The Great Dane Defense in Conference Play: ugly, with an interesting twist.

This graph isn't pretty, but it's a helpful look at Albany's defense in conference play. This is tempo-free statistics, so it factors out a fast-paced game as an excuse for giving up a lot of points -- but thank goodness Albany was scoring a lot of points because their defense (7th in the conference) couldn't have bought them many wins on their own.

The golden line is the national average on defense (100.7) -- and this data is all against America East opponents so to expect average defense is a fair request. Only four times all season did Albany hold an opponent below an average offensive output. The red line is Stony Brook's average defensive performance through conference play (#1 at 92.1 -- but both BU and Vermont are under 94). Only once did Albany have a better defensive performance than SBU does on a nightly average -- and that game was clearly an anomaly against Hartford. A very young team in it's first AE game on the road was just helpless. But since then, their schedule has almost exactly mirrored Albany's (2 wins over Maine, 1-1 against UNH, and swept by the big guns).

But here's the bright side. One the road, versus a bizarre Maine team, Albany had their best defensive performance of the year (you could argue the UNH revenge game post-SBU shallacking was better, but I'll take this win on the road vs. Gerald McLemore and Justin Edwards). With Logan Aronhalt on the sidelines, Albany held down an offense that had shredded them pretty thoroughly despite a narrow win.

And then the nations 5th leading scorer and basket-slashing phenom Gerardo Suero caught the shingles and left Albany for all intents and purposes without their two best offensive players. And their two worst defensive players.

Then they went out and played their best game of the year. The team rallied around Jacob Iati's heart, bouncing on the perimeter willing every possible inch of defensive nuisance out of his 5'8 frame. Blake Metcalf somehow secured every single possible rebound. Ralph Watts and Jayson Guerrier, efficient but not flashy role players were forced to log extra minutes and Albany nearly tipped the best team in the league (Vermont on a 9 game winning streak has a kenpom rpi of 125).

Perhaps it was a fluke. But it's not a fluke that the top three defensive teams in the league are EASILY the top three teams in the league. There's a chasm between SBU, BU, and UVM that no AE team has even come close to broached -- and Albany has the fewest excuses for that sort of challenge. These injuries might jar the Danes into the realization the defense can win championships, but we'll see if it's too late and too many injuries later.