UAlbany defeats Colgate behind Career Game from Cremo

HAMILTON, N.Y.- Joe Cremo doesn’t care about the points. He just wants to win.

“I never pay attention to points,” Cremo laughed when asked about it postgame. “Why would I? I got bigger things to worry about: it’s called a win.”

And winning was exactly what the University at Albany Great Danes did Saturday afternoon, 74-66, over Colgate University; with Cremo’s career-high 29 points being a big lift, of course.

“He’s the kind of player you wish you had on your team,” Colgate Head Coach Matt Langel sang the praises afterwards. “We played Syracuse and obviously they’ve got some really talented guys with a lot of potential but I can’t say we’ve played a better basketball player than Cremo.

Cremo’s production between the two halves was split pretty evenly; he scored 14 points in the first half (the 14th being his 500th career point only 10 games into his sophomore season) off 6-of-7 shooting and scored 15 in the second, going 8-for-8 from the free throw line.

Cremo, once again, got a good amount of support from backcourt mate David Nichols, who went under-the-radar with 17 points, six of them coming in a span of 1:09 apart of a 10-2 UAlbany run in the middle of the first half, and four assists on 7-of-15 shooting.

Besides Cremo, the most impressive performance came from sophomore Devonte Campbell, who while the box score won’t tell the full story, finished with seven points and five rebounds in the 19 minutes of action he saw. The 19 minutes are the second most Campbell has seen in his first year in a Great Dane uniform, behind only the 22 minutes he played against Marist just days ago.

“I was really pleased with his defensive effort overall,” UAlbany Head Coach Will Brown said postgame. “I thought he was rock solid for us. He was productive and he executed the scout to a T on the defensive end.”

The minutes increase hasn’t come without a reason, however.

“He had a great week of practice,” Brown complimented. “He started to be aggressive, he was really pounding the offensive glass, and he was trying to make some plays at the rim. We needed some fire in the belly and in the past week I think he’s shown that.”

UAlbany (6-4) will go straight to Buffalo to face Canisius Monday night at 7 PM before returning home next Saturday to host St. Francis Brooklyn.