{"id":13649,"date":"2015-03-05T17:47:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T17:47:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/mbb-knocks-off-maine-to-open-playoffs\/"},"modified":"2015-03-05T17:47:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T17:47:48","slug":"mbb-knocks-off-maine-to-open-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/mbb-knocks-off-maine-to-open-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"MBB knocks off Maine to open playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By Seth Finkelstein<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n

sports.asp@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n

March 5, 2015<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo from UAlbany Athletics.
Coach Will Brown\u2019s team beat Maine to advance to the semifinals on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Despite star player Sam Rowley converting only two field goals, the University at Albany men\u2019s basketball team rolled through the University of Maine Wednesday night by a score of 83-68 in the opening round of the America East Conference Tournament at SEFCU Arena.<\/p>\n

UAlbany was led by the superb guard duo of Evan Singletary and Ray Sanders. Singletary scored a team high 19 points while Sanders was second on the team in scoring with 15 points. This was the first UAlbany postseason game for both of them, but it did not seem like they were fazed by the moment one bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun,\u201d Ray Sanders said afterward. \u201cWe had a pretty large margin of winning, so I mean it\u2019s good to go into the tournament on a high note like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maine\u2019s first half seemed as if it was a 3-point contest. The Black Bears shot 15 3-pointers, but only made three.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe settled too much and that was part of Albany just being tougher than us,\u201d Maine coach Bob Walsh said. \u201cWe took 28 shots in the first half 15 of them were threes. That\u2019s too many. I didn\u2019t want to take that many threes. I mean 15 threes in 28 shots is not really going to be very efficient for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Sam Rowley did not attempt one field goal in the first half, but he did connect on all four of his foul shots. Peter Hooley had four points, making only 1 of 3 field goal attempts from the field and adding\u00a0two foul shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve shown all year that we have so many guys who can contribute. They really crowded Sam, they made it tough for Sam,\u201d Hooley said. \u201cThey put all their attention on him, he caught the ball on the three-point line and he pretty much had three guys around him. He was unselfish, he managed to get everybody else into the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

UAlbany played a nearly flawless first half, as they led 46-25. They were lights out from the field shooting 60 percent, 54 percent from 3-point land and 90 percent from the foul line. They outrebounded Maine 21-8 in the first half. The only flaw was that UAlbany turned the ball over 10 times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if we didn\u2019t turn the ball over 10\u00a0times in the first half we probably would\u2019ve had a bigger lead,\u201d UAlbany coach Will Brown said. \u201cSo that was the only thing that was really disappointing with us in the first half.\u201d<\/p>\n

At halftime, Brown needed to keep UAlbany\u2019s temp up. \u201cCoach came in and told us that we got to keep the gas pedal on because we usually let up in the second half. I think we get a little bit relaxed, but I feel that we came out tonight in the second half with a sense of urgency trying to put the game away, never letting them get comfortable and trying to get back in this game,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

UAlbany did feel that urgency in the second half and pushed the lead to 24 within the first five minutes. The closest Maine got all half was when they hit two 3-pointers in a row, to cut the lead to 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Maine] never went away, they stayed with us. They were all confident. They all had the green light, they can shoot whenever they wanted. We managed to weather a few storms of theirs and keep focused to make sure we finished it out right,\u201d Hooley said.<\/p>\n

Albany scored a season high 83 points tonight and it looks like UAlbany is playing their best basketball all season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tournament, one loss we gone. We don\u2019t have a choice but to play our best basketball at this point,\u201d Singletary said.<\/p>\n

UAlbany also demolished the Black Bears in the rebounding margin, 40-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to attack the glass. We have a size advantage, that always helps as well, but you have to be relentless, you have to go to the glass,\u201d coach Brown said. \u201cWe have to rebound the ball and sometimes I think we don\u2019t block out like we should. I think we reach for the ball. We\u2019ve gotta hit before we get hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

UAlbany will play Sunday at 2 p.m. in the America East tournament semifinals at SEFCU Arena against the New Hampshire Wildcats. This game should be a close one as both meetings this season have been decided by a total of three points, both in UAlbany\u2019s favor. One thing is certain and that is UAlbany will enjoy their rest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think its beneficial in terms of how much rest you can have, you can rest your legs and get ready to go. It gives you more time to prepare for the team coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\nThe Albany Student Press<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Seth Finkelstein Staff Writer sports.asp@gmail.com March 5, 2015 Photo from UAlbany Athletics.Coach Will Brown\u2019s team beat Maine to advance to the semifinals on Sunday. Despite star player Sam Rowley converting only two field goals, the University at Albany men\u2019s basketball team rolled through the University of Maine Wednesday night by a score of 83-68 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[983],"tags":[3136,2241,459,4060],"class_list":["post-13649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albany-student-press","tag-knocks","tag-maine","tag-open","tag-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.techiteens.com\/review\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}