Vermont Wins a Good One Against Albany

The last several years, I have felt like Albany and Vermont fans are oddly in the same boat: they look on, hoping their team can restore the magic of years gone by. Because, in our tiny conference, these two teams are the only ones who have really competed on the national stage, in the NCAA tournament. When Albany fans close their eyes, they picture Jamar Wilson and company up on Connecticut, 50-38 with 11 minutes to go. When Vermont fans slide a VHS into the cassette player, it is to re-watch the grainy images of TJ Sorrentine letting one fly from 28 feet, en route to the biggest win in America East history. And, yet, the dream seems so far gone.

America East has gone downhill, fast. Every team Albany or Vermont has fielded (with perhaps the exceptions of the 2007 Albany team and the 2010 Vermont team) has seemed good enough to win the conference, but you can't really picture them competing against a 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Tonight, the rivals played a surprisingly exciting basketball game. They traded buckets at a frenetic pace during parts of the second half, making us foolish fans believe these teams could hang with the big boys, if only given a chance.

Reality after the jump.

Down the stretch, both teams showed their true colors. Reality suck in. Vermont came out on top, 73-69 because of good rebounding, clutch free throw shooting, relatively superior coaching (no large feat), and one huge three from senior Matt Glass. But the Catamounts did not necessarily put Albany away with as much authority as one might expect. They let Albany hang around. Even after Glass hit the three that put Vermont up 71-69 with 30 seconds to play, Albany quickly got to the rim -- something they seemed to do at will against the Cat's D -- and cut the lead to 2. Four McGlynn iced the game at the line for the Cats, and that was that. But this game should have been over long before.

Albany likes to play offense. And they are pretty good at it, as well. There is this other aspect of basketball, though, where you try to stop the other team from putting the ball in the basket -- this is known as defense. I can't tell you if Albany is any good at it, because I didn't see them try. How about Albany's perimeter D? They rank 332nd in the country in that category, and it showed tonight. Vermont, who shoots an average of 13 threes a game, and makes less than five of them, went 9-18 from range tonight. Brian Voelkel went 2-2 from behind the arc. Previously this season, he was 2-13. So, we could argue that Albany just has bad luck, and shooters catch fire against them for some mysterious reason. Or, we could argue more realistically, Albany makes players so comfortable shooting the basketball, that a player like Brian Voelkel can hit two twenty-footers in one game for the first time in his collegiate career (and probably his life).

This brings me to the next topic: Gerardo Suero. Look, the kid had 16 points (8 in each half). He went 7-14 from the field. He made the players around him better. But when you have to make defense-for-offense substitutions for your best player in the final couple of minutes, that's a big problem. As our very own Redwyn argued in a previous post, Suero is not a good defender. I would have to agree with that statement, having finally watched an Albany game all the way through. Let's not get this twisted: he's not the worst defender in Division I basketball history, and he is still a great offensive playmaker, and somebody you want to have on your team. I just don't like Albany's chances if they don't show a commitment to defense, and the larger issue is that your best player creates a culture. It was not just Suero who lacked on the defensive end, it was the Great Danes as a whole. If they want to get that tournament bid, the defense has to do a 180.

Back to the green-and-gold side of things. This was not the best Vermont has played this season, not by a long shot. But some good things started happening: Brendan Bald scored in double figures, Clancy Rugg continued to be the greatest walk-on in the history of Division I basketball, and, gosh-darn-it, the Cats improved to 5-2 in conference play (and 3-0 at home). The weird part about Vermont's game plan was that they seemed to not want to play a physical game. A combined 29 fouls were called in the entire game. Suero looked comfortable going to the rack. Luke Apfeld only had -- gasp -- three fouls (fourth game in a row with three or less!). This is strange because it is a game you would expect Vermont to try to slow down, to knock Black and Suero to the ground when they go to the hole. Black and Suero seemed to get into the paint at will, where they would either finish or dish to a teammate (some of Suero's passing was quite impressive). Normally, you would expect Voelkel to throw a few elbows into the opposition to let them know he's there. This did not happen either. It worked out, but I would expect a more physical game on the return trip to Albany.

All in all, a good one in America East. One Albany and Vermont fans alike were not embarrassed to be watching live.