ALBANY - While the University at Albany players agreed on Tuesday that it was a little early to be talking about first place, that's exactly where the Great Danes would sit in the America East if they can knock of Binghamton on Wednesday.

"I think we have enough talent to win an America East Conference Tournament," UAlbany coach Will Brown said Tuesday. "I'm still learning about this team and I want to see if have what to takes to win an America East regular season (title), if we can do over it 16 games and maintain our focus."

The Great Danes (2-1, 10-6) take on a Bearcats (3-0, 10-5) team that has won six of their last seven and seems to be coming together at the right time.

"We knew from the beginning that this team had a lot of talent," said senior co-captain Brian Connelly of Binghamton.

While Brown says he doesn't consider this a rivalry (see below), this has become a heated series.

In last year's game in Vestal, the postgame handshake turned into an all-out shoving match that led to both Binghamton coach Kevin Broadus and UAlbany assistant coach Chad O'Donnell being suspended for one game apiece.

"What happened, happed," Connelly said. "It's two totally different teams pretty much and I think it's water under the bridge at this point."

While Binghamton has a local player in Troy's Tiki Mayben (who my story in Tuesday's print edition focused on), they are led by Saint Joseph's transfer, D.J. Rivera.

Rivera leads the conference with 21.3 points per game.

"He's always in attack mode," Brown said. "He scores in a variety of ways."

Brown stressed the importance of not getting caught up in Binghamton's style of play.

"I think the way they want to play is kind of like a pickup game almost, up and down the court, fastbreaking," Connelly said. "That's not our style of play. It never has been. We're more on the defensive end I would say and play more team basketball."

One of the major reasons UAlbany is playing for first place has been the play of Will Harris.

The 6-foot-6 junior transfer is averaging 17 points and 9.7 rebounds in America East play (see below for more on that).

"I want us to have a good season and tournament, so we can do some good things," Harris said.
Brown said he talked to his team about breaking the conference schedule into four parts, the first of which could end tonight with UAlbany in first place.

"I think our guys are feeling pretty good right now an they're anxious to play tomorrow night," Brown said.

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Here's what Brown had to say about this not really being a rivalry.

"I don't think so," Brown said. "I think rivalries are either what you have with Albany and Siena as far as a local rivalry, where everybody's involved from alumni to students to administration or in your league, a rivalry is a team you've played meaningful games against, so for me I look at Vermont because we've played meaningful games against them that had championship implications and to a lesser extent B.U. (Boston)."

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Harris said his streak of two conference double-doubles shouldn't have ended Sunday in Vermont.

"I feel like I had a double-double actually," said Harris about his 20-point, 9-rebound performance. "Coach (Pat) Filien told me I had six rebounds at halftime, so I had to have at least 10 or 11 rebounds, so somebody messed up on the stats and I kind of want to get that changed."

If anyone's listing in Burlington.

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As far an injuries go, Brown said that Harris practiced Monday and Tuesday, Connelly still hasn't practiced and Louis Barraza doesn't have a fracture in his heel or foot.

"I think everybody should be good to go," Brown said.

Prediction: UAlbany 74, Binghamton 70 (No pushing this time either. My record is 12-4. UAlbany is 5-0 at home. I'll take a loss for the Vermont game since I didn't have a selection)