Going into UAlbany’s Wednesday night matchup with Marist, UAlbany needed a victory.
The Danes were coming off back-to-back losses. Two losses where they held considerable halftime leads. Two games with disappointing second half performances. Two games that, well, should have ended up in the victory column.
They needed the victory.
And they got it. The Danes (5-4) cruised to a 78-66 over the visiting Red Foxes Wednesday night, never relinquishing their lead and extending it to as much as 19.
“This is a game that we needed,” UAlbany Head Coach Will Brown stated postgame. “I thought we came out and played with great energy and enthusiasm early and often.”
Joe Cremo paved the way offensively for the hosts, scoring a game-high 24 points, one shy of his career high, bringing in six rebounds and setting a new career-high with seven assists. Dallas Ennema was impressive off the bench, scoring 16 points and controlling six rebounds, while Mike Rowley and Marqueese Grayson each scored 14, respectively.
“We hate losing,” Cremo said postgame. “We want to have that feeling out of our system. We have to hate to lose. We wanted to get back to winning and I feel like we just have to keep playing hard and keep completing.”
After a rough first half where he shot only 2-of-8 from the field, Cremo would go 7-of-11 and 6-of-8 from the free throw line for 20 of his 24 points in the final 20 minutes, including a stretch of 8 straight UAlbany points that kept a sputtering offense afloat in the final five minutes and change.
“I just let the game come to me and tried not to force anything,” Cremo quoted about his improved second half performance. “I tried not to think about shots out there and just kept playing the game of basketball. My teammates helped me out a lot too.”
The all-around offensive game was much improved also from the past two losses, going from making only three three-point shots in the past two games combined to making five (Ennema had three and Grayson had two) tonight and shooting almost 36% from behind the arc. They also cut down on the turnovers, going from an average of 15 in the past week to just nine tonight, forcing Marist into 19 turnovers of their own and doubling the points (24-12) they got off of them.
“Everyone wants to talk about (Cremo’s) 24 points,” Brown mentioned. “I want to talk about seven assists and no turnovers. Joe with seven assists and no turnovers is tremendous. That shows me some growth and that’s what we need.”
Apart of the solid defensive performace was UAlbany doing a good job limiting Marist’s Khallid Hart to just 10 points after coming into the game averaging 19.3 points.
Brown said after the game he expects big man Travis Charles to be out the next 10 days with a hairline fracture of his tibial plateau, towards the top of the shin. The “medical update” from Brown noted Jaraan Lands (hamstring) is expected to be back for the game at Columbia December 30th, Jamir Andrews (knee) is out at least another four weeks, and Xavier Cochran (hip surgery) is officially out for the year, leaving the Danes with just nine scholarship players in uniform for the the next 10 days.
Albany will head to Hamilton, New York, to face Colgate this Saturday at 2 PM before they head to Canisius to face the Golden Griffins Monday night at 7. Brown said Albany will not come home after the Colgate and instead will go straight to Western New York.
