Saturday, January 30, 2010

"Just hope he misses"

POUGHKEEPSIE - I had a chance to catch up with Marist coach Chuck Martin after Siena's 79-60 victory over Martin's Red Foxes.

The main topic was Edwin Ubiles, who scored 15 points after returning to the lineup.

“You can do a bunch of things,” said Martin about how to play Ubiles defensively. “You can force him left, he wants to go right, you can run guys at him, but when you’re as talented as he is and they have as many weapons surrounding him, it’s difficult. Really what you do, is, you just hope he misses."

Ubiles hit a big shot just before halftime as Martin brought up coaching at Memphis, where was an assistant and that's what (future No. 1 pick) Derrick Rose would do, just make a shot to prove the fact that he was the better player.

“It confirms the fact that, yeah I’m good and you know I’m good and I’m going to show you I’m good,” said Martin.

*****

Alex Franklin sent most of the Marist students heading for the gates of the McCann Center with his one back-scratching slam with 6:05 to that gave Siena a 70-49 lead.

“I’m just used to dunking, so I criticize myself pretty hard,” said Franklin, after he replied that the dunk wasn't one of his better ones.

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Siena 79, Marist 60

POUGHKEEPSIE - Marist cut the score to four early in the second half, but Siena then went on a 10-0 run to assume control of the game and end up cruising to victory.

Alex Franklin led the Saints with 22 points, Ryan Rossiter finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds and Edwin Ubiles added 15.

Korey Bauer led the Red Foxes with 18 points.

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Siena 39, Marist 30 (half)

POUGHKEEPSIE - Siena is out in front, but it hasn't been easy.

Marist has kept the game close, but doesn't have any answer down low for Ryan Rossiter and Alex Franklin, who combined for 18 of Siena's first 22 points.

The Red Foxes have battled back thanks in large part to Korey Bauer, who has scored 14.

Franklin has 15 to lead the Saints, who get a big boost from Edwin Ubiles, who scored nine straight Siena points and finished the half with a jumper at the buzzer.

Also, Owen Wignot is likely done for the day as during the intermission he had his left shoe off and was walking into the trainer's room.

He also has a huge bag of ice around the left ankle area.

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Wignot in starting lineup

POUGHKEEPSIE - Edwin Ubiles isn't in the starting lineup for Siena.

Owen Wignot is in his place with Ryan Rossiter, Clarence Jackson, Ronald Moore and Alex Franklin.

For Marist, it's Devin Price, Daye Kaba, Candon Rusin, Ron Johnson and Korey Bauer.

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Ubiles to play???

POUGHKEEPSIE - It seems as if Siena senior Edwin Ubiles will give it a go today in a homecoming for him as the Saints take on Marist.

He warmed up with the team and that's a good sign for Siena.

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Friday, January 29, 2010

Ubiles doubtful for Marist

LOUDONVILLE - Siena senior Edwin Ubiles said he is a game-time decision for tomorrow's game against Marist.

Ubiles has missed the last two games with a shoulder injury and hasn't practiced in a week.

"If I don't play tomorrow, I'm pretty sure I'll be back for the next game after that," Ubiles said.

The next game for Siena is the Gold Rush night on Friday, Feb. 5 versus Iona.

While the Poughkeepsie native would like to return for the Marist game, he has also thought about how sitting out would give him another six days to recover.

"I've thought about that and maybe I should sit this one out, but I am going back to my hometown," Ubiles said. "A lot of people are looking forward to seeing me play. I'm not going to force anything, but I'm going to see how it feels."

Ubiles has missed three of the last four games, first with back spasms and now suffering with a shoulder injury.

"It's a little frustrating," he said. "Nobody wants to miss any games. I'd love to be out there to give my team a better chance at winning the game as well. If we lose a game, it's not going to be fun knowing that if I was out there, there would have been a different feel to the game. Fortunately, we're still winning and keeping positive. I'm just glad to see these guys keeping it up without me."

The only game Ubiles has played of the last four was when he hit the big 3-pointer to ice the narrow victory over Loyola (Md.).

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Siena streaking

Thanks to losses last night from Northeastern and BYU, Siena College currently holds the longest winning streak in the nation at 11 games.

Here's the current list.

11, Siena
10, Morehead State
10, Murray State
10, Vanderbilt
10, Villanova
9, Michigan St.
9, Oakland
8, Butler
8, Gonzaga
8, Jacksonville

The Saints put their winning streak on the line tonight at Saint Peter's.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ambrose remains seated

ALBANY - As the University at Albany looked to mount a comeback on Wednesday against Hartford, their lineup looked a little different.

Jake Lindfors, Scotty McRae, Mike Black, Logan Aronhalt and Billy Allen.

No Will Harris, who was out for a third straight game with a leg injury and no Tim Ambrose, who sat on the bench for the final 3:37 of the game because of his recent late-game decision-making.

"We need Tim to make better decisions because I want him on the floor down the stretch," said UAlbany coach Will Brown. "Tonight, he didn’t deserve to be on the floor down the stretch."

Ambrose had six turnovers in the game and had a costly turnover late in the team's last game at Stony Brook.

"He's been on the floor in crunch time and hasn't answered the bell," Brown said. "Until he makes better decision down the stretch, we'll go with the young guys."

The Great Danes are now halfway through their conference schedule and have just one win, over a UMBC team that is 1-20.

It's clear that the veterans need to step up or this season will not get any brighter.

"We have to play better," McRae said. "We have to help lead them and help teach them how to make good decisions, while we make good decisions. We have to lead by example more so than verbally and I feel that will help us get some more wins."

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Hartford 64, UAlbany 62

ALBANY - UAlbany didn't start the game out too good, either offensively or defensively.

The Great Danes shot just 1-for-9 and had six turnovers in the first 10 minutes.

Hartford wasn't that much better, but they did jump to a 19-7 lead with Joe Zeglinski's 3-pointer, before UAlbany rattled off 7-0 run to get back into it.

Zeglinski finished the half with 12 points, including two 3-pointers, to lead the Hawks.

Redshirt freshman Jake Lindfors led the Great Danes with eight points, including two treys and both Billy Allen and Tim Ambrose each scored six.

UAlbany really got back into the game, thanks to the 3-pointer, which accounted for four of their last five baskets of the half (two each from Allen and Lindfors).

*****

Another tough loss for the Great Danes to swallow.

UAlbany was down two with 30 seconds to go and failed to get a great look.

Lindfors' runner rimmed out and then Mike Black's desperation 3-pointer was well short.

Zeglinski finished with a game-high 21 points, while Morgan Sabia added 12 for Hartford.

The Great Danes got 14 from Logan Aronhalt and 10 from Ambrose, who wasn't on the floor in the game's final minutes.

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Harris out for UAlbany

ALBANY - University at Albany senior Will Harris is dressed to impress, but not wearing his Great Danes uniform, so it looks like the forward will miss his third straight game.

UAlbany is in desperate for a win tonight in their America East Conference game against Hartford.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Franklin MAAC Player of the Week

Siena senior Alex Franklin was named MAAC Player of the Week on Monday.

Franklin shot 55 percent from the field and averaged 24.5 points, nine rebounds and two blocks in wins over Loyola (Md.) and Manhattan.

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Friday, January 22, 2010

Siena/Niagara on ESPN2

Siena's game at Niagara on Friday, Feb. 12, has been selected as one of the two MAAC men's basketball matchups that will be nationally televised.

The game, which is slated for an 8 p.m. tip, will be broadcast on ESPN2.

The other game for that night, Fairfield at Rider, will be on ESPNU at 7 p.m.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Siena 67, Loyola 61

ALBANY - Edwin Ubiles started and played most of the first half.

That wasn't the problem for Siena.

The Saints got a lackluster performance from pretty much everyone not named Ubiles in the first half and therefore trail by five.

Ubiles has a game-high 12 at intermission.

For Loyola, Shane Walker and J'hared Hall each scored 10 points in the first 20 minutes.

The Greyhounds got out a to a 13-4 lead in the first five minutes.

Ronald Moore, Clarence Jackson and Alex Franklin combined for just seven points.

*****

Ubiles hits a big three late and the Saints extend their home court winning streak to 32 and more importantly improve to 9-0 in the MAAC and win their 10th consecutive game.

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Ubiles in starting lineup (update)

ALBANY - While senior Edwin Ubiles was warming up earlier, he is not on the court right now as the team goes through their final warmups before tonight's game against Loyola (Md.).

Ubiles missed the team's last game, Monday against Manhattan, with spasms in his back.

Kyle Griffin is on the floor and looks like he will play.

Jonathan Breeden is out with migraines.

Update: Ubiles came out about 20 minutes before tip and is in the starting lineup for tonight.

It'll be interesting to see how long he plays and if his back acts up at any point.

*****

Loyola has had issues of their own.

Brett Harvey is not in the starting lineup for the Greyhounds, but Harvey is dressed.

Loyola is without junior Jamal Barney, who is no longer with the team.

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Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Downey out indefinitely

Siena sophomore Kyle Downey is out indefinitely after breaking his right foot in practice on Tuesday night.

This comes one day after Downey's most productive game of the season, a career-high 16 points against Manhattan and is a significant blow to Siena's bench depth.

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Tuesday, January 19, 2010

UAlbany tripled to death

Boston University knocked down a school-record 16 3-pointers and cruised to a 79-58 victory over UAlbany on Tuesday night.

While the loss is to the preseason pick to win the league, it leaves the Great Danes (1-4, 6-14) tied for seventh in the league standings and we're almost one-third of the way through with the conference schedule.

Another negative is that senior Will Harris, who came into the game with an Achilles injury, injured his left knee and missed the game's final 16 minutes.

Coach Will Brown said he thought Harris would be unlikely to play when the Great Danes host Maine on Thursday at SEFCU Arena.

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McCaffery: Hard hits must stop

At Siena's weekly media get-together, the nature of recent hard hits on Saints players came up.

In the last two home games, against Canisius and Manhattan, a couple of Siena players have taking hard hits.

"It's got to stop," said Siena coach Fran McCaffery. "It's got to stop. I've had enough."

Against Canisius, Alex Franklin suffered a busted lip and landed on his elbow after getting undercut by Robert Goldsberry.

Monday night, against Manhattan both Ryan Rossiter and Clarence Jackson were the victims of flagrant fouls.

McCaffery said he's addressed the matter with the MAAC and was going to talk to Athletic Directory John D'Argenio today about the issue to see if the league has given any response.

"There are other teams that feel the same way that I do, "We're talking about Manhattan and Canisius, that's who we're talking about. Other teams feel the same way.

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Monday, January 18, 2010

Ubiles tweaks back

ALBANY - While Siena played well and came away with a comfortable victory, senior Edwin Ubiles sat out the game with a muscle strain in his back.

"It just kind of happened out of nowhere," said Ubiles following Monday's game. "I went for a pass (in Sunday's practice) and I just felt a little strain in my back. From there on, it just got worse."

The rest of the team stepped up with Ubiles on the sideline.

"Hopefully Eddie will be back soon," said junior Ryan Rossiter. "We definitely need him in the starting lineup, but I think Owen (Wignot) played solid for us today, Kyle Downey played well of the bench and O.D. (Anosike) and Davis (Martens) played great."

Ubiles couldn't make it through practice on Sunday and wasn't medically cleared to play Monday night.

"He couldn't go yesterday in practice, felt like he was going to be okay today," said Siena coach Fran McCaffery. "He wasn't cleared, was having some discomfort with his back. We'll see he is tomorrow and we'll see if he can play Thursday, but we won't know until we get there."

Ubiles said he was having trouble moving at all when it first happened, but is hoping to be back Thursday.

"I don't want to force anything and re-injure it," Ubiles said. "I'm shooting for Thursday."

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Siena 83, Manhattan 68

ALBANY - Manhattan came out early and led for most of the first 10 minutes.

The Jaspers shot 8-for-13 (61.5%) in the first six minutes and led 18-10.

Siena came back with back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers, two from Clarence Jackson and another from Kyle Downey.

The Saints scored 12 of the half's last 16 points to take an eight-point lead into intermission.

Alex Franklin and Ryan Rossiter both chipped in 11 points, while Rico Pickett leads Manhattan with 16.

There was a little bit of chippiness between Rossiter and Andrew Gabriel and later Rossiter drew a flagrant foul on Brandon Adams.

*****

The Saints totally dominated in the second half.

Franklin finished with 23 points, while Rossiter posted his ninth double-double of the season with 19 points and 14 rebounds and Kyle Downey added a career-high 16 points.

Rico Pickett scored a game-high 26 points for Manhattan.

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Ubiles out vs. Manhattan

ALBANY - Siena's leading scorer Edwin Ubiles is in street clothes as the rest of his teammates warmup, just minutes before the team's game against Manhattan.

Ubiles is apparently out with a bad back and will be replaced in the starting lineup by sophomore Owen Wignot.

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Road trip for Great Danes

The America East Conference established a new policy before the year that said any conference road trip that is less than 200 miles away must me a day off trip.

The University at Albany's fifth conference game brings about their first chance to experience that as they travel the 175 or so miles to Boston to take on Boston University Tuesday night at 7 p.m.

"I'm anxious to see how we respond collectively, especially our young guys and that's why it's important that our older guys play well," said UAlbany coach Will Brown on Monday.

The Great Danes will make this day of trip four times (Boston, Binghamton, Vermont, Hartford) and it will certainly be a little bit different.

"All of us did it for four years in high school," said sophomore Billy Allen. "It's definitely going to be a change for the older guys."

Brown said the team will leave in the morning, get to a hotel where they will check in for the day to watch film and eat at the hotel and get a chance to stretch the legs before heading to the arena for the game.

"We don't have a great road record, so maybe if we switch things up it will help us," said Allen.

Vermont and Binghamton have already made day of trips to SEFCU Arena and posted victories over UAlbany.

"Hopefully it rubs off on us," Brown said.

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Aronhalt AE Rookie of the Week

University at Albany redshirt freshman Logan Aronhalt has been named America East Rookie of the Week.

Aronhalt averaged 12.5 points for the week and matched a career-high with 13 points in Saturday's conference victory over UMBC.

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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Cooley goes off

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Fairfield coach Ed Cooley wasn't too happy with his team after Saturday night's game.

Most of the postgame rant was missed by me as I was in the Siena locker room talking to the players, but he apparently voiced his displeasure quite bluntly.

When a reporter asked freshman Derek Needham if there was too much pressure, Cooley stepped in and said no.

“I want to be in a pressure-cooker Monday night in March,” Cooley said. “That’s what it’s all about to us.”

Cooley also was upset with the defense on Clarence Jackson saying he could have made some of the shots if he was left that open.

“We didn’t find him early,” Cooley said. “He made his first one wide open, in the zone, where we had a bad slide. Hats off to him.”

Cooley has a good team and for 23 minutes it really looked like they had a chance to beat Siena, but the Saints pulled away.

*****

Ryan Rossiter said he wasn't under the weather he just warmed up too quickly and wanted to save some energy for the game.

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Siena 81, Fairfield 73

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - A pretty good game so far as you can tell these are currently the top two teams in the MAAC.

Both teams started off shooting very well.

Clarence Jackson was on fire, scoring 17 of the Saints' first 32 points and hitting five 3-pointers.

Siena hit eight 3-pointers in the first half and shot 8-for-12 from beyond the arc.

Ryan Olander led the Stags with 13 points, while Yorel Hawkins has chipped in 11.

Freshman phenom Derek Needham has only nine points, but has a couple pretty assists and is showing why he will likely win the MAAC Rookie of the Year.

*****

Siena got some good defensive effort at the start of the second half to key a big run and hold off Fairfield in a battle for first place.

Jackson finished with 22, while Ryan Rossiter chipped in 17, Alex Franklin added 16 and Edwin Ubiles scored 15.

The Stags were led by Hawkins' 20, while Needham finished with 16.

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Rossiter looks iffy

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Here at the Arena at Harbor Yard for a first place MAAC showdown between Siena (6-0, 13-4) and Fairfield (5-1, 12-4).

The story so far besides the crowd, which looks to actually have more Siena fans, is Saints big man Ryan Rossiter.

While listed as a starter, Rossiter has done very little in warmups and didn't look very good.

While Rossiter may be sick, freshman Jonathan Breeden is home sick and didn't make the trip.

We'll see.

Big game for both teams.

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Friday, January 15, 2010

Danes need a win

ALBANY - University at Albany senior Will Harris made no bones about saying how important Saturday's game is to get off the America East schneid.

"We need to win every single game that we have left," said Harris, the Great Danes leading scorer. "We're o-fer right now and we're trying to bump that up one tomorrow night."

UAlbany (0-3, 5-13) has had an uncharacteristically bad start to conference play, losing their first three games - two of which were at home - and shooting less than 37 percent in all three.

"It's kind of frustrating knowing that we have talent and we have a lot of good things going for us," Harris said. "We just have to put it all together at once."

The Retrievers (0-3, 1-15) are off to an even worse start.

After winning the conference in 2008 and then losing to Binghamton in the championship final last season, UMBC isn't used to this kind of start recently either.

The Retreivers are being led by a player familiar to the Capital District, Siena transfer Chris De La Rosa.

De La Rosa is tied for second in the conference in assists (4.8 per game) and is now averaging 10.4 points per game.

UAlbany is too busy looking for answers of their own to worry about what is ailing other teams.

"We're not good enough right now to get down 12, 13 points every game, fight back and sit there and say if we had another minute or two we'd be okay," said UAlbany coach Will Brown. "We have to get off to a better start. We have to sustain it and we have to make some shots."

The other thing the Great Danes will have to do is rebound.

UMBC is the worst rebounding team in the conference, while UAlbany is the toughest team in the league to rebound against.

"We have to exploit them, that's the biggest thing," said senior center Brett Gifford. "We have to hit the offensive boards hard, get easy baskets."

While Coach Brown has said he hasn't stressed any game as being "must-win," they can't allow themselves to lose too many league games out of the gate.

"The biggest thing we can control is our effort," Gifford said. "I feel like if we bring that the entire game, we'll be fine."

Despite the fact that this UMBC team is the one that ended UAlbany's season last year at SEFCU Arena, Brown said his guys would and should be already motivated enough.

"I think the fact that we're 0-3 in league is all the motivation that these guys need," he said.

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Moore to chat on espn.com

Siena senior point guard Ronald Moore will conduct an internet chat on ESPN.com Friday at 3:30 p.m. The chat will take place as Moore's teammates tour ESPN Studios in Bristol Friday afternoon.

Fans interested in posing a question can do so now by following this link.

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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

TW3 to air Siena/Fairfield

Saturday's showdown for first place in the MAAC in Bridgeport, Conn. between Fairfield and Siena will be shown in the capital district on Time Warner 3.

Additionally, Siena's road game on Valentine's Day at Canisius will also be broadcast in on Time Warner 3.

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Monday, January 11, 2010

Siena 82, Canisius 70

ALBANY - A pretty close game in the first half.

Siena build an eight-point lead with five minutes to go, but Canisius closed it quickly.

The Saints are led by Edwin Ubiles, who has 12 points and Ronald Moore added 11.

The Golden Griffins got 10 points from Frank Turner and six off the bench from Julius Coles.

Canisus got nine offensive rebounds in the first half, obviously something that Siena coach Fran McCaffery was none too thrilled about.

*****

After a exciting second half (in more ways than one) the Saints prevailed to improve to 6-0 in the MAAC.

Alex Franklin took a hard hit from Robert Goldsberry for the second consecutive time these two teams played.

Goldsberry was called "chippy" in the second half by his coach, but it seemed to almost cross the line to a dirty play.

The Siena players said after the game this is the type of game they were expecting from the Griffins.

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Ubiles is MAAC Player of the Week

Siena senior Edwin Ubiles was named MAAC Player of the Week on Monday, becoming the third different Saints player to win the honor in as many weeks.

It is the third time Ubiles has won the award in his career.

Ubiles averaged 23.5 points and six rebounds in two MAAC victories last week.

He scored a game-high 25 points against Niagara on Saturday after being taken out of the starting lineup for being late to a free throw shooting session on Friday.

Ubiles also surpassed the 1,700-point mark for his career and moved into fourth on the school's scoring charts.

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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Siena 83, Niagara 65

ALBANY - It's what we pretty much expected, a back and forth shootout between the two top teams in the conference.

Alex Franklin was a beast early, scoring nine early points and basically being all over the place.

Tyrone Lewis kept Niagara in the game with 12 points and three 3-pointers.

The Saints opened up a seven-point lead with 3:22 to go in the half, but the Purple Eagles quickly scored eight straight to take a one-point advantage themselves.

Edwin Ubiles came off the bench with 12:33 to go, after not starting because of a coaches decision, and got going offensively, finishing the half with 10 points.

*****

The Saints played a terrific second half and pulled away for an easy 18-point victory.

The Purple Eagles shot just 23 percent (8-34) in the second half.

Ubiles finished with a game-high 25 points, while Downey and O.D. Anosike gave great contributions.

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Downey starts for Ubiles

ALBANY - The crowd is filling in here in downtown Albany and the starters are listed for today's first place showdown between Niagara and Siena.

One player who won't be starting is Siena senior Edwin Ubiles.

Apparently in a coaches decision, sophomore Kyle Downey will start in his place.

Last year, Ubiles was brought off the bench after he showed up late to a team meeting because he was getting a hair cut.

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Friday, January 8, 2010

Saints feeling good

Siena (4-0, 11-6) has won five straight games to pull into Saturday's first place showdown with Niagara (3-1, 10-6) feeling pretty good about themselves.

“We’re feeling pretty good,” said Siena coach Fran McCaffery said. “Our bench gave us some big minutes in those (recent) games and I think we’re feeling pretty good right now about where we our health-wise and where our legs are.”

The Saints have won 28 of their last 30 games against MAAC schools and are riding a 28-game homecourt winning streak.

“I think things are starting to flow a little bit better,” said senior forward Alex Franklin. “There’s always room for improvement. The team is really coming into stride and this is one of the places we want to be right now.”

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Thursday, January 7, 2010

Not a "UAlbany" type effort

ALBANY - Director of Basketball Operations and former UAlbany player Brent Wilson turned to coach Will Brown following Thursday's 62-57 loss to Binghamton and told him that wasn't a UAlbany effort.

“We never got out-toughed and outrebounded like that ever,” said Brown, recalling what Wilson said to him.

It wasn't a good game by many accounts for the Great Danes, who were coming off their best offensive performance of the year against Yale.

“I was surprised with how poorly we hit the glass and how poorly we blocked out,” said Brown.

UAlbany was outrebounded 41-28 by the taller, but smaller (in terms of depth) Binghamton squad.

Brown called it "ridiculous" and said he's never seen that type of disparity in rebounding from one of his teams.

“To me, you can take all the technique in the world and throw it in the garbage, rebounding is toughness and you need to be a ball-getter,” Brown said.

Brown was so disappointed that he said his veterans weren't leading and that his best leader is sophomore Billy Allen.

The Great Danes have a lot to work on before Sunday's game against Vermont.

On the other end, not a lot was expected from the Bearcats, who lost six players, including Troy're Emanuel Mayben after an offseason full of turmoil that left the defending conference champions a shell of their former selves.

While they picked up a victory, interim coach Mark Macon stopped short of calling it a statement game.

“It’s only one game,” Macon said. “We play to win one game at a time.”

Macon said it was a good game and he seemed happy to come out with the win.

“They didn’t make shots today, we did,” he said. “They’re a good team, we just, today, did some things better.”

I really liked what Greer Wright brought to the table for Binghamton.

The junior college transfer is long and lean and even handled the ball.

He finished with 11 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and seven turnovers (way too many).

Mahamoud Jabbi added 10 points and eight rebounds for the Bearcats and Chretien Lukusa, the team's only returning starter from last year, had nine points and 10 rebounds.

Scotty McRae added seven points and 11 rebounds for UAlbany, but shot just 1-for-9 from the field.

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Binghamton 62, UAlbany 57

ALBANY - A first half that the Great Danes will be sure to want to forget.

The Bearcats have a 11-point lead at halftime.

Moussa Camara, who hit four 3-pointers, leads Binghamton with 14 points.

Mike Black has 10 points to lead UAlbany and he scored eight in a row to really dig the Great Danes out of the depths.

Tim Ambrose has just two points and is 1-for-5 from the field.

*****

It didn't get much better in the second half.

Despite a late barrage of three's from Will Harris, the Great Danes dropped their league opener.

UAlbany will have to bounce back on Sunday against Vermont.

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Talley out for BU

ALBANY - America East Conference play opens up for Binghamton and UAlbany tonight at the SEFCU Arena.

The Bearcats (5-10), who are the defending champions, will be without freshman guard Dylan Talley, who will sit out the second straight game with an upper thigh contusion.

Talley, who is from Burlington, N.J., is averaging 10.4 points per game.

The Great Danes (5-10) have Scotty McRae back in the starting lineup.

A light crowd here about five minutes from tip, but with Binghamton in town I expect it will be a "lively" atmosphere.

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Monday, January 4, 2010

Rossiter earns MAAC honors

Ryan Rossiter was named MAAC Player of the Week on Monday.

In three games last week, the 6-foot-9 Siena big man averaged 16.7 points and 12.3 rebounds per game.

Rossiter follows frontcourt teammate Alex Franklin, who shared the award last week.

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Sunday, January 3, 2010

Not feeling so hot

ALBANY - This is an interesting title after UAlbany posted a 21-point victory, but it was true for senior Scotty McRae missed film and the shootaround because he ate something "funny."

“Not being at film or shootaround, I wasn’t going to play him in the first half,” said coach Will Brown.

McRae did play in the second half and he played pretty well, scoring 10 points and grabbing five rebounds in just 11 minutes.

“Now I can prove to him, it’s not how many minutes you play, it’s how productive you are,” Brown said.

Another guys who's not feeling too great is red-shirt freshman Jake Lindfors, who apparently was up late Saturday night with very bad back spasms.

According to Brown, he had a tough time getting out of bed after he went down hard five or 10 minutes into practice on Saturday afternoon.

“We had to get him to the game because our team doctor is here,” said Brown.

Lindfors was at the game, on the bench in a suit.

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UAlbany 89, Yale 68

Billy Allen posted a career night by hitting for 21 points and shooting 8-for-9 from the field to lead the Great Danes to a xx-xx victory at SEFCU Arena.

Allen has now posted back-to-back career-high nights after finishing with 16 points at North Carolina.

Tim Ambrose added 22 points for UAlbany.

East Greenbush native Alex Zampier led Yale with 19 points.

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Sunday's hoops coverage

Siena survived last night's non-conference game, pulling out a 79-76 overtime victory over Mount St. Mary's

Saints still streaking

UAlbany (4-10) returns home tonight to take on Yale (4-9) in their last non-conference game of the season.

Danes eager to finally play at home

Former Columbia High player Alex Zampier is the senior captain of the Bulldogs and is the leading scorer

Zampier hoping for triumphant return

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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Saints climb the Mount...barely

ALBANY - I think this quote pretty much sums up how most of the Siena players and fans feel after watching Saturday night's game against Mount St. Mary's.

“There was times when I thought we were on an 8-0 run and maybe it was a four-point lead and then I looked at the clock and we were down 11,” said junior forward Ryan Rossiter.

It wasn't pretty and it was almost the end of the the program's longest home winning streak, but the Saints did prevail in the end.

“It wasn’t so much frustration, it was just kind of they made shots,” said sophomore guard Kyle Downey.

“There’s a lot of lessons learned in this game,” added senior point guard Ronald Moore. “It’s always good to learn from mistakes and get a win.”

Rossiter said the team remarked the game being very similar to the game at Marist game from last year.

"It was a very similar game, where we were down, kept fighting, kept fighting and were able to get it to overtime," said Rossiter.

In that game, Siena rallied from a 14-point deficit with 3:26 to play, scoring on its final 13 possessions of regulation to post a 91-85 overtime victory at the McCann Center.

"That propelled us last season a lot too and this year, we said can't get down on ourselves, don't point any fingers because we didn't do that at Marist and it ended up working out for us."

One strange side note is that Siena went without a 3-pointer for the first time in 536 games. The last time the Saints failed to make a trey was Jan. 15, 1992, when they defeated Fairfield 65-63.

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Siena 79, Mount St. Mary's 76, OT

The Saints had a rough first half, making only two field goals in the first nine minutes.

It would have been even rougher, had it not been for Ryan Rossiter, who finished with 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting.

Kelly Biedler and Will Holland each scored 10 points for the Mountaineers.

Mount St. Mary's seems to have a plan to slow the game down, substitute frequently and wait until less than 10 seconds on the shot clock before making an offensive move.

Even though Siena is shooting the ball well (46 percent), they are turning it over too much (8) and not getting a lot of possessions.

*****

Down seven with 1:36 to play, Siena rallies to force overtime at 69-69.

*****

Siena gets the lead and holds it in overtime.

Rossiter finished with a career-high 29 points and the Saints have now won 28 consecutive home games.

Beidler led the Mountaineers with 19 points.

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Less talking, more playing for Johnson

When asked Saturday, what senior Mike Johnson, who only played two minutes against North Carolina, needs to do to get back in the lineup, UAlbany coach Will Brown responded.

"Keep his mouth shut and work as hard as he can," Brown said. "I say that nicely."

Johnson has gone from a solid role player last year to the best UAlbany player over the offseason to starting point guard and now to coming off the bench behind freshman Mike Black.

"I think he got in a comfort zone," Brown said.

Brown said nobody on his team deserves to be content because the Great Danes are 4-10 this season.

"Our young guys are doing some good things," Brown said. "We just need to get the old guys to do it more consistently."

That said, Brown added that he could see using both Johnson and Black at times, possibly even tomorrow against Yale, and feels that with both Mikes on the floor, his team is better defensively.

Brown also said the team is going to need Johnson to get things turned around.

"He's our best perimeter defender and we're going to need him," Brown said. "He's got to steal minutes back from Mike Black."

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Niagara, Rider both lose

While it's a non-conference day for Siena with the game against Mount St. Mary's, two of their more hyped MAAC opponents dropped conference games.

Niagara lost 63-60 to Iona.

Rider fell at Loyola (Md.) 68-66.

That should make Monday's game for Siena even a little more interesting as the Greyhounds have won four in a row and beat Indiana just recently.

Siena plays the Purple Eagles next Saturday at 1 p.m.

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