Vermont Wins, Climbs Into Driver's Seat

As Crash Davis once told Nuke LaLoosh: "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes, it rains." The first and third things happened at Patrick this Sunday afternoon -- Vermont won, and Four McGlynn made it rain.

As the clock ticked down, some fans poured out of the gym while others stayed and sang a warm goodbye to the Stony Brook bench (na, na, na, na...hey eyyyy, goodbye!). Stony Brook must have wondered how they got into this position. How their prospects of the top tournament seed now rely on Vermont getting tripped up in Albany on Wednesday (not unlikely), or against UMBC (unlikely), or against Binghamton (borderline impossible). Stony Brook must have been wondering if they would get to come back to Burlington in March to avenge this loss.

Vermont gained control of the conference with a dominant 68-49 win over the Seawolves in front of a packed Patrick Gym. The environment was as close as a regular season game could get to an America East championship final. After stumbling to a 23-22 point halftime lead, Vermont shredded Stony Brook's stingy defense for 45 second half points. Having had their season ended by Stony Brook last year, and having suffered through a 55-49 point loss earlier this season at the hands of the Seawolves, Vermont fans took noticeable pleasure in sticking it to their budding rival. That's why they sang.

Perhaps what the fans were trying to say to the Stony Brook players was, "We'll see you in a month. Same place, same time."

Read more if you want to know how all this happened.

This game can be summed up by the following statistics:

Stony Brook, 17-51 FG, 0-15 3PT, 15-26 FT

Vermont, 22-46 FG, 9-19 3PT, 15-18 FT

Shall we continue? Vermont came out hot. They took a 21-9 lead. Stony Brook then put the defensive clampdown on Vermont, hit a few shots, and generally outplayed the Catamounts for the last ten minutes of the first half. When the smoke cleared, it was a 13-2 Seawolves run to close out the half.

Enter: Four.

Four hit 4 threes from the same spot on the floor and helped Vermont outscore Stony Brook by 18 in the second half. Indeed, Four's 24 points were the difference between the two teams. You might be thinking: "four threes -- that's an average night for some players." I do not disagree. The thing that I, and most Vermont fans, I would assume, have come to love about Four is that he picks his spots. The 7 threes he attempted today matched a season high. Let's juxtapose that with Stony Brook's Brian Dougher (0-7 3PT FG today), who is a great 3 point shooter in his own right: but Dougher averages 7.7 threes attempted per game. Granted, he shoots 39% from distance and Four shoots 40%, but Four can legitimately take over a game with just four shots. He simply doesn't take bad shots. I cannot say the same about Dougher after watching him go 3-14 against Vermont this season (last year he was 2-13). He forces the issue. It's as though he has a quota to fulfill, and will jack shots until it is met.

Dallis Joyner -- and all of Stony Brook, for that matter -- absolutely owned Vermont on the glass. Joyner was good for 11 boards, 5 of them offensive. As a team, Stony Brook pulled down 16 offensive rebounds. Granted, when you miss 34 shots in a game you have ample opportunity to pull down offensive boards, but let's do the math here: Stony Brook pulled down 16 offensive rebounds out of 34 chances. I'm no mathematician, but that seems awfully close to 50%. That's going to be something Vermont will want to correct if there is another meeting between these two teams.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the solid efforts turned in by Josh Elbaum and Sandro Carissimo tonight. Elbaum had a career-high 5 assists in just 9 minutes of play. He generally seemed comfortable on the floor. All Carissimo did was live inside Dougher's jersey all game, holding the Seawolves' leading scorer to 8 points on 2-14 shooting. Vermont is looking solid at the point guard position, which was a bit of a question mark coming into the season.

Overall, the game seemed like a good effort from Vermont, and, with the exception of a 8 minute stretch, a piss-poor effort from Stony Brook. Vermont now holds the keys to the ignition in America East, a familiar position. None of that will matter if Vermont loses at Albany on Wednesday. They need to finish the job.

And, as Stony Brook taught Vermont last year, none of this will matter if Vermont cannot make it to the America East championship, when being the top seed in the conference actually means something.