ALBANY - After UAlbany played Georgia Tech, earlier this season, a UAlbany alumnus came up to assistant coach Jeremy Friel and said that his son could definitely play for the Great Danes, if the kid playing point guard could.

That player playing point guard was Jacob Iati.

Iati started a number of non-conference games when Mike Black went down with his ankle injury.

Iati, who transferred to UAlbany from High Point, also played some big minutes on Saturday night, in UAlbany's 62-59 victory over Hartford.

"He doesn't pass the look test," said UAlbany coach Will Brown. "His brother didn't either."

Jon Iati was a 1,000-point scorer for UAlbany and helped lead the Great Danes to two America East Conference championships.

Jon was the 2004 America East Rookie of the Year and is currently an assistant coach for Quinnipiac University.

Both Jon (5-foot-9) and Jacob (listed at 5-10) are undersized, but both play with a tremendous amount of heart.

"He's unbelievable in practice," Brown said of Jacob. "Every day I know the effort I'm going to get from him. If I tell him don't let (Hartford senior Joe) Zeglinski get the ball or go jump on Western Ave and take a charge from the next SUV that comes down the road, that's what he's going to do."

Iati came into Saturday's game averaging just 1.7 points per game, but he finished with five points in 12 minutes.

"That's what I want to do is win games," Iati said. "When the opportunity comes, you have to do what you want to do to win."

"I'm glad he was able to go in there and play down the stretch," said Brown.