Courtesy UAlbany Athletics

I'm literally just getting my first look at the University at Albany's boxscore, from tonight's game against Monmouth.

The Great Danes clobbered the Hawks 85-49.

How about the night for junior college transfer Jayson Guerrier (left).

Some very good players might never have a night where they go 9-for-10 from the floor, including hitting five treys, finishing with a career-high 28 points, while also grabbing 10 rebounds.

That's what Guerrier did tonight.

So far it looks like coach Will Brown has struck gold with JuCo transfers Guerrier and Gerardo Suero, who was named America East Player of the Week, but only scored 16 points on Monday (that's his lowest total of his college career).

Mike Black added nine points and nine assists, while Ralph Watts scored 12 points, off the bench. It was a quiet night for Logan Aronhalt, who fouled out with just five points.

Courtesy UAlbany Athletics

The Great Danes seem to be getting harder and harder to try and scout because they've had five players (Suero, Guerrier, Watts, Black, Aronhalt) score in double figures already this season and they still aren't totally healthy.

UAlbany (2-2) will be run in to much more of a test on Tuesday, when they take on the host Patriots from George Mason (3-2).

Ryan Pearson is averaging 20.8 points per game, while Vertrail Vaughns is averaging 15.0 points and Sherrod Wright is checking in at 11.8 points per game.

The Patriots are coached by former Siena coach Paul Hewitt, who is in his first season after being fired from Georgia Tech. 

The way UAlbany is playing this should be a good game.

Following Monday evening's game between Syracuse and the University at Albany, Ralph Watts and Mookie Jones shared a quick second.

The two former Peekskill High players, who were on opposite sides of Syracuse's 98-74 victory over UAlbany, Tuesday evening, told each other to keep working hard this season.

"We just said 'Good luck, keep your head up and keep working,'" Watts said.

Watts transferred to Peekskill during his junior season and the two were on the Red Devils team that advanced to the state semifinal game, in 2008. Peekskill lost to Jamesville-Dewitt and current Syracuse guard Brandon Triche, at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

Mookie went on to Syracuse University and Watts, as a senior, helped lead Peekskill to the 2009 New York State Class A state championship game, where they again lost to Jamesville, 77-75, in overtime.

Watts says he doesn't get to see Jones as much because the two hardly go home, with the hectic schedule of a Division I basketball players.

"When we see each other, we show love," Watts said. "I hit him up on twitter before the game."

ALBANY - Coach Will Brown stopped Mike Black before the game and told his sophomore point guard that he needed to take more shots.

Black shot 8-for-14 and scored a team-high 18 points for the Great Danes (1-3, 8-11) in a 66-64 loss to Maine.

"The past couple of games, I really haven't taken a lot of shots," Black said. "Today, he pulled me aside and told me to be aggressive and do whatever it takes to get the 'W'."

Brown said he wants his three perimeter players (Black, Logan Aronhalt and Tim Ambrose) to each take at least 10 shots per game.

If you were surprised that freshman Ralph Watts took one of the final shots, I was too (a little, at least).

"Right now, he's trying to figure out, because we've had him playing a lot of point guard, when do I attack, when don't I attack," Brown said. "The one thing he's been doing well, in practice, is getting into the lane, so I thought for sure he could get into the lane and he's a good passer. I think he was shocked. He was five feet from the basket, he has a nice little floater."

Brown said he turned to his staff after Watts missed and said 'Bad Call'. His assistants told him it was a five-footer and they have to take that every time.

The University at Albany men’s basketball team will faceoff against another local face this evening.

This time, however, the Great Danes (7-7) didn’t have to bring that player to the game.

UAlbany plays their final non-conference game of the season tonight, taking on Wagner, on Staten Island, at 7 p.m. The game can be seen locally on Time Warner-3.

The Seahawks (4-7) have former Amsterdam player T.J. Czeski, who was The Record’s football Player of the Year, as a senior in 2005.

That year Czeski, who led the Rugged Rams to the Carrier Dome and was named Class A New York State Player of the Year.

Czeski hasn’t played that much for Wagner this season, seeing just 25 minutes of action.

In their last game, UAlbany gave Schenectady native Mark Lyons a ride on their team bus, after nearly all airplane flights were canceled, because of the snow storm.

Lyons repaid Great Danes coach Will Brown by knocking down six 3-pointers in an 88-64 Musketeers victory.

Wagner is coached by Dan Hurley, a long time high school coach in New Jersey.

Hurley built St. Benedict’s Prep into one of the nation’s top high school programs, leading the Grey Bees to a 223-21 record in nine seasons.

Former Duke point guard Bobby Hurley is an assistant for his brother on the Seahawks staff.

Bobby won back-to-back national championships with the Blue Devils in 1991 and ’92. Hurley was an All-American in 1993 and finished with an NCAA-record 1,076 career assists.

Wagner has lost four games in a row and five of their last six.

“They’re a tough matchup for us,” Brown said. “I expect that they’ll come out and press us for 40 minutes.”

Meanwhile, UAlbany has won six of their last eight games and has a chance today to finish over .500 for their non-conference slate.

“We have to regroup and get ready to matchup against Wagner,” said Brown.

Redshirt freshman Ralph Watts is listed as doubtful, after suffering a mild left ankle sprain against Xavier.

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.

University at Albany men's basketball coach Will Brown announced Monday that senior guard Mike Johnson will be suspended for both team scrimmages and the first two games of the season.

The team imposed suspension comes after Johnson was cited for harassment and resisting arrest after an illegal Fourth of July fireworks show on the University's campus.

"We have high expectations for student-athletes in our program," said Brown on Monday. "I talk to my guys all the time about making smart choices and making the right decision. Unfortunately, Mike used some bad judgement and made a poor decision and was in direct violation of team policy."

Brown said that Johnson is in good standing with the University, set to graduate in the Spring and that he only received community service from the courts.

"I'm a big believer in second chances and I think Mike really has learned his lesson," Brown said. "But, I need to send a message to every kid in our program, kids that we're recruiting, that you come to the University at Albany, you're going to work hard to get a degree, become a better basketball player and do the right thing."

Brown said that he felt there needed to be punishment because of the negative light cast on the University, the team and Mike, himself.

"Again, a lot of people look at it as Fourth of July fireworks, but to me, it's bigger than that," Brown said. "It's about decision-making and Mike not doing the right thing at the right time.

Johnson will miss the opener against Syracuse (Nov. 10) and then UAlbany's home opener against Morgan State (Nov. 13).

"He's remorseful and he's looking forward to getting back with his teammates, working hard and having a good senior year," Brown added.

Brown also said that Johnson is not a shoo-in to be the starter at point guard for the Great Danes, who will have newcomers Derrek Tartt, Mike Black and Ralph Watts, who Brown said reminds him of Brian Lillis in that he can play a variety of positions.

Brown added that what was a weakness in 2008-09 at the point, he feels will be "much improved."