The University at Albany women's basketball program was picked first in the America East preseason poll.

The two-time defending league champions also are receiving some nationally recognition. The Great Danes are ranked No. 22 in the first CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll.

UAlbany has finished 50-14 over the past two seasons under coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. Despite, losing some key pieces, they are expected to keep rolling along.

ALBANY - They should have just named to America East awards banquet, the University at Albany awards banquet.

On Thursday evening, the Great Danes cleaned up, winning all of the major awards.

Senior Ebone Henry was named co-Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, while coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson was named Coach of the Year. Freshman Shereesha Richards took home co-Rookie of the Year, while Julie Forster was named to first team, the all-defensive team and the all-academic team.

The top-seeded Great Danes play in the conference semifinals, on Sunday, at 1 p.m.

Mike McMahon - The Record

Just six months after the University at Albany women's basketball team won the America East tournament and participated in the NCAA tournament, their coach has a contract extension.

On Tuesday, UAlbany announced its reached an agreement with coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson to extend her contract through the 2016-17 season.

Here is a link to the school's release.

I think it's a good move. Coach Abe came in and immediately turned things around. I only see things getting better from here.

ALBANY - The University at Albany women's basketball team is happy to still be playing.

The Great Danes earned a No. 14 seed, in the NCAA tournament selection show, on Monday evening.

"We are so excited," said head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. "I didn't know if we were going to be a 14 or a 15 seed, but we are in. We're happy and we're excited. I thought the team's reaction was great."

UAlbany will play the defending national champions, from Texas A&M.

The Great Danes have won 10 straight games and 17 of their last 19. 

Below is video, shot by our own Mike Cioffi, who will have a story in Tuesday's paper about the pairing. 

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. - The University at Albany will host the America East women's basketball championship game.

The Great Danes (22-9) defeated Binghamton 58-50, at the University of Hartford's Chase Arena, on Sunday, to punch a spot in the title game. It will be the first time UAlbany has ever played in the championship game, in program history.

UAlbany will host No. 5 seed University of Maryland-Baltimore County (18-14), which upset No. 1 Boston University, earlier on Sunday. The America East championship game will be played at SEFCU Arena, on Saturday, March 10, at 8 p.m.

Junior Ebone Henry led the way for the Great Danes, scoring a game-high 19 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Linsey Lowrie chipped in 11 points for UAlbany.

Coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson is now 38-23 in two seasons as the Great Danes head coach.

The University at Albany women's basketball team has turned things around under coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. 

In just two seasons, Coach Abe has led the Great Danes to the No. 2 seed in the America East Conference and a 20-win season, the program's first at the Division I level.

On Thursday, Coach Abrahamson-Henderson was named America East Coach of the Year.

Junior guard/forward Ebone Henry was named to the all-conference first team, in addition to repeating as the league's defensive player of the year.

Julie Forster was named to the second team. Forster also joined Henry on the all-defense team. Forster, who carries 3.97 GPA, was also named to the all-academic team.

Here is a link to the conference's release.

UAlbany will take on No. 7 Vermont, in Friday's third quarterfinal, at 6 p.m., at the University of Hartford.

The men's awards will be given out on Friday evening.

The University at Albany men's basketball team finished tied for third last season in the America East and there are hopes for an even higher finish around the Great Danes' camp this year.

That's not exactly what the rest of the coaches around the league are thinking, selecting UAlbany fourth in the 2011-12 America East preseason poll, on Thursday, at the conference's media day, in Hartford, Conn.

The Great Danes are selected to finish behind Boston University, Stony Brook and Vermont.

UAlbany finished last season with a 16-16 overall record, 9-7 in the America East.

Tim Ambrose, the team's leading scorer graduated, but the Great Danes return the core of the squad, a team looking for a strong season.

The UAlbany women's team is selected to finish fifth under second-year coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson.

Junior guard Ebone Henry was selected to the preseason all-conference team.

ALBANY - Coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson has continued to promise to her team that their hard work will pay off.

"They're working harder than they've ever worked before," the first year UAlbany coach said on Thursday.

The Great Danes (3-0, 10-6) are 3-0 in the America East Conference for the first time in program history and their 10 wins are the most in the entire league.

"This is a big thing for everybody," said junior guard Cassandra Callaway.

UAlbany got off to a 7-3 start, but then lost three games in a row, right before conference play began.

"We knew that we had to get it together somehow and it had to work," Callaway said. "We just had to bounce back and work harder in practice."

Their coach said it was just a matter of making adjustments and their pressure defense has changed things up.

"When we press and get steals and get our energy going defensively, it ignites our offense," said Abrahamson-Henderson.

The Great Danes have defeated New Hampshire, Hartford and Maine in league play.

Their most recent win was extra special for their coach, as she was an assistant at Maine from 1992-94.

Abrahamson-Henderson recruited current Maine coach Cindy Blodgett to play for the Black Bears.

UAlbany broke a tie score at halftime by outscoring Maine by 15 to take home the 65-50 victory.

The team says their mentality has been taking it one game at a time.

"For them, it's not about the future," Abrahamson-Henderson said. "It's about the now."

The Great Danes next game is a first place showdown against Boston University (3-0, 6-9) on Saturday at 3 p.m. at SEFCU Arena.

"It's huge," said Callaway about the matchup.

Note: From our print edition on Wednesday.

Brien Bouyea
For the Record

ALBANY – More times than she cares to recall – both before she became the school’s head coach and since – Katie Abrahamson-Henderson has heard ad nauseam about the University at Albany women’s basketball team’s past struggles. None of it concerns her, she says.

In fact, Abrahamson-Henderson is hoping some early success will do wonders in changing the way the program is perceived.

“The past is the past. This is a new era,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “I’m just worried about what we’re doing now and the direction we are going in. What happened here previously is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. It’s time to move on. I’m not one to dwell on stuff like that.”

But to understand the significance of the Great Danes’ impressive 5-0 start this season, it is necessary to take a gander at the history that first-year head coach Abrahamson-Henderson is attempting to distance the UAlbany program from.

Since transitioning to the Division I level in 1999, the Great Danes have never had a winning record. The past two years were especially dreadful. During that time, UAlbany compiled an 18-44 ledger, including a 7-25 mark in America East play.

“There is a new level of focus and the coaching staff has brought a high level of energy along with an aggressive mentality,” said Great Danes sophomore forward Julie Forster. “We go out on the court looking to attack instead of reacting to what our opponent does. It’s been a lot of fun so far.”

UAlbany is off to its best start since the 1986-87 season. The Great Danes will look to push their record to 6-0 tonight when they travel to Sacred Heart University for a non-conference game. Tip-off is 7 p.m.

This season’s journey will soon become much more difficult for UAlbany. Following tonight’s game, the Great Danes meet cross-town rival Siena College on Saturday before road games at Syracuse and Duke. They open America East play Jan. 4 at home against New Hampshire.

“It’s a good start, but we have to build on it and not get comfortable,” Forster said. “It’s nice to play well now, but we want to be playing our best basketball later in the season.”

The 6-foot Forster is one of the main reasons for UAlbany’s early success. The rugged post player is second on the team in scoring at 14.3 ppg and leads the Great Danes in rebounding (12.3 rpg).

“It’s nice to have someone like Julie down there to clean up mistakes and give us more chances on offense and also limit second chances for our opponents,” said UAlbany junior point guard Felicia Johnson, who is pitching in 12.3 ppg. “Julie plays so hard all of the time that it really rubs off on the rest of us.”

Prior to guiding the Great Danes, Abrahamson-Henderson served as associated head coach at Indiana University. She was also the head coach at Missouri State University from 2002-07, leading that program to three NCAA Tournament appearances.

“I believed this could be a winning program and that through hard work we could find success,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “This is a great group of girls to work with. They have bought into the principals of the plan from the first day.”

UAlbany finished 11-19 last year, but with four starters back – Forster and Johnson along with sophomores Ebone Henry and Keyana Williams – the cupboard certainly wasn’t bare for the new coach.

“I knew there were some good pieces to work with, some emerging players,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “I really thought this group could take a big step forward this year and so far I have been pleased with what I have seen.”

So far, a stingy defense has been the Great Danes’ trademark. UAlbany has held four of its first five opponents to less than 50 points, a feat the Great Danes achieved only four times in 30 games during the 2009-10 season.

“We get after it on defense. Coach expects us to be tough and play in your face,” Johnson said. “We want to be aggressive, force turnovers and make every possession difficult.”

So what does the future hold for UAlbany?

“I don’t want to make predictions or anything like that, but this is a team and a program that will work for success,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “We’re moving forward and not looking back at what was. I’m excited to see where we can take this.”

J.S. Carras - The Record

The above picture sums up what happened on Friday night. Sophomore point guard Mike Black went down late in the first half with a sprained ankle. All indications are that he will miss Monday's game against American.

This also won't make UAlbany fans too happy.

This paragraph below was on the ESPN web recap of Friday's game.

Albany, of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, which led by 12 in the first half, scored the next five points and had a chance to tie, but Tim Ambrose's driving shot in the lane in the final seconds missed.

Here are videos from head coach Will Brown and Katie Abrahamson-Henderson after their season-opening games on Friday.

ALBANY - I think it's clear to see that this team is much improved from last year's squad.

Heck, it only took me a couple of minutes to figure that out as the Great Danes led for most of the first half.

Some other points.

Mike Black is likely out for the American game on Monday. If it's a high ankle sprain, he might not travel to Atlanta for Wednesday's game with Georgia Tech.

UAlbany shot the ball much better - 52 percent for the game (25-48). They were 10-for-18 (55%) with Black in there.

John Puk was every where early. Coach Brown said it was his fault for not continuing to go in to the big fella. I saw Puk after the game and he told Coach Brown that his Achilles was sore, but what can you expect after playing 22 minutes. He should be a force in the conference schedule.

Also, a great positive was the play of Luke Devlin, who scored 10 points and grabbed nine rebounds.

Some negatives. The late game situation wasn't the best.

Brown said he wanted to get the ball in Iati's hands following the missed free throw. It didn't and Ambrose drove into the lane and shot a two, when the team needed three.

Also, 16 turnovers isn't great, but Brown said it wasn't too, too bad for the first night.

As Logan Aronhalt said, "Most of the mistakes can be corrected."

UAlbany doesn't have much time before American comes calling on Monday.

I'll have more up, with video from Coach Brown and women's coach Abrahamson-Henderson after the women's team defeated Brown 64-54.

Here are some other notes from UAlbany basketball media day.

Gary Holway ('59) will be honored at Friday's game. He was the all-time leading scorer in UAlbany history until some guy named Jamar came along. Holway finished his career with 1,851 points. Jamar scored 2,164.

The main thing I heard from players I spoke with about the upcoming season was - defense.

The team expects to be much better on that end of the floor.

Coach Will Brown even said the team is better on defense right now than it was in February, at the end of last season.

The players seem to fully believe that Coach Brown can lead them back to the top of the America East standings.

“I think Coach Brown really knows what he’s doing with this team and he’s got it set up to put us in the best position to win,” said sophomore forward Blake Metcalf.

The other thing I took away from media day, was how much different the women's program is being run.

In Tuesday's article, you can read a lot on coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson. I'll tell you this. She is one intense coach.

Here's a good example.

"They know that hard work is an absolute. You can't be on our team or around our program, if you're not going to work hard."

I will work harder - as I assume her team will. I'm anxious to see them play on Friday against Brown.

WOMEN’S HOOPS STAFF COMPLETE: University at Albany women’s basketball coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson has completed her coaching staff for the 2010-11 season.

On Tuesday, Meredith Noonan was tabbed as the director of basketball operations, while Tahnee Balerio will serve as a graduate assistant for the program.

Noonan comes to UAlbany from Mercer, where she worked with current UAlbany assistant coach Fred Castro.

Balerio, who graduated from Missouri State in Dec. 2008, was a team captain and a two-time MVP for the Bears.