Sunday, January 25, 2009

Raffa battles through injury

ALBANY - Sophomore point guard Anthony Raffa obviously wasn't himself on Sunday, but he still played a significant role.

His 3-pointer after UMBC took a 57-56 lead, their only edge of the second half, was in my mind the biggest shot of the game.

Raffa scored eight points in 21 minutes, but he was in obvious pain with a groin injury on top of a sore ankle and an injured toe.

“I knew I was going to play,” Raffa said. “I guess I wasn’t all the way there because I was still trying to fight through the pain.”

Raffa practiced on Saturday, through what was a long practice and fought through what ended up being a critical win for the Great Danes.

Raffa also said that he felt defensively, UAlbany slowed all-conference player Jay Greene.

“I think me, Mike Johnson and Jerel (Hastings) did a pretty good job on Jay Greene,” Raffa said. “He’s basically their leader and he gets everybody involved and I think we did a good job of denying him the ball.”

While Saturday's practice was supposed to be rough, UAlbany coach Will Brown had this moment of reflection after the game.

“I’ve been part of the problem because I’ve gotten very inpatient with this basketball team,” Brown said. “I don’t like to use excuses, I don’t like to make excuses — if we get beat, we get beat, but I think this team can sense my impatience and sense when I get frustrated and I tried my best tonight, even when they cut it down to one, to relax.”

He then followed later on with this.

“The only thing I asked them since the Stony Brook game, heading into this game, I said ‘All I’m asking you guys give me, is great effort and I’ll work with you,’” Brown said.
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Brown also said he can't wait for Wednesday's game to be over because the team will have eight days off and he plans on making some personnel changes.

“I can’t wait until the Hartford game is over with, so I’ve got a week to slide Will Harris down to the power forward spot, so he can learn our sets,” Brown said. “So I can play him and (Brian)Connelly up front and really cause some problems for teams.”
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Brown also said something that caught my attention.

UAlbany is 9-0 when they score more than 65 points in a game. What's even more interesting is that they are 0-3 when they score 64.

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