The White team won the Purple & Gold scrimmage 57-54.

I know what you're thinking (neither team was wearing Purple or Gold -- at least that's what I was thimking).

It was a good, competitive game (I did miss the first few minutes because I was writing my UAlbany football game story).

According to our "unofficial" official stats, D.J. Evans led all scorers with 17 points, while Mike Rowley had seven rebounds.

I liked what I saw, in terms of competition and the late-game situations gave this young, inexperienced team a chance to work through some things.

There is a long way to go though.

"It's a work in progress," said junior Sam Rowley.

This team should be big and talented up front, led by Rowley. The Great Danes also have John Puk (6-10), Luke Devlin (6-8), Levan Shengelia (6-9) and Mike Rowley (6-8).

"Our frontcourt's pretty big," said coach Will Brown. "It's pretty good."

I think the team has a lot of pieces and should be solid and competitive for sure. The overall success they have will be determined by how they come together as a unit, like last year's team did so terrifically down the stretch.

Brown will have to work to see what lineup combinations will play the best on the floor and he has less than three weeks to figure it out.

The Great Danes will scrimmage at Iona on Oct. 27 and at home against Marist, on Nov. 2, before the season-opener against Siena on Nov. 8.

Luke Devlin had some extra motivation to shoot the ball on Friday night at the Purple/Gold scrimmage.

University at Albany coach Will Brown told his freshman from Australia that if he didn't shoot, Brown would make the whole team run laps.

"Our expectations for him a very high," Brown said. "The problem with Luke is he's unselfish to a fault."

Playing for Team Purple, Devlin finished with seven points and five rebounds (from my count - see below) and one missed halfcourt shot at the buzzer of the first "half."

I was very impressed with Devlin, although the 6-foot-8 forward did tweak his elbow in the second "half" of the scrimmage.

When Logan Aronhalt missed a last-second shot, Purple escaped with a 38-36 victory.

I tweeted (@AndrewSantillo) that Purple was my 3-point favorite, once I saw the rosters and in my defense, I was pretty close to hitting it on the head.

Anyway, I was impressed with Devlin, Aronhalt's shooting and the long-distance shooting (the two teams combined for 10 three's).

I wasn't as impressed with Derrek Tartt, who seems to have slid down the depth chart after coming on towards the midseason point last season. He only took two shots, making one.

Sophomore Mike Black and Aronhalt each scored 14 points.

"I'm just going to play my game," Black said. "Every day, I'm going to try to make a name for myself and improve every day."

Black is one of six sophomores, who got a lot of playing time last year and are looking to make experience turn into wins this year.

"Last year was a tough season, but we got a lot of experience," Black said. "That can only help us this year."

The team did have a two-hour practice, earlier in the morning and Brown said he could see that his team was tired.

"When you get tired, I think it's easy to settle for jump shots," Brown said. "I think we did a little too much of that today."

I was also impressed with Jacob Iati's play.

At 5-10, he may not be the biggest kid, but he played pretty well, opposite Black at the point.

"Jacob makes open shots," Brown said. "He's tough as nails and every time we walk into the gym, I know what type of effort I'm going to get from him. He never ever wavers on his effort and he's a gym rat."

Iati canned two 3's early in the game, bringing back not so far away images of older brother Jon doing the same thing for the Great Danes.

"His brother was a tough cookie, who had a great career for us," Brown said.

On the injury front, Brown said that Ralph Watts had missed 5 1/2 weeks, but somehow between rushing all over the place, I neglected to ask what for.

Senior Tim Ambrose looked pretty good, scoring 10 points, considering he didn't do anything in the weeks leading up to the start of practice because of a groin injury.

UNOFFICIAL STATS (so unofficial that I somehow have purple scoring 39 points)
Purple
Billy Allen, 11 pts, 4-9 FG, 1 reb.
Mike Black, 14 pts, 5-11 FG, 2-3 FT, 2 reb.
Luke Devlin, 7 pts. 2-5 FG, 2-2 FT, 4 reb.
Blake Metcalf, 1 pt. 0-5 FG, 1-4 FT, 6 reb.
Russell Moore, 4 pts, 2-7 FG, 0-2 FT, 1 reb.
Ralph Watts, 2 pts, 1-4 FG, 2 reb.

Gold
Tim Ambrose 10 pts, 2-6 FG, 5-5 FT, 6 reb.
Logan Aronhalt, 14 pts, 5-10 FG, 2-2 FT
Theo Hatcher, 0-3 FG, 2 reb.
Jacob Iati, 6 pts, 2-3, 2 reb.
Jake Lindfors, 0-3 FG, 3 reb.
John Puk, 4 pts, 1-4 FG, 2-2 FT, 3 reb.
Derrek Tartt, 2 pts, 1-2 FG, 1 reb.

Senior guard Tim Ambrose talks about Friday's Purple/Gold scrimmage.

I'll have more thoughts on the game and the players Saturday night, but it's been a long night tonight.

The final score was Gold (Black) 46, Purple (White) 37.

Here's the scorers...
Gold
Jimmie Covington 2
Brian Connelly 9
Will Harris 14
Anthony Raffa 14
Jerel Hastings 4
Scotty McRae 3

Purple
Brett Gifford 2
Michael Johnson 10
Tim Ambrose 8
Billy Allen 12
Louis Barraza 3
Jake Lindfors 2

Logan Aaronholt - DNP (Coach Brown thinks he should be back practicing by Nov. 13 after breaking a bone in his foot)

Here was Coach Will Brown's first reactions..

"Usually these things become glorified pick-up games and teams just try to outscore each other and make it like a NBA All-Star game, where there's no defense played, keep the fans happy," Brown said. "I thought for a Purple-Gold scrimmage, in front of these people for the first time, I thought they did a pretty good job of sharing the basketball, playing some defense and playing pretty hard."

Here's what I was thought.....

I was really impressed with Raffa's ability to run the point. His explosiveness is certainly something that will help this team and he had a ton of energy. He seemed fine after coming out of the game in the second half after he smacked his mouth on the floor when he got bumped on the way up for a lay-in.

I was doubly impressed with Harris' ability to score the ball from the perimeter. He made three 3-pointers and shot the ball very well. He didn't get inside like I thought he would, but this quote from Brown might explain why.

"He's a solid three-point shooter," Brown said. "Right now, he's probably at 50 percent, conditioning wise, so for him to get through the scrimmage was a good thing."

I think the way Allen stepped up will also be of great benefit to the team. He hit two 3-pointers and shot the ball well. After not playing at all last year, his presence could really be a boost.

"I think it helped Billy having a year under his belt, where he got to sit and watch," Brown said.

Coach Brown was also impressed with Covington, who only scored two, but was "active."

"I think a lot of that has to do with the mindset that (Al) Turley's not here and he's going to have an opportunity," Brown said.

"Last year, everybody rebounded," Covington said. "I want to be more active and get my hands on the ball."

Covington said he's excited for the team's second game, his return to the Chicago area, to take on DePaul (Nov.17). He mentioned that he will have plenty of friends and family there and has played AAU against some of the DePaul players.

Brown said they plan on using Harris like they used Brian Lillis last season, to give other teams matchup problems.

Here was how he summed things up.

"We have so many more guys that can put the ball in the basket from a year ago," Brown said. "Last year, we had to defend and rebound at a high level every night or we had no shot to win. This year, I think because we have a variety of guys who can put the ball in the basket, hopefully it makes life a little bit easier for us."

One other note, the Alumni game took place beforehand and it was good to see familar faces like Jon Iati and Brent Wilson return.

Iati is currently working with the Quinnipiac basketball team and from what I heard in the stands Wilson, who is a father now, is working in Westchester with Green Mountain Coffee.

The quote of the Alumni game came midway through the first half, when Wilson said...

"Got a media timeout coming?"

All of the Alumni played well and I had a chance to talk to Andre Duncan '98 for our news side and he was great to talk to and will be featured in our "5 Questions" segment on Page 2 sometime in the coming week.