Courtesy UAlbany Athletics

ALBANY - Peter Hooley wasn't suited up for the home-opener on Friday afternoon, instead he sat on the bench, in a shirt and tie.

Hooley has been dealing with a foot injury and it was decided that he will take a medical redshirt this year because of a stress fracture in the left foot.


"He's going to be out, which hurts us because he's a pretty good player," said University at Albany coach Will Brown.

Hooley started feeling the pain, in preseason, before the Purple/Gold scrimmage, but fought through it.

Before the George Mason game, he came to Coach Brown and said it was too painful.

"He started not making shots in practice, not playing well, limping," Brown said.

An MRI revealed the stress fracture and it looks like next week, he'll have to screws put into the foot.

Brown said that freshman Tanner Gibson, who was going to be redshirted, will likely see more minutes now with Hooley out. 

Gibson played his first minutes of the year on Friday, getting in 10 minutes against Navy.

"I thought he was very poised today, but I need him to be more aggressive," Brown said.

Brown thinks that Gibson will be able to help out the team.

"He might be as good of an athlete that we have," Brown said;.

Brown also said that freshman Chris Page will redshirt. Page has been one of the better shooters in practice. 

"I don't want to burn a year, if he's not going to play," Brown said.

Earlier in the year, Brown said he didn't necessarily want to redshirt players because the Great Danes currently don't have any seniors.With that fact, if a player is seeing limited action this season, they would likely see the same amount of time next year.

Logan Aronhalt is a very good basketball player.

The scary thing could be that Aronhalt, who averaged 14.6 points per game last season, might get better still.

Asked today if he was the healthiest he's been since arriving at UAlbany, his response was yet.

“My freshman year I wasn’t healthy at all,” he said. “Last year, I was still up and down a little bit.

Aronhalt dealt with a number of foot issues when he first arrived at UAlbany and red-shirted his first season.

He earned third team all-conference honors last year, as a sophomore, and now is primed for another big season.

"I definitely think, now, I'm ready to go," he said.

While he and fellow junior Mike Black were left off of the preseason all-conference team, coach Will Brown is confident they are two of the best players in the league.

“I think both of those guys want to be first team all-league guys,” Brown said. “Both of them are ready to take the next step. Does that mean they’re both going to be first team guys? I don’t know because we have other guys who are going to play on the perimeter for us.”

The Great Danes actually have six newcomers this season - Peter Hooley, Jayson Guerrier, Tanner Gibson, Gerardo Suero, Sam Rowley and Chris Page.

“This is probably as good of a group of newcomers that we’ve had since I’ve been here,” Brown said. “How that translates when the lights go on will be interesting, but it was pretty good for us when we went to Canada.”

UAlbany opens the season against Pitt, on Nov. 11.

ALBANY - University at Albany head men’s basketball coach Will Brown announced the signing of three student-athletes on Monday.

Tanner Gibson (Zanesville, Ohio), a 6-foot-1 guard, Jayson Guerrier (Oviedo, Fla.), a 6-4 guard and Peter Hooley (South Adelaide, Australia) a 6-4 guard will play for the Great Danes in the 2011-12 season.

Those three join Chris Page, Sam Rowley and Gerardo Suero, who all committed in the fall. It was also announced that Derrek Tartt and Jake Lindfors will transfer from UAlbany.

University at Albany men's basketball coach Will Brown talks about signing Chris Page (who played with Blake Metcalf at Plainfield High), Sam Rowley (the program's second Australian player after Luke Devlin) and Gerardo Suero (who played at Our Savior New American the same school as Jamar Wilson and Tim Ambrose).