Danes crumble in final minutes, fall at Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY- Let me give you a scenario.

Team A leads Team B 65-47. There’s 7:15 left to on the clock. While I typed that, Team A just hit a three-pointer. Make that a 68-47 game (21 point lead), with 7:02 to go. Team A is shooting 58% from the field and 59% from three point land. There’s no way Team A blows this, right?

Wrong.

That’s exactly what happened between Team A (the University at Albany Great Danes) and Team B (the Stony Brook University Seawolves) Sunday afternoon at the Island Federal Credit Union Arena on the campus of Stony Brook University, where the hosts pulled off a comeback which was nothing short of a miracle to complete the resurgence and somehow pull out the victory, 72-70.

There were no words to describe the loss for the visitors. Shocked, stunned, surprised. Those three put together still didn’t come close to doing justice to what had just happened. Even though the Danes had arguably their best half of basketball season in the first half, all anyone could talk about postgame was the collapse.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been apart of anything like this before,” UAlbany Head Coach Will Brown said postgame, trying to find the words. “We had a complete meltdown.”

The game seemed to be in hand. The Danes led right from the beginning; Mike Rowley scored a layup 38 seconds in and the Danes never relinquished the lead until Tyrell Sturdivant hit the game-winning layup with .6 seconds left.

After the Dallas Ennema three with 7:02 left, the game was all Stony Brook. The Seawolves then pulled off a 25-2 run, including a 21-0 run in the final 5:37.

Stony Brook turned to a dominating full court 1-2-2 zone trap defense in the final minutes, forcing the Danes to throw the ball to the sideline where they would be trapped and more often then not, turn the ball over. Albany had eight turnovers compared to only two shots after a layup by Rowley, their last basket of the game, with 5:55 to go.

One of the key turning points was when David Nichols, unquestionably the Danes best ball handler, fouled out with 3:52 left in the game with his team leading by nine. Five of the eight Albany turnovers after the 5:55 mark came after Nichols fouled out.

“David fouling out killed us,” Brown said postgame. “No one wanted to handle the ball. Nobody had any interest in handling the ball. Nobody. It was like a game of hot potato.”

Albany struggled to get the ball just across half court, nevermind setting up the offense and looking for a bucket. Joe Cremo, who finished with a game highs in points and rebounds (17 and 7),  had three turnovers in the final 2:07. Devonte Campbell, who took the spot of Nichols on the floor, had a costly turnover with 1:02 left. By the time the final buzzer sounded, Albany had tallied 19 turnovers, 11 of them coming in the second half.

That was the ninth game that had come down to the final shot for the Seawolves this season, and Stony Brook Head Coach Jeff Boals was quick to compliment his team postgame.

“That paid dividends for us,” he said. “Guys didn’t panic when we got down. Kept fighting and kept chipping away. Really proud of our guys in the final eight minutes for the fight and the grit that they had.”

Four players finished in double figures, led by Cremo. Mike Rowley finished with 12 points off 6-7 shooting, while Nichols finished with 11 and Greig Stire ended his evening with 10 points and five rebounds.

Albany, now 9-8 and 0-2 in conference for the first time since the 2009-10 season, will look to rebound Wednesday night at 7:00 PM at SEFCU Arena when they host the New Hampshire Wildcats.