the game like I’ve talked about, and fundamentally sound.” That’s something Ambrose took a huge step towards versus Vermont.

If the Danes are truly headed on the upswing, it couldn’t have happened at a better time, as Albany has unmatched postseason experience in the conference, and could be hitting their stride at the perfect time. According to Brown, “A lot of teams have peaked already, and a lot of teams are not going to take that next step, and I think that we are one of those teams that still have a lot of room to improve, and I think that we can continue to get better.”

For Albany, the question remains, what team is going to show up every night? And how does everyone not named Lillis match-up against the rest of the league? Ambrose was able to run ragged against Vermont, largely because the Catamounts have the least-athletic guards in the conference. He won’t be able to play that way against the likes of Joe Zeglinski (Hartford), Ray Barbosa (UMBC), Corey Lowe (BU), Kiamondre Owes (Maine) or New Hampshire or Binghamton’s backcourts.

Hartford Holds Off Maine

High-Flying Hawks Continue Their Roll

by Sam Perkins

HARTFORD, Conn. – The Hartford men’s basketball team certainly lived up to their name Wednesday night, as the Hawks soared above the rim for almost a half-dozen crowd-pleasing dunks. However, the long range heroics of Morgan Sabia were involved in the game winner, as the freshman canned a long three-pointer with seventeen seconds left before Hartford locked down on Maine’s Mark Socoby for the first time all night. They prevented the sharpshooter from getting a clean look on his last second shot to seal the game.

Entering the game off of arguably their biggest win of the season, a convincing 71-62 win over the then-second place Binghamton Bearcats, another win for the Hawks would put them right back in the thick of the jumble at the top of the America East conference. Hartford provided some early acrobatics, as the Hawks threw down three dunks in the first six and a half minutes.

Freshman Anthony Minor provided a spark early on, taking it right at the Black Bears. Minor’s game seems to improve nightly, and the freshman played with an ever-growing confidence, taking the ball right at Maine’s Sean McNally for the first points of the night. After the teams traded misses, Minor got the ball on the right wing and drove in on the much larger McNally. As Minor elevated, he lost the ball amid a great deal of contact, but in one motion caught the lose ball right above the cylinder and slammed it home.

After a three by Kiamondre Owes, Minor went back to work, scoring on a nifty layup, followed by a high-flying two-handed slam off of an alley-oop feed by Jaret Von Rosenberg. As Minor hung on the rim momentarily, flirting with a technical foul and bringing the crowd to its feet, it became evident just how much the Hawks’ young forward has grown during the season.

“Anthony is someone whom all year I have gone with and stayed with and kept in that lineup because I wanted to force him to develop,” reflected Hartford head coach Dan Liebovitz. “I know how he is as a person, and when Jaret was hurt early on it was an easy decision for me to say ‘well lets take this as an opportunity to throw Anthony in the fire. Let’s continue to develop Anthony.’ And that’s something that I think has been a key to our season.”

After Minor’s six-point spurt put Hartford ahead early, Sabia, Hartford’s other starting freshman forward, went to work, nailing a deep three-pointer. The three-ball has been Sabia’s trademark all year, as he has been hitting an astounding 45 percent from downtown, and seems to be getting more accurate and more confident from behind the arc with every game. Sabia also has a tendency to take, and hit, his threes when they matter the most. His inspired play, which has coincided with the Hawks’ ascension up the America East standings, has found him in the thick of the hunt for the conference’s Rookie of the Year award.

Additionally, his combination of shooting ability and 6’8″ frame have drawn immediate comparisons with Albany gunner Brent Wilson. While it is certainly a compliment to compare Sabia, a freshman, to a player renowned as the best shooting big man in the league, it is unfair to pigeonhole Sabia as simply a shooter, as he already has a much more diverse game than Wilson, with the ability to put the ball of the floor and get to the rack. And one thing is for sure, Brent Wilson can only dream of having the kind of ups that Sabia displayed on his second bucket, hanging above the rim before finishing off an Andres Torres lob for an impressive alley-oop slam in traffic.

Torres continued to give Leibovitz good minutes off of the bench, and minutes after setting up Sabia’s slam, he buried a pull-up three from about twenty-six feet away to put the Hawks up 16-12 with eleven and a half minutes left in the first half.

But Torres’ contributions on the season have been far bigger than what shows up on the stat sheet, as he is easily the fastest player in the conference and gives the Hawks an added dimension on the court. Torres also does a great job of running the offense, and in living up to his nickname, “fire ant,” he is a pest on defense. Nowhere was this more evident than when he pressured Owes into his second foul, as Owes threw an elbow after Torres’ pressure defense became too much for him.

Unfortunately for Hartford, after Torres’ three the Hawks offense seemed to slip into neutral, and the pace of the game slowed down, a pace that favors Maine. The Black Bears slowly began to put points up on the board, many in the post on second- and third-chance put-backs, and what was a 16-12 Hartford lead became a 23-17 Maine advantage. Hartford played almost the entire first half without Warren McLendon, who still appears to be in coach Leibovitz’ doghouse after a team-mandated suspension, leaving the Hawks extremely small in the post and allowing the Black Bears to grab numerous offensive rebounds and score off of their own misses.

“They’re a big team, probably one of the bigger more physical teams in our conference,” said Leibovitz, adding, “They’re a tough team for us to match up with.”

The first half could have gotten more out of hand had Maine truly taken advantage of their size advantage, however the biggest Black Bear, 6’9″, 310-pound Brian Andre, remained on the bench. During the non-conference season Andre had established himself not only as the best low-post scorer on the team, but as the best center in the conference, dismantling the front lines of Providence and Florida State. That has made Maine Head Coach Ted Woodward’s decision to drastically reduce his center’s playing time a bit baffling, especially against a frontline like the one Hartford used for much of the game.

The Black Bears’ failure to capitalize on the undersized Hawks, especially while Hartford’s offense was stagnant, would come back to bite them, as Maine’s lead never got bigger than six. The Hawks found enough of a groove to get their heads above water, and when McLendon checked in with 3:53 seconds left in the half, Hartford’s offense took on a new dimension.

With Hartford trailing 29-26, McLendon easily shed a double team and converted on a tough up and under in the post, and Maine immediately shifted their defensive emphasis towards doubling down on McLendon every time down the court. The Black Bears’ increased attention on the Hawks’ center, however, freed up Hartford’s dangerous outside shooters, and Hartford closed out the half behind a three-point barrage from Joe Zeglinski and Brian Glowiak and entered the intermission with a 35-30 lead.

Hartford opened the second half with a definite carry-over of the momentum they closed out the first half with, and after a Mark Socoby three, the Hawks went on an 11-4 run behind the three-point shooting of Sabia and Zeglinski. With 15:27 left and a nine-point lead (the biggest of the game, 46-37), Hartford was on the verge of blowing the game open. After Junior Bernal missed a jumper for the Black Bears, and Hartford came away with the rebound, one good possession could have put the game away for Hartford.

However, Torres took an ill-advised three with a lot of time left on the shot clock, and Maine went on a 10-0 run behind three’s from Socoby, Owes, and McNally, and suddenly the lead and the momentum swung back in Maine’s favor.

What was interesting for the Hawks, during Maine’s run, was that Zeglinski, Hartford’s unquestioned leader, remained on the bench during the Black Bears’ comeback, and the Hawks never called timeout to put Zeglinski back on the floor or to calm his troops.

“What frustrated me was the possession where we were up nine and we come down, and it was a great time to have a great possession and put some passes on the ball, and Andres takes a shot from about twenty-five feet, and I don’t know where that came from,” said Leibovitz. “And we don’t have Joe in the game and they make their run.”

However, for Leibovitz, this team and this year has never been about the here and now, but rather a growing process building towards a larger goal down the road, and that is reflected in his coaching style.

“You always look back and say ‘should I have called timeout here.’ And sometimes I like to see how my team is going to react, because I want them to grow as a team. We have a young team. I feel like every time something goes bad, if I call a timeout I throw a band aid on everything and they never grow up. We’re going to be, someday, in a championship game without timeouts, and I want to see how they react.”

Hartford didn’t sputter for long, as McLendon single-handedly swung the momentum back in Hartford’s favor by rattling off six straight points, four of which came in momentous fashion. A possession after the Hawks center made two free throws, McLendon and Zeglisnki ran a pick-and roll play to perfection, and Maine could only watch as McLendon threw down a monster two-handed slam, almost ripping the rim off. In fact, the backboard and shot clock were still violently shaking when Maine’s Jordan Cook scored on a on a lay-up on the other end of the floor.

McLendon one-upped himself on the following possession, as with what his first dunk had in back-board shaking power, his second more than equaled in pure disrespect. After taking a feed from Von Rosenberg at the free-throw line, McLendon (generiously listed at 6’6″) drove right at the 6’10″ Cook. As McLendon left his feet both Cook, and McNally, who had rotated over for help defense, went for the block. But McLendon elevated over, and posterized, both defenders, and threw down one of the meanest one-handed tomahawk jams the conference has seen, resulting in an explosion from the small but vocal crowd, and gave the Hawks a 52-49 lead.

But to Maine’s credit, the Black Bears wouldn’t back down, and Socoby seemed to hit shot after shot from behind the arc. After being held to five first-half points, Socoby exploded in the second, hitting all sorts of threes in traffic, several of which resulted in him sprawled on the floor. The Hawks’ Achilles heel all season has been getting burned from behind the arc, and it seemed that once again hot three-point shooting would be their downfall, as Socoby drilled a twenty-six footer with four minutes left to give Maine a four point lead at 63-59.

But Hartford has never been a team to go quietly into the night, and the Hawks went on a quick 4-0 run behind Sabia and Zeglinski to tie the game at 63. Socoby again answered back with a nifty jumper in traffic to put Maine up two with fifty-two seconds left. But the Hawks answered back again, behind a three-point dagger from Von Rosenberg.

With thirty seconds left, the writing appeared to be on the wall for Hartford, as Maine’s Philippe Tchekane Bofia appeared to switch pivot feet and take an extra step on his way to the hoop. No traveling violation was called, and Bofia hit a tough layup in traffic, giving Maine a 67-66 lead with thirty seconds left. It was the kind of non-call and basket combination that would take the life out of most teams, but not Hartford.

After a quick timeout, the Hawks set up to run their last play, as Von Rosenberg saw an opening towards the hoop and drove in. But the Maine defense collapsed on Von Rosenberg, and Hartford’s play, drawn up on the sidelines, appeared to collapse. But Sabia, playing with the court vision of a seasoned veteran, saw an opening at the top of the key and called for the ball. Von Rosenberg hit Sabia with a pass, and Sabia fired away from beyond the arc, drilling the game-winner.

“The play that we had set up of broke down a little, so when I saw Jaret drive I just got to the open spot, and when he passed it to me I just let it fly,” reflected Sabia, adding “I’ve been shooting the ball well the past few games, so I just figured it’s just like any other shot.”

On a team full of shooters, Sabia has emerged as a go-to guy in the clutch, and his transformation from a nervous freshman, at times scared to pull the trigger on the big shot, to big-time gunner has been impressive, and for Leibovitz it’s been all about confidence.

“I think that Morgan has always been a good shooter with a chance to be a great shooter, and the reason he has improved (has been) confidence,” said Leibovitz. “When you can instill confidence in someone, at any level in any sport, it’s amazing how much performance goes up. When it comes to shooting, I have all of the confidence in the world (in him.).”

Sabia displayed that confidence ten-fold, as he not only didn’t hesitate for a second to take the long three, despite time remaining on the shot clock, but was already backpedaling down the court before his shot swished through the net.

Sabia’s three, with seventeen seconds left, gave Maine a chance to tie or win the game, but Hartford was able to do something for the first time all game at the other end of the court: stop Mark Socoby. The Hawks surrounded Socoby and forced an off-balance prayer that fell far short. The Hawks were also able to prevent Sean McNally’s put-back attempt with one second left, sealing the game.

For Leibovitz, stopping Socoby was a mixed-blessing, because the Hawks’ failure to contain him early on was key to Maine getting back in the game, but it was nice for the Hawks to prove that they can clamp down around the perimeter when it counts.

“We did a good job on that last possession,” said Leibovitz. “It was nothing that I said differently on that possession than on any of the other possessions. I guess they realized the severity of it on the last possession. We seem to let the one guy on the board that we circle on the board get going at the wrong time.”

The Hawks have proven that they can play with anyone in the conference, and are only getting stronger as the season winds down, boding very well for their prospects in the conference tournament. The one question surrounding the team now is what McLendon’s place on the team is, as the Hawks’ forward, viewed as the star of the team at the beginning of the season and the one-time focal point of the offense, has seen his minutes drastically reduced following his suspension.

“Right now, he’s just a member of our team, like anyone else is, I’m trying to find out how to drive him, what buttons to push,” commented Liebovitz.

Maine was led by Socoby who finished with twenty points, and Owes who scored 14. Hartford was led by Zeglinski with 20 and Sabia with 15.

Vermont Rides Blakely To Road Win

Just call them the Comeback Catamounts

by Sam Perkins

HARTFORD, Conn. – With three and a half minutes remaining in, Hartford was once again surging against Vermont. The feisty Hawks, playing the role of undaunted underdogs to perfection, had wrestled the lead away from the heavily-favored and high-powered Catamounts for the third time in the second half.

After a beautiful tip-in by freshman Anthony Minor put Hartfod up five, 69-64, the momentum was once again building behind the Hawks. When Jaret Von Rosenberg stripped Mike Trimboli on the ensuing Vermont possession and shoved the ball ahead to Michael Turner, who was all alone, streaking to the basket, the game appeared to be over. Turner’s uncontested lay-up would put Hartford up by seven, and after coming back to tie or take the lead three times in the second half, only to watch the lead slip away, it would be hard to image Vermont overcoming a backbreaker like Turner’s coast to coast drive to comeback for a fourth time.

But a funny thing happened on the way to hoop for Turner, as he discovered first hand what Vermont’s opponent’s have been learning all season long: Marqus Blakely is the kind of special player that comes along once in a blue-moon in a conference like the America East, and that just when you think that you’ve seen everything that he can do, he blows your mind once again. As Turner elevated for what he felt would be an uncontested lay-up, his shot was enveloped and erased by the blur that was Blakely, the America East’s version of the human highlight film. Blakely’s block highlighted all aspects of his freakish athleticism, as Blakely caught Turner from behind despite starting a good thirty feet behind him, leapt over Turner to avoiding any body contact, and pinned the ball on the backboard at the top of the square for an instant.

Blakely’s block caromed into the hands of teammate Nick Vier, who found senior Kyle Cieplicki for a momentum-shifting three at the other end of the floor, and what should have been a seven-point lead to seal the game for Hartford was instead a two point game, with the Hawks clinging to a 69-67.

“That was the play of the year. Play of the year,” emphasized Vermont head coach Mike Lonergan after the game, adding, “he chased him down from thirty-feet away, if he doesn’t do that we’re down seven and I don’t know if we can come back. That was the play of the year for us. I didn’t think he could get there, I knew he could jump high-enough, but I didn’t think he could get there in time.”

After Blakely and Von Rosenberg traded baskets, the Catamounts high-flier came up with another momentous play, stripping Von Rosenberg at half-court, and coasting in for a thunderous two-handed slam in traffic, tying the game at 71. Blakely’s dunk drew an eruption from the Vermont bench, and sucked the energy out of the Hartford student body, whom had been a vocal backbone for the Hawks throughout the game.

“That gave us a lot of hope, the block was a dagger on defense with Kyle coming back and drilling a three,” reflected Blakely.

The Hawks still had one last charge in them, and would tie the game once more. But Vermont responded, with Trimboli hitting a huge one-handed runner on a baseline drive to put Vermont up for good, as he and Blakely went 6-6 from the free-throw line to close out the game and give Vermont a hard fought 81-76 victory.

Overshadowed by Blakely’s heroics was tremendous effort by a Hartford squad dealing with a severely depleted roster. The Hawks, already without the services center Kevin Estes as he was dealing with the effects of a concussion suffered the week before, suffered another blow when star center Warren McClendon was suspended by the team for the game due to academics. (McClendon is still eligible per NCAA standards, and the suspension is expected to only be for one game.) Without McClendon and Estes, the Hawks had no real inside presence and were matched up against the best player in the conference in Blakely.

Early on, it appeared that Blakely would be too much for Hartford to handle, as the sophomore forward threw down an alley-oop dunk over what seemed to be half of the Hawks roster. He once again raised the dunking bar another notch. Trimboli appeared to have made the perfect lob from half-court, except that Blakely out-leapt the feed. Blakely, whose head was up around the rim, had to reach back down to catch the ball around he shoulders before bringing it back up above his head for a back-board shaking dunk.

However, the Hawks were unfazed, and played incredibly physical against Blakely, putting a body on him at all times. “They played Marqus very physically, they hit him a lot, which is exactly how I would play him if I was coaching against him,” said Lonergan.

Blakely was forced into 2 of 6 shooting from the floor, and had to work for every single one of his eight first-half points. Minor played a large role in frustrating the Catamounts’ star, doing a tremendous job filling the void left by the absence of McClendon and Estes.

“I thought Anthony Minor really grew up a little bit tonight, we were playing zone but he was really locked on to Blakely,” said Hartford head coach Dan Leibovitz.

While Minor played a huge role on the defensive end, it was their normal defensive stopper who stepped his game up on the offensive end, as Turner took the ball right at Vermont early and often, scoring from all over the floor. While Turner has provided three-point shooting all season long, and continued to hit from downtown against Vermont, it was in the paint where he made maybe his biggest impact, showing off several nifty low post moves. Without McClendon, Hartford was without their lone low-post scoring threat, and would need someone to step up to force Vermont to defend the interior and free up their outside shooters, and Turner did just that, scoring 13 first half points.

“I posted up Cieplicki, and he’s smaller than me, I was just looking to penetrate, because with us being so undersized I have a four or a five man guarding me, and I can really beat them off of the dribble,” reflected Turner after the game.

Hartford went into the half with 41-32 lead, and it would have been worse had Blakely not dominated the glass, ripping down eight first half rebounds. But Blakely, whom Mike Lonergan would like to become the America East version of former UMass great Lou Roe, was not playing with the physicality that Lonergan wanted. But he has the athleticism and ability to turn into a Roe-incarnate of sorts and simply could not be denied all game long, and once again proved to be the difference-maker. He poured in a game-high 22 points and pulled down a game-high thirteen rebounds. It was only a matter of time before Mike Trimboli got going, especially with Blakely occupying so much of Hartford’s defensive attention, and after scoring two points in the first half, Trimboli went off for 19 in the second, sealing the Hawks fate.

But the story of the game was Blakely, whose performance as of late, as he came into the match-up fresh off of a 17- point, 18-rebound performance Boston University, has been far more impressive than the sheer numbers. He has been able to dominate despite playing what he and his coaches feel is a sub-par game. This ability to dominate while playing “bad” puts Blakely in rare company, and displays not only how good he is, but just how special he is, and amazing he can be.

The America East has had its share of impact players, players who can simply take over a game and single handedly determine its outcome, players who, in retrospect, should never have played in the America East, but rather at a much higher level. T.J. Sorrentine, Jose Juan Barea, Jamar Wilson, Kenny Adeleke, and Nick Billings come to mind in recent history, but for all of their greatness, each and every member of the aforementioned group could play poorly and hurt their team. With his ability to play well below his potential and still take over a game, Blakely has joined former Catamount Taylor Coppenrath as the only player in recent history to be able to completely dominate while still playing below-par.

Blakely still has a long way to go before he can truly be compared to Coppenrath, as Coppenrath was not only the greatest player in Vermont history, but one of the greatest in America East history, a three-time player of the year award winner and a finalist for every major national award as a senior. A 6’9″ banger with range behind the perimeter, a tremendous touch around the hoop, and an even more impressive basketball IQ, Coppenrath changed every game in a way that few in the conference ever have. Blakely isn’t there yet, but he could become something even more special.

The America East hasn’t been without it’s share of high fliers, and former players Matt Turner (Boston University), and Tobe Carberry (Vermont) could certainly leap as well as Blakely, but they were both six-footers (or in Turner’s case, a 5’7″ oddity). The conference may never have seen someone as long as Blakely is (6’5″ with an even bigger wingspan) with his athleticism. Blakely isn’t merely an athlete for the America East, a big fish in a small pond, but an incredible athlete on any team in any conference, as he was easily the most explosive and athletic player on the floor when Vermont played such national powers as Florida and Virginia earlier this year.

But what makes Blakely so special, is how much his game has evolved already. After a freshman season marred by mononucleosis, when he played less than fourteen minutes a game and was little more than a dunking side-show, Blakely’s transformation has been incredible. He has developed the ability to put the ball on the floor and beat defenders off of the dribble nightly, and has developed a jump hook, spin move, and short jump shot to compliment his array of dunks, and sheer ability to out-leap opponents for buckets. To Leibovitz, what makes Blakely so scary is his ability to create his own shot and adapt to whatever the situation may be. “A lot of what he does is unscripted, he’s such a hard guy to stop,” said the Hartford mentor.

The scary thing is that Blakely has just begun to scratch the surface, as he has been playing injured all season and has not participated in a practice since the beginning of the non-conference season. Considered incredibly “raw” coming out of high school, he has established himself as the best player in the conference by a good margin, and still has only begun to scratch the surface of his potential.

“Blakely can be better, a lot better,” said Lonergan. It’s been hard, we need to keep him up because he can’t practice with us, but he has a world of potential and he’s only just starting to realize it. The biggest thing is he played thirty-seven minutes, he played thirteen a game last year. He’s gotten a lot better, and he’s gotten a lot stronger.”

Even more impressive has been how Blakely has adjusted during the season as teams continue to focus their game plan around stopping him first and foremost, as at the beginning of the year Blakely often found himself in single coverage, where he now finds himself double every trip down the court. “Early on, teams kind of hung off me and I was able to surprise a lot of them,” he reflected. “But now they really focus on me, it’s definitely gotten a lot more physical.”

For Vermont, who has reeled off two wins on the road, being able to pull out victories away from the cozy confines of Patrick Gymnasium was huge. “In this conference, winning on the road is big, real big” said Lonergan. Even more important than simply staying atop the conference in the win and loss columns, was the way Vermont went about winning: as they were able to come away with victories despite not playing “their game”, as both Boston University and Hartford were able to slow the Catamounts down and bunch them up, not allowing Blakely to get out in transition, nor allowing Vermont’s shooters to get too comfortable around the arc.

The other big thing for Vermont, was finally being healthy, as they recently got back seniors Timmy McCrory and Cieplicki. “Kyle is like another coach on the court, when he’s out there he always knows what to do,” said Blakely. “He’s a real calming influence, and we just seem to play better when he’s on the floor. Timmy, he’s big, he brings size, he is great on the boards.”

With a healthy team for the first time all season, and with the league’s best player, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Catamounts punching their ticket to the big dance come March.

Hartford Needs McLendon

Hawks Hang on Against Seawolves

by Sam Perkins

HARTFORD, Conn. – The Hartford Hawks need Warren McLendon.

If that wasn’t obvious before the Hawks’ game Thursday night, it certainly was afterwards. In what was truly a tale of two halves (or, perhaps more accurately, the tale of one and a third half and a two third’s of a half), Hartford put Stony Brook in their rear view mirror, and then hung on for dear life to earn an 83-81 victory.

More than anything, however, it was a case of when the Hawks play with Warren McLendon, versus when they play without him, as the Seawolves were able to come back big once Hartford’s man in the middle was out of the game.

When McLendon was on the court, he did what ever he wanted in the paint, and was the catalyst for the offense, scoring down low and dishing out six assists to the Hawks’ sharpshooters. However, a poor decision on his part and questionable officiating took McLendon out the game for almost an entire half, and Stony Brook did what they have not been able to do all season: capitalize.

Led by Ricky Lucas, who erupted for 33 points, 24 of which came after the half, the Seawolves rallied but could never quite climb out of the hole they dug themselves into in the first half.

In the early going, Stony Brook made Hartford play Seawolves basketball, as the Hawks had trouble setting up an offense because of Stony Brook’s pressure defense. When Hartford did break through, their shots weren’t falling, and the Seawolves managed to keep pace, and even take an early lead in a sloppy game. Hartford’s sluggish start and lackluster defense allowed Stony Brook to score in transition, and off of broken plays.

However, when McLendon checked into the game, the Hawks’ offense took on a new dimension, and he’s a player that defenses have to key on every second that he’s on the court. Stony Brook was no different, as they focused their defense on collapsing on him every time he touched the ball. “He’s a good player and a real presence in the paint, he’s a factor, and you have to know where he is on the court at all times,” said Stony Brook head coach Steve Pikiell.

McLendon has spent the majority of the season adjusting to Hartford’s offense and re-adjusting to the college game, as it had been almost two whole years since he last played in a game that mattered after leaving The Citadel and transferring to Hartford. Early in the season he struggled greatly with double teams, forcing bad shots. Lately, he seems to finally be putting it all together, and has been hitting Hartford’s shooters with passes out of the post in response to double teams, and versus Stony Brook, his passing was on full display. Hartford began to run their offense through McLendon, working the ball into the post, and the Seawolves were forced to respond by collapsing down on him to prevent easy buckets. McLendon responded brilliantly, with pin-point dishes around the perimeter, and the Hawks began to light it up from downtown.

Morgan Sabia and Brian Glowiak spearheaded the three-point barrage, but it was Andres Torres who truly changed the game, nailing a 26-foot three off of the dribble right after checking in, and nailing another deep three off a McLendon feed minutes later. Torres’ tremendous speed and passing ability, combined with McLendon’s post presence, completely opened the floor up for the Hawks, whose offense hit a new stride with both on the floor. The freshman point guard had no trouble breaking through Stony Brook’s press, and did a terrific job of drawing defensive attention by penetrating and then kicking out to the open man.

Torres’ performance, during his most meaningful minutes of the season, had his coach very excited about the future. “I think he’s starting to finally understand some things that I’ve been trying to preach to him all year,” said head coach Dan Leibovitz. “He’s one of the keys to our season, anytime he comes in there he changes the dynamic of the game. He pushes the ball, he finds people.”

With the Hawks’ perimeter players hitting on all cylinders, Stony Brook was forced to change their defensive approach, and once they put their defensive focus on the perimeter and away from the post, McLendon went to work, converting on a pair of beautiful up and under lay-ups in which he switched from his right to his left (off hand) in mid-air before finishing.

The second half began with Hartford holding a 44-35 lead, and for the first ten minutes it was much of the same, with McLendon dominating the paint and showing off an assortment of spin moves and high-flying acrobatics, while continuing to distribute to around the perimeter. With nine minutes left McLendon found Glowiak twice, resulting in back-to-back three’s which pushed Hartford’s lead to 65-53, but from that point out it would be the Hawks hanging on for dear life.

All season long the story for Hartford has been keeping McLendon on the court, as he has racked up fouls like no one else in the league. No other player in the league has McLendon’s physical strength, and the book on him has been to flop whenever he gets the ball. The most frustrating thing for McLendon and the Hawks hasn’t been simply the amount of fouls called on McLendon, but the fact that America East officials don’t seem to call it both ways. McLendon will get called for all sorts of touch fouls on one end of the court, and on the other end opponents are able to freely abuse him with all kinds of elbows and forearm shots without drawing any calls of their own.

This was never more evident than against Stony Brook, as McLendon drew three very questionable fouls in the first 30 minutes of the game, and took a physical pounding on the other end. Despite absorbing the kind of hits that would draw personal-foul flags in a football game, McLendon was rewarded only once with a trip to the free-throw line.

With ten minutes remaining in the game, and the Hawks holding a comfortable nine-point lead, McLendon lost his composure. After a beautiful spin move in the paint, McLendon put up a jump hook and appeared to draw a lot of contact, enough so to alter his shot, causing it to fall far short of the rim. Yet once again the refs swallowed their whistles. Immediately after missing his shot, McLendon said something to the nearest official, drawing technical foul. It was the fourth personal on McLendon, forcing him to the bench for the immediate future, and giving Stony Brook life with ten minutes left.

In fairness to McLendon, replays on the video monitor clearly showed him getting hit with a vicious elbow directly in the temple, but his coach made no excuses, saying, “(McLendon) had no business doing that, no right to do that. The only person allowed to blow his top out there is me.”

With McLendon on the bench, Hartford now found themselves in the perfect storm of “everything that can go wrong will go wrong,” as the Hawks, undersized under normal circumstances, were now pint-sized, as they were also without center Kevin Estes, who left the game in the first half after taking a shot in the head. Andres Torres also picked up two quick fouls, and Lucas found himself in a zone that he has never been in before.

Two troubling trends for Hartford once again surfaced, the first of which was being burned from behind the arc, as Hartford has struggled all season long to defend the three ball. Lucas was the main culprit, as he scored 24 of his career-high 33 points after the intermission. The fifth-year senior couldn’t miss, going 9-12 from the floor and 5-7 from behind the arc. When Lucas didn’t score, he got to the foul line, going a perfect 10-10 from the charity stripe.

Lucas’ explosion was especially troubling to Leibovitz, as the Hawks’ defensive scheme revolved around shutting him down, as he later explained. “Ricky Lucas had a great night, but I’m disappointed in the fact that we have him down as a marked guy,” said Leibovitz.

The second trend for Hartford was once again being beaten in the battle of the boards, as the Hawks were out-rebounded 40-21. Whenever Stony Brook missed, they seemed to come up with the rebound, getting multiple second and even third chances. In fairness to Hartford, without both McLendon and Estes, they didn’t have much of a chance.

Luckily for Hartford, they built up just enough of a lead before things fell apart to hang on. “Luckily we did get out to a twelve point cushion, if we didn’t build up that big a lead, things could have been a lot closer,” said forward Michael Turner.

Indeed, if the game was 41 minutes long instead of 40, Hartford may not have been able to hang on. Sabia was huge in keeping the Hawks ahead, as every time Stony Brook made a run, it was Sabia to answer back, as he scored sixteen points, eight in the second half. Turner was also nails, scoring a team-high 17 points, eight of which came from the charity stripe.

Despite Sabia and Turner’s heroics, the Seawolves still had the ball in their hands, trailing by two, with thirteen seconds left. But freshman Anthony Minor knocked the ball away from Lucas as time expired, giving the Hawks the win.

The final play was the last questionable call, in a long night of questionable calls from the officials, as Minor appeared to run Lucas over before knocking the ball away. But for Hartford there was some feeling of turnabout being fair play, as the Hawks found themselves at the wrong end of non-calls all night. McLendon was often a victim, Estes appeared to have been run over chasing after a lose ball when he was injured, and Von Rosenberg was essentially tackled when he went air born to intercept a pass, once again resulting in a non-call.

Although the Hawks continue to get burned from behind the arc and are still getting killed on the boards, what is encouraging is that the Hawks were able to win without McLendon for much of the game. They also won with Joe Zeglinski, their leading scorer and the heart of the team, struggling through the worst shooting night of his career (3-14 from the floor, 1-8 from behind the arc). The Hawks were able to win by controlling the ball, as they had a season-best five turnovers and twenty assists, and the continued emergence of Sabia, and progress of Torres are encouraging signs.

America East Notebook

America East Notebook

by Sam Perkins

With almost half of the conference season in the books, one thing has become evident: the conference is still wide open, and none of the prognosticators (or even the coaches, judging by the preseason coaches poll) seem to have been too accurate. The non-conference season was, for lack of a better word, ugly, as every team in the conference with the exception of UMBC is in the middle of a rebuilding mode (an argument could certainly be made that certain bottom dwellers aren’t rebuilding but rather treading water, but that’s another story).

However, as bad as the non-conference season was, almost every team is better at this point in the season than they were at the beginning, and it has led to some very entertaining and competitive basketball. The end should be one heck of a conference tournament. As the conference is right now, there seem to be three “tiers” of teams: those contending for the league title and NCAA birth, those that are a bit below the contenders, and those in the basement.

However, unlike almost every year in recent memory, the “contenders” group is by far the largest in the conference, as there are five teams that have a legitimate shot to go to the NCAA tournament in UMBC, Binghamton, Vermont, Hartford, and Albany. Binghamton currently stands at the top of the conference at 6-2, with UMBC and Vermont at 5-2, and Hartford and Albany stand at 4-3. The next “tier” at this point contains only one team, New Hampshire, who stands at 3-4, and the bottom tier, those in the basement, is made up of BU and Maine who both stand at 2-5, and Stony Brook whom comes in at 1-6.

One thing is for certain in the conference, however, and that is that any team, no matter what tier they occupy, can beat any other team in the conference on any given day, because no team in the conference is good enough to simply not show up and still win on talent alone. Here’s some thoughts on each team in the conference so far, ranked from whom I feel are the best to the worst.

Contenders

UMBC: The Retrievers are the most physically talented team in the conference, especially on the offensive end, where all five of their starters have scored twenty or more points in a game at least twice on the season. No other team in the conference has the kind of offensive firepower that the Retrievers have, as they are not only the best outside shooting team in the conference, but also have the best frontcourt. Ray Barbosa and Brian Hodges can fill it up from downtown, and everyone on the team crashes the boards hard. Daryl Proctor is the best rebounder in the conference, and his physicality, combined with Cavell Johnson’s athleticism are tough to match-up with. Matt Spadafora has proven to be tremendously important, as he is the team’s best defender, and has the looks of potentially being a more athletic Brian Lillis down the line as he is quite the shot blocker for a guard. Getting Justin Fry going will also be huge to the Retrievers. Jay Greene is the most unsung and underrated player in the conference, as he is a wizard of a ball handler and distributor.

However, for all of the Retrievers’ talent, perhaps none of the other “contenders” have struggled as much with simply “showing up,” this year, and when UMBC is off, they are very beatable. As much as people pointed to a lack of a bench as an Achilles heel, what is really UMBC’s weakness is defense when they are not scoring. UMBC has the best seven-man rotation in the conference, hands down, and seven is enough to get by as long as they stay healthy, but what can not happen if the Retrievers are to remain serious contenders is to allow poor play on the offensive end to affect them on the defensive. UMBC took a step in the right direction in taking out BU while sputtering on offense, but it was against a punch-less BU without Corey Lowe.

Binghamton: First-year head coach Kevin Broadus has been fantastic in his first year, as the Bearcats have improved more over the course of the season than any other team in the conference, and are the conference’s hottest team in having won nine of their last twelve. Binghamton has the deepest bench in the conference, and Broadus has gotten the team playing the Princeton-style offense, and even more importantly, defense, as of late.

Mike Gordon deserves a good long look when it comes to Player of the Year voting, as he is the heart and soul of the team. He has done a phenomenal job balancing distributing and scoring duties, as well as carrying the team emotionally. Lazar Trifunovic has been crashing the boards and providing a great inside compliment to Gordon, and when Binghamton’s guards are on and Trifunovic is in single coverage, he can be devastating. However, Laz, as he is called, still needs to expand his repertoire to be considered an elite player in the conference, and he isn’t ready to carry the team when Gordon has an off night. Luckily, Binghamton has gotten some great play from senior Richard Forbes, who looks like a completely different player than the one he was last year.

Forbes’ play is a credit to Broadus, who has done a great job of handling the kind of problems that can pop up on any team. One such example came early in the year, when JuCo transfer Milos Klimovic appeared to be a cancer to the team, sulking on the bench, refusing to high-five teammates, and causing a stir over playing time. Broadus sat Klimovic for almost a month, and as of late Klimovic seems to have embraced his role as a shooter off of the bench. Broadus also benched freshman Devon McBride after an on-court outburst at Vermont. McBride has since left the team, and Binghamton has been playing its best ball of the season. Binghamton does still look susceptible to a dominant post presence, as Warren McLendon went to town against the Bearcats in Hartford’s win over them.

Vermont: The Catamounts are finally getting healthy, which should cause problems for the rest of the league. Marqus Blakely, as of right now, has been the Player of the Year in the conference, and is easily the most important player to the Catamounts. Blakely’s athleticism is unmatched in the conference, and after putting on a solid 15 pounds of muscle over the off-season, he is really doing damage in the post. While Blakely’s highlight-reel dunks have been the biggest crowd pleaser (seven in one game versus Maine!), he has made the biggest impact cleaning the glass and giving Vermont a shot-blocking presence that they have not had since the late Kevin Roberson. Mike Trimboli continues to provide fiery leadership and a big time outside shot, and Nick Vier appears to finally be coming into his own as a shooter (although he has hardly looked like a point guard). The biggest addition for Vermont, however, has been getting Kyle Cieplicki back from injury. Cieplicki, the longest-tenured captain in Vermont history, is a quiet leader who always seems to hit the big shot.

Vermont isn’t without its weaknesses however, as their atrocious foul shooting could really bite them come tournament time. Furthermore, for all his talents, Trimboli has yet to truly prove that he is “the man,” as he still has not been able to score (or at least score without taking a tremendous amount of shots) against teams who put big athletic players on him (see UMBC when he was covered by Spadafora). Furthermore, Blakely is a monster, but after him Vermont has looked very weak in the low post (again, see their game versus UMBC).

Hartford: The Hawks have been a huge question mark this season, at times looking like the team to beat, at other times looking beatable by anyone. One could say they sum up the league in a nutshell.

Hartford has been killed by outside shooting, and when they don’t have the services of Warren McLendon, they get killed in the post. When McLendon is on the floor, however, he changes the dynamic of the game, as he is easily the most skilled big man in the conference. The biggest problem with McLendon is the fact that he seems to be officiated differently than any other player in the conference. It’s unfortunate that he came in with the reputation that he did, and that he is almost too strong for his own good, because referees watch him like no other player. It would be one thing if he was called for a lot of “ticky-tack” fouls but also drew a lot of fouls on opponents, as no one in the conference gets hit the way he does every time down the court. However, what is so frustrating for him and the Hartford coaching staff is how the calls don’t seem to go both ways. On one end of the floor McLendon gets whistled for minor contact, yet on the other end opposing teams are allowed to hit him all game long without fear of being called for it.

One opposing coach who wanted to be quoted anonymously even said when asked about defending McLendon “the word is out, in the league, that you can play Warren in a way that you can’t play anyone else, and that you can get away with a ton of contact on him. Our philosophy is to make sure we hit him at least 3 times every offensive possession they have, and so far it didn’t hurt us when we played him, and the talk around the league is that that’s the way to play him. It’s a good thing, too, because we can basically take the most talented player in the league out of his game, because of the way he is being reffed.”

Albany: The Great Danes have looked great at times, and struggled greatly as well, a lot of it has to do with consistency in the team’s energy and effort every game, the team being everyone except for Brian Lillis. Lillis has done a phenomenal job going from a role player and defensive stopper in the shadow of Jamar Wilson and Jason Siggers to one of the best players in the league and a go-to scorer. No other guard in recent memory has been the kind of shot-blocker that Lillis is, either. Lillis has been able to score, defend, and crash the boards for Albany, and there is no question that he is not only the team’s best scorer, defender, and rebounder, but also the heart of the team.

Unfortunately for the Danes, the supporting cast has struggled greatly. Other than spurts here and there, Brent Wilson has not upped his game to become anything more than a zone-busting shooter from downtown. Tim Ambrose, who has all the talent in the world, has struggled to simply see time on the floor due to his lack of a grasp of the D-I game. Albany also has gotten nothing on the offensive end from any of their three centers, and while Brian Connelly has been solid and gets an A for his hustle, he certainly hasn’t lived up to the pre-season billing.

With that said, Albany has a ton of size, and really crashes the boards. They also got Josh Martin back from injury, which is huge because Lillis can move back off of the ball and become even more of a scorer. Jon Iati deserves special recognition, as he was told last March that his career was over, has not practiced all season, has only seventy-percent feeling in one of his legs, and is still giving everything he has in games, and has hit some huge shots during the year.

The Best of the rest

New Hampshire: Coach Bill Herrion has the best freshman class in the conference, and if he can bring in another one like it, he will have a serious contender on his hands in the future. The Wildcats have dealt with some serious adversity this year, already having a short roster and having to play without Tyrone Conley (mono) and Rony Tchatchoua (academics) for long periods of time. The Wildcats struggled greatly playing so short-handed, but they never, ever, gave up, and their all-out play could cause serious problems in the tournament for opponents, especially because they are now back to full strength.

Alvin Abreu is the Rookie of the Year, hands down, and he has a combination of skills, ability, effort, and mind-set, rarely seen at this level. Abreu, who can light it up from outside, put the ball on the floor, post up, and finish with either hand around the hoop like Jamar Wilson, could be the next to join Wilson, T.J. Sorrentine, and Jose Juan Barea, as an elite guard to come through the America East. Tyrece Gibbs has raised his game to a new level, and has become a big-time shooter, while Mike Christensen has finally realized that he’s 6’8″, and at times has ditched the three-ball and crossover dribble for post-up moves. Dane DiLiegro, who somehow was not recruited by anyone else in the conference, looks to be the real deal in the post, and is not only a terrific rebounder, but one of the most tenacious finishers (via the slam dunk) in the conference.

The Basement

Boston University: Corey Lowe looked like a Player of the Year candidate, and his absence only furthers his case, as without him the Terriers look like, on both offense and defense, five chickens running around with their heads cut off. If Lowe returns to health, the Terriers should make their way out of the basement. Without him, they are flat-out a bad team.

Tyler Morris missed almost half a year due to injury, and he plays as hard as he can, but simply isn’t back to his old self physically. John Holland looks like he could be a special player down the road, as he is not only a top-notch athlete and big-time dunker, but a real shooter who can beat defenders off of the dribble. However, it is asking an awful lot of Holland to expect him, as a true freshman, to carry the team, which is exactly where the Terriers are at right now. Carlos Strong’s game seems to have regressed, and he doesn’t seem to want to beat his man off of the dribble right now.

The Terriers’ true failing is their lack of any kind of low post game. Scott Brittain provided some scoring in the post early on, but he seems to have regressed, and even at his best, Brittain isn’t a physical player in the low post. BU has been lacking that sort of physical play in the post all season, and could really use a Ryan Butt, Jason Grochowalski, Billy Collins, Rashad Bell, or Kevin Gardner, as they get pushed around nightly. They also can be terribly overmatched athletically against conference foes, something hard to fathom considering their high-flying teams from 2002-2004.

Maine: The Black Bears have beaten UMBC on the road and Albany on the road, and looked terrible against everyone else. This displays 2 things: Maine has some talent, and they don’t seem to know how to execute any kind of a game plan. Every once in a great while the Black Bears can win on talent, but most of the time, they are bogged down in the quagmire they call a game plan.

Junior Bernal is a great slasher, but he needs to be moved off the ball. Unfortunately Maine doesn’t have anyone to run the point. Mark Socoby continues to improve and is a deadly shooter when teams play Maine in a zone defense, but he has struggled against physical or athletic defenders when played in man coverage.

The most baffling aspect of Ted Woodward’s offense is the lack of playing time and touches that Brian Andre has been getting since the conference season began. Andre was unstoppable against the likes of Providence and Florida State, and at 6’9″ and 310 pounds with good athleticism, most America East teams can do little to stop him. However, since the conference play began, Woodward has seemed more willing to just let his guards chuck it and keep Andre on the bench. Andre should be getting at least 10-15 (more in the vicinity of 15) shots a game, which would force defenses to focus on him and free up Maine’s shooters.

Stony Brook: Steve Pikiell stated that when he took over the job three seasons ago he had, in essence, a Division III team, and brought in half a team last year and half a team this year. He feels confident that next season they will turn the corner.

However, after watching the improvement of New Hampshire and Hartford, one has to wonder exactly how long it should realistically take to show some improvement. The Seawolves have some talent, especially in the post, but they refuse to give their bigs any touches around the hoop, and instead play as a team full of “chuckers” around the perimeter. Furthermore, Pikiell still hasn’t fully grasped a true rotation, as playing time seems to be, at times, arbitrary. The Seawolves have three point guards who one any given night could play 25 minutes or 2 minutes, and that seems to sum up their team.

UMBC Wins Ugly

Retrievers Show They Can Win Ugly

by Sam Perkins

BOSTON – How much could one really take away from a game when the league’s best team takes on one of the league’s worst? When the best team plays well below its potential, and their opponent is playing without its best player, a player whom the offense and defense flows through, and without whom the team can not function?

In UMBC’s win over Boston University on Tuesday night, which was such a game, you could actually take away a great deal.

For starters, if anyone out there had any doubts as to Corey Lowe’s validity as a conference Player of the Year candidate, they needed to look no further than how the Terriers functioned on the court without him. It was also very evident that Randy Monroe should be the front runner for the conference’s Coach of the Year awards, as he has not only been able to seamlessly blend together first-year transfers and four-year players, but he has them believing and buying in to everything he preaches. Beyond that, the Retrievers looked as dangerous as they have all season by being able to win when they play a flat-out bad game, by their standards at least.

The Retrievers currently lead the league in points per game, scoring margin, three-point field goal percentage, turnover margin, assists, and assist-to-turnover ratio among other categories. Suffice to say, they can score, a lot. All five starters for UMBC have at least two twenty-plus point scoring games on the season, and Matt Spadafora has provided a scoring spark off of the bench – he scored a career-high 18 points against Hampton earlier this year. Four of the five (Jay Greene being the exception) have won the conference player of the week award at least once. The Retrievers love to put points up in bunches, firing away from behind the arc as well as in the post, and they excel in fast-paced, high-scoring games.

Terrier head coach Dennis Wolff was quoted as saying the UMBC is “physically the most talented team in the league right now,” before adding, “they’ve got grown men.” When UMBC plays on all cylinders and plays at their potential, there isn’t a team in the league with much of a shot of beating them.

But the Retrievers have struggled to win when they don’t come out firing on all cylinders on offense. The Retrievers have struggled when they have an off shooting night, as happens to all teams, and when they aren’t simply blowing their opponents out of the water, the Retrievers have been very vulnerable, as they have lost low-scoring games (at least by their standards) to Central Connecticut, Maine, and most recently Binghamton. The common theme in all three of those losses, games which UMBC should have won, was that the Retrievers seemed to play with a lack of fire and enthusiasm, they seemed to get flustered when their shots weren’t falling, which carried over to the defensive end of the floor.

Earlier this year Monroe stated that he “constantly tells (his team) that you need a staple, and it needs to be on the defensive end. We’re going to have games when our shots don’t fall, and we need to be able to come up with stops on the other end.”

Tuesday night, the Retrievers finally bucked the trend, as they had one of their worst shooting nights of the year from behind the arc in hitting only two of seventeen three-pointers (11.8%), and managed only 62 points. But they held BU to 40 points in getting the win. Furthermore, the Retrievers played as hard as they have all season, despite having an off night. They played tremendous defense in several different sets.

It would be incredibly easy to dismiss the Retrievers’ efforts on the defensive end as simply being the product of playing against a punch-less BU team reeling from the loss of Lowe. There is no argument that the Terriers’ effectiveness is exponentially diminished without their leading scorer, but they still have some big-time shooters on the team. UMBC used a pressure-zone defense that had BU playing scared and bewildered all night. But it was more than simply forcing BU to shoot 25 percent from the floor: UMBC played with an energy on the defensive end that they haven’t had all season. Players rotated over around the perimeter and collapsed in the post, and there didn’t seem to be a single blown assignment or play all night.

“Our defense was terrific,” Monroe said. “These guys probably go to bed at night hearing my voice talking about defense, whether its man defense, zone defense, low post defense. They exemplified what type of team they could be if they really devote and really work hard at the defensive end. I was really proud of their efforts because I thought it triggered our offense.”

The Retrievers’ effort all night, and their effectiveness on the defensive end especially, made their coach especially pleased. Despite a sluggish night on the offensive end, the always animated Monroe kept his sports coat on for the first fifteen minutes of the game, and didn’t lose his tie until five minutes into the second half (quite possibly personal bests).

“I’m a little animated,” joked Monroe after the game, before turning serious and adding, “but it’s just because I want them to maintain that level of intensity. I love my guys to death, but I want them to really stay focused, and from the beginning of the game to the end to play hard. I was really, really pleased with that intensity and passion that they played with today, they really brought it.”

No one brought it more than Daryl Proctor, whom flustered Scott Brittain, BU’s lone low-post scoring threat, into fouling out in a mere 20 minutes of playing time. Proctor held Britain to zero points on 0-4 shooting while dominating the offensive glass. Watching Proctor (who stands much closer to 6’2″ in shoes than his listed 6’4″) go to work on Brittain (6’9″) was a thing of beauty in the early going, as Proctor fought for tremendous positioning on the offensive end, and simply dismantled Brittain and the rest of BU’s front court with an array of spin moves, and the prettiest fade-away jumper in the conference.

Proctor notched a double-double, which has seemingly become automatic at this point, scoring 12 points to go along with 12 rebounds. No one in the conference plays as hard as Proctor, and as is always the case, Proctor gave everything he had for all of his rebounds, fighting through double teams in the post, while catching an assortment of elbows, forearms, and hip-checks along the way. But for Proctor, being as undersized and physical as he is in the post, the beating he took in the paint was all in a day’s work.

“They came out playing tough,” said the junior forward. “Elbows, getting hit, that’s nothing, that happens every game, I just play through it.”

Monroe replaced senior Cavell Johnson, whom had started every game of the season, with sophomore Justin Fry, whom had slumped for much of the year, in the starting lineup. Monroe’s influence on his team, and the way his team believes in him, has never been more evident as it was with his lineup change. For many seniors like Johnson, being removed from the starting lineup more than halfway through the final season of his career, could cause an array of negative emotions and send ripples throughout the team. But Johnson not only accepted Monroe’s decision, but he agreed and embraced it.

“I’ve been in a skid the past few games, and for my own psyche, I thought was good to be coming off the bench at the beginning, to take a step back and calm down a little bit,” he reflected.

Johnson responded by scoring a game-high 13 points on 6-9 shooting, including a monstrous two-handed slam in traffic that sucked all the air out of Case Gymnasium. Even more important than Johnson’s play was the effect on Fry. It would be easy for Johnson to be bitter towards a younger teammate who took his starting spot, but Johnson was the first to erupt in applause or shout encouragement towards Fry, and the first to great him with a high-five or a hug at timeouts or during substitutions, which may well have played a big part in the confidence that Fry seemed to play with.

As big as the Retrievers’ newfound ability to win while playing ugly was, Fry’s performance was equally big, and will be equally key for the Retrievers if they hope to make a run to the NCAA tournament. Fry won a starting job last season, and as a freshman established himself as a top shot blocker in the conference, and at 6’9″ with the ability to score from in the paint and behind the arc, Fry was already presenting match-up problems for opponents. But after beginning the season as a starter, he seemed to regress, and struggle with his confidence. Against the Terriers, Fry played his best game of the season, scoring the team’s first five points and a team-high twelve in the first half on 5-7 shooting. Fry displayed the depth of his game, scoring on several pretty drop steps and spin moves in the low post, finishing off a picture perfect pick and role, and nailing a deep three.

While he didn’t score in the second half, spending most of the time on the bench in foul trouble, Fry made his presence known, and carried the Retrievers in the early going as their offense sputtered.

“Justin Fry has ability like you wouldn’t believe. He’s very big (in his importance to the team),” said Monroe. “I don’t think Justin knows how good he can be right now. I just think he’s terrific, for a big guy he has very good skills, and he’s starting to come into his own, over the past few games. He’s starting to be more aggressive, he’s starting to do an effective job, and he’s starting to really feel good about what he’s doing. I just think that his best basketball is certainly ahead of him. And I think as we move along in the season he’s going to be a very big part of what we do.”

The Retrievers also got terrific efforts on the defensive end from their two top scorers, Brian Hodges and Ray Barbosa, despite both struggling on the offensive end. Jay Greene once again showed that he is the best distributor in the conference, dishing out nine assists, including a forty-foot no look bounce pass to Johnson. Greene also nailed a three from somewhere in Brighton to end any hopes the Terriers had at a comeback. Matt Spadafora continued to bring energy and athleticism, as well as defense, off of the bench, and closed out the game with a high flying two-handed dunk right on a BU defender that had to leave the Terriers with a bad taste in their mouths.

For Boston University, the game illustrated just how much they need Corey Lowe, and just how ineffective the rest of the roster of the preseason favorites is. Lowe, who missed the game because of bursitis in his knee, is the only Terrier who can create his own shot. Lowe has literally taken over games this season, not only carrying the point guard duties, but also as the team’s go to scorer, and without him, BU was completely lost on the court.

Wolff took all of the blame on himself after the game.

“Obviously, very disappointing. My first thought was men against boys tonight,” said Wolff. “We, for whatever the reasons, are not physically or mentally tough enough to sustain good play. Ultimately, that responsibility is mine, and at the moment, I’m doing a bad job of trying to convey how we need to approach a game.”

As tough as Wolff’s comments were on himself, and as unwilling as he was to use the absence of Corey Lowe as an excuse for the performance, there is only so much he can do with the roster he has, as the Terriers are simply not a very talented team, at least not right now. Tyler Morris is nowhere near the player he was last year, as he missed roughly half a year due to injury, and while he is still a terrific shooter, right now he can’t physically attack the rim, or create his own shot like he could last season. Carlos Strong, despite being a terrific athlete, is a shooter who needs to be set up by someone else to score, and whose game seems to have taken a big step back.

Even more troubling is the Terriers’ absolute lack of a post game. Scott Brittain can score, but he isn’t a physical body, and certainly isn’t the kind of player (at least not yet) who can take over a game in the low blocks, and shed double teams and pull down rebounds in traffic. After Brittain, the Terriers don’t have any other low post options. Physicality is also a troubling part of BU’s team, as the Terriers are constantly out-muscled and pushed around in the paint every game. The only player against the Retrievers to display any physical play was Matt Wolff, whom gave a hard foul to break up a Cavell Johnson dunk attempt, and another hard foul on Proctor.

But the most troubling aspect of the Terriers’ woes has been their failure to grasp the fundamentals and play tight defense, a staple of all Wolff-coached teams, and the lack of composure and ability to do the basic things has the Terriers coach at wit’s end.

“The frustrating part of it, from where the coaches are sitting, are such fundamental things,” said Wolff. “We have numbers on a fast break and it turns into a lay-up for them. We seemingly have rebounds, and the next thing we don’t have a rebound.”

Wolff added that inexperience is a factor, but that’s not all. “Some of it is guys caught up in their own world. That’s something that I’ve been talking about since October. Now we’re in the middle of January. Now we’ve got to get that straightened out before we can start playing good basketball.”

For the Retrievers, the sky is the limit, as the resurgence of Fry gives them a seventh scoring option on offense, and while their bench isn’t deep, how many other teams in the conference can boast that they have seven scoring options? (You’d have a hard time finding another team in the conference with more than two true scorers). There has never been a question of whether UMBC can win when their scoring 80 or more points, but they have finally showed the mental toughness and resolve to win when their off, something crucial in the America East Tournament’s “win three or go home” format. Monroe’s ability to get his whole team to follow his philosophy, and to successfully mesh in 1st year transfers and veterans, and to have no fighting over playing time or shots, makes it hard to think anyone else is more deserving for top coaching honors.

The Terriers will struggle to win another game as long as Lowe is out, and looking at just how bad, and how lost, the Terriers were without him, is as compelling a case as anyone for why he is the most valuable player to his team in the conference, and a strong contender for Player of the Year.

Albany’s Win A Potential Boost

This time, it’s the size of the Dog in the Fight

by Sam Perkins

BOSTON – Before the start of the season, most America East followers circled Wednesday night’s match up between the Albany Great Danes and the Boston University Terriers as an early battle for conference supremacy, and a potential preview for the conference championship game. Instead, Wednesday night was contest between two teams in need of a win, two teams struggling to find an identity, and two teams who needed to stay out of the conference basement at all costs.

Both Boston University and Albany were coming into the game following bad losses, with Albany getting blown out by Binghamton at home and Boston University losing badly to a Hartford squad playing a sub-par game of its own. Dropping to 1-3 would be disastrous for a Terrier squad picked almost unanimously to finish first in the conference, and a 2-3 start would be equally disastrous for an Albany squad trying to regroup.

The game would prove to be a battle between both team’s stars, for Albany senior Brian Lillis, and for Boston University sophomore Corey Lowe. Both players are vital to their teams, and neither squad has been able to win when their go-to players have struggled. However, the key difference has been that Lowe has had to win the majority of the Terriers’ games on his own, while Albany has followed Lillis’ lead, as when their star steps up so do the Great Danes.

“When this team plays at Brian Lillis’ level energy and enthusiasm wise, it’s as good as any in this league, when it doesn’t it’s as bad as any team in this league,” remarked Albany head coach Will Brown.

Maybe it’s simply more talent in his supporting cast, or maybe it’s a different mindset, or senior leadership that can explain why the Danes tend to step up around there star, while Lowe has had to win games single handedly.

“It’s putting too much pressure on him,” remarked Terriers’ Head Coach Dennis Wolff. “There’s a feeling from him where he’s got to make plays. And he’s playing to help us win, but what we have to do is get these other guys involved more, and it’s them and not him.”

Albany came out fast, with the Terriers unable to match the Danes’ energy on the court. Brent Wilson torched the Terriers from behind the arc, with Lillis scoring by slashing to the hoop, and Brian Connelly set up shop in the paint. The Terriers, who have struggled all season long early in their games, soon found themselves trailing 31-14.

“We didn’t match their intensity to start,” remarked Wolff. “I don’t think we worked hard enough to get a good shot early.”

Albany’s team energy was on another level from Boston University’s to open the game, and Wilson attributed that to a sense of urgency the team felt.

“When we play like our backs are up against the wall, we’re a very good team,” said Wilson. “But when we just kind of go out there and go through the motions, the results show.”

As good as Albany was, the Terriers were that bad to start, moving around lethargically on the court and displaying poor shot selection. But most troubling was how easily Albany was able to break through the Terriers’ defense, something that had been a staple of Wolff-coached teams. Said Wolff: “Our defense is not good right now. If we’re picking these stat sheets up at the end of the game and their shooting fifty-four percent, we’re losing.”

But as has been the norm for most of the season, opponents can only contain Corey Lowe for so long, and the Terriers’ sophomore came alive late in the first half, hitting from well behind the arc and getting to the hoop in transition. Lowe’s emergence couldn’t have come at a better time, as some questionable calls led to both Wilson and Lillis spending extended time on the bench, and Albany’s offense began to flounder as the Terriers picked up, and the Danes went in to the locker room clinging to a 34-26 lead.

Boston University came out of the half with a renewed energy on the court, with Lowe and freshman John Holland energizing the crowd of 1,800-plus, as their highlight reel dunks brought “the Roof,” to a volume that it hasn’t reached in years. Unfortunately, every time Boston University went on a run, Albany answered, and for every high-flying dunk, there was a Jon Iati three-pointer, or a Connelly lay-up.

And when Albany couldn’t capitalize on their first try, there was usually a second or third opportunity, as the Danes destroyed BU on the boards in out-rebounding them 38-20, and pulling down 14 offensive rebounds to BU’s ten defensive boards. With all of their offensive problems, the Terriers lack of any semblance of an inside presence may be their hardest to overcome, as Wolff has found his team out-rebounded and out-muscled nightly, with no real answer in sight.

“You can’t get out-rebounded by the number that we were out-rebounded and think your going to have a chance to win,” said Wolff. “Particularly when you’re giving them second and third chances after we’ve had half-decent defensive possessions. To me that was the whole story of the game.”

Yet even with the Terriers’ struggles, they still had a chance down the stretch, but Lillis once again stepped up, hitting nine foul shots down the stretch (he hit fifteen of sixteen on the night). For Brown, however, Lillis was most important when it came down to the foul shots he passed up.

“He’s a funny kid, because he made fifteen out of sixteen, but when we needed to inbound the ball, he said ‘Coach, let me inbound the ball,’ so that shows how unselfish he is, because with a lot of kids, when they’re in the groove, they want to get back to the line and get some more points.”

Equally important for Brown was just keeping Lillis on the court, as Lillis picked up his fourth foul with four minutes left in the game, and Brown summoned him to the bench. But after Lillis pleaded with him to remain in the game, Brown conceded, and Lillis then went on to put the game away, as Albany held on for a 70-63 victory, and Lillis finished with a game-high 27 points and a career-high twelve rebounds.

Coming into the season, Brown had felt that Lillis would need to step up his scoring for the Danes to be successful, especially with the departure of seniors Jamar Wilson and Jason Siggers. But even Brown didn’t imagine that Lillis, a defensive stopper who averaged below seven points a game last year, would become the leading scorer in conference games, and a potential player of the year candidate. Lillis has stepped up his game from role player to star, and Brown won’t hesitate to speak his mind on how important he feels his senior captain is.

“I think Brian’s the best player in this league right now, definitely the most valuable player in this league,” he offered. “He’s had one sub-par game in league play and that was against (the University of New Hampshire), and the whole team was flat. Other than that, he’s dominated every game he’s played in.”

For the Great Danes, the victory over the Terriers is the kind that could make a season, as they now appear to be headed in the right direction, with Lillis proving that he can be a go to scorer, and the supporting cast realizing their roles.

The Terriers, however, are a team full of questions and few answers. Wolff knows what he has in Lowe, who finished with a team-high 20 points and continues to put up gaudy scoring numbers despite facing double teams. Holland, who finished with 19, continues to improve, and if they can get Carlos Strong and Tyler Morris going, BU will be in games as long as they can shoot.

However, it is going to be very hard for BU to compete with top-tier teams as long as they get nothing in the paint, and it is hard to imagine this current Terriers squad competing with the post play of UMBC, Hartford, Binghamton, and Vermont.