Thursday, February 23, 2012

UAlbany ends regular season with win

VESTALWill Brown wanted his team to have some momentum heading into the postseason.
Mission accomplished.

The University at Albany finished the regular season with back-to-back victories, defeating Binghamton, 74-63, on Thursday evening.

“We were just trying to win and get the heck out of here,” Brown said. “Everyone who played did a good job.”

The Great Danes (9-7, 18-13) are the No. 4 seed for the upcoming America East tournament, and await to find out their opponent, for the quarterfinal matchup, on March 3.

“Now we head home and try to get healthy for next week,” Brown said.

Junior guard Jacob Iati led the way, for the second straight game, scoring a career-high 22 points and knocking down five 3-pointers.

“Jacob did a tremendous job and I’m really happy for him,” Brown said.

Iati had scored just 53 points all year, but in the past two games, he has added 42 points to his season total.

“He’s just a gutsy kid,” Brown said. 

Gerardo Suero scored 15 points, after missing two straight game, due to shingles. Suero passed Jamar Wilson (2006-07) for the most points by a UAlbany player in a single-season. Suero, who also grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds, now has 630 points on the season and is averaging 21.7 points per game.

Logan Aronhalt also played a few minutes and scored two points, after missing the last game because of a knee injury that threatened to end his season. 

With key players in and out of the lineup, Brown was pleased with different players stepping in and stepping up.

“I’m just happy for my guys,” he said. “There are a lot of guys who have contributed in the last few games.”

Ben Dickinson led the way for the Bearcats (1-14, 1-27), scoring 21 points, while Taylor Johnston added a dozen.

Binghamton cut the lead to single digits late, but didn’t have enough offense to pull even.

“They’ve played hard all year long,” Brown said, of the Bearcats. “They were coming off a big win, so I knew that they would play hard.”

UAlbany finishes the regular season with two more wins than they had last season, when they finished 16-16.

“Anytime you can go out on the road, this late in the year and get a win, we’ll take it,” Brown said.

Labels: , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home