The DR's Latest Appointments

Welcome back to the blog folks. Time for the DR to take a look at some patients.

Patient #1: UAlbany Men's Basketball
Symptoms: 0-3 record, Blow-out losses to Georgia Tech and American, missing point guard, turnovers

Diagnosis: Simply, they need PG Mike Black to get healthy. Black had scored 10 points, and lead Albany to a 9 point advantage in the opening 13 minutes against Cornell. Since Black's injury, Albany has been out-scored 183-130. In regards to Black's replacements, Jacob Iati and Ralph Watts, Coach Will Brown said, "Our point guards are a work in progress right now." There has been no update on Black's condition, and the longer he is out, the harder it's going to be for UAlbany to right the ship.

Patient #2: UAlbany Women's Basketball
Symptoms: 2-0 record entering Friday, a first year head coach, two players who have had double-doubles in both games so far

Diagnosis: At first glance everything seems fine here, but there are some concerns that bear monitoring over the next few weeks. Julie Forster and Ebone Henry have been spectacular so far, combining to average 35 points, and 26.5 boards per game so far. The problem is the supporting cast. The rest of team is averaging 21.5 points per game and shooting just 24.6% (16/65) from the field so far including a painful 14.2% (3/21) from 3 point range. Guard Felicia Johnson has been off to a slow start shooting 21% so far, after being one of the teams leading scorers last year. It may be worth considering giving point guard duties to Henry to take the heat off Johnson, in the hope it will jump start her offense. Besides, Lebron and Jordan weren't point guards but typically held the ball and ran the offense anyway. Henry may not be at that level, but why not. Additionally, why not try to push the ball inside more and give Forster and Williams more shots from close in, Forster is shooting 75% from inside the 3 point line, and Williams is shooting just under 56% this year.

Lacrosse Role Reversals: 5/6/10

Nightmare on Fallon Field:

The Women's Lacrosse team, who was the number one seed in the AEC tournament, was upset today in the semi-final rounds by UMBC, 11-9. The Danes blew a 5-2 halftime lead en-route to the loss against a UMBC team that Albany had defeated on their home turf just a few weeks ago.


Table Turning:

A similar story occured down in Maryland yesterday in a Men's Lacrosse game. However, it was the 3rd seeded UAlbany team who upset the 2nd seeded UMBC Retrievers 11-7, reversing a 7-12 defeat there just 2.5 weeks ago. The win moved Albany to 5-10, and it is notable that 4 of their five wins have come against conference rival teams. However, their next challenge is a tough one. The team will have to travel to play at Stony Brook on saturday with the conference title on the line, the same Stony Brook team that embaressed the Great Danes in front of their home crowd at the Big Purple Stomp back on April 24th, by a score of 15-0. With yesterday's win against UMBC, Stony stands as the only conference team Albany has not beaten this year.

Opening Day Reactions-Matsui

Just wondering what everyone thought about opening day. Of course one game means nothing as far as the rest of the season goes, but it's always interesting to talk about it. Hideki Matsui certainly looked comfortable last night hitting a home run and a couple of RBI's in his first game as an Angel. Is he picking up where he left off from the playoffs and can he keep this up for the entire season? Can he now reach his full potential out of the spotlight of New York City?

NCAA TOURNAMENT: FINAL FOUR

The Final Four is finally here. Now that almost all of our bracket's are in shambles (Thanks Kansas & Syracuse) lets analyze the two games being played on Saturday. The first match-up is Butler v. Michigan State. Two 5 seeds coming out of their respected regions. For those of you who don't know much about Butler, the Butler Campus is 6 miles away from Lucas Oil Stadium, which is home to this year's Final Four. Butler is also on a 24 game winning streak, the longest active streak in Division 1 basketball. They also play the best defense I've seen all tournament long. Although these are intriguing attributes, I believe that Michigan State will win this match-up. Butler star player Gordon Hayward is averaging less points and rebounds during the tournament then the regular season. Their coach, Brad Steven's has never been to a Final Four and lacks experience that Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has an abundance of. Izzo is one of the best, if not the best coach in college basketball. His teams never have the best talent, but he gets the best out of his players. Durrell Summers is the catalyst for the Spartans run to the Final Four. He has averaged 20 ppg in the tournament. A big step up from his 11.2 ppg during the regular season. He's also stepped up his three point percentage from 53% during the tournament, as opposed to his 36% in the regular season. Despite losing starting point guard Kalin Lucas in the second round of the tournament, the Spartans haven't let that slow them down and I believe they will win on Saturday. Also, for those of you who forgot, check out Durrell Summers' dunk last year during the Final Four on Stanley Robinson. CLICK HERE!

In the second match-up we have West Virginia v. Duke. College basketball fan's could've picked this final four match-up much easier than Butler v. Michigan State. West Virginia won the Big East Tournament while Duke won the ACC regular season and post season. West Virginia beat Morgan State, a very good Missouri team, a late Surging Washington team which won the Pac-10 Tournament, and an extremely talented Kentucky team, who had only lost two games the whole season, prior to their Elite 8 game. Duke has had an easy road to the final four, knocking off Arkansas Pine-Bluff, the winners of the "play-in game" a.k.a. the most pointless game in the tournament, California, who won the regular season in a very weak Pac-10 conference, Purdue, who was without their star player Robbie Hummel, and most recently a very good Baylor team, who got the raw end of the deal because of a horrible charge call on Quincy Acy, which changed the dynamic of the game. If Brian Zoubek of Duke was charged with a block instead of the awful charge call, he would've fouled out and Baylor would've been on the line for a chance to put them up by 5. Instead the call gives Duke the ball, and Zoubek stays in the game to grab offensive rebounds over the shorter Baylor players. With that being said, Duke is in the Final Four and is matched up against their hardest opponent yet. West Virginia has a surplus of talent, plus a great set of role players. Da'Sean Butler is WV's star player. Butler can play any position on the floor, which is especially key since starting Point Guard Darryl Bryant went down with an injury to his right foot in the second game of the tournament. Kevin Jones is a 3-point specialist who's averaged more than 40% from three on the season. Devin Ebanks is a lanky forward who leads the team in rebounding and is also a great defender. These three players are the core for this West Virginia team, not to mention a great supporting cast of Joe Mazzula, Wellington Smith, and John Flowers. Duke is led by a trio of players as well. Kyle Singler, a wiry 6'8 forward who has shot the three at 39.1% for the season. Jon Scheyer, a guard who also shoots the three very well at 38.1% on the season, and is the leading scorer at 18.2 ppg. And last but not least, Nolan Smith who leads this amazing three point shooting team in 3-point % at 39.6%. The Blue Devils have proven against Baylor that they don't need all three players to put up a lot of points. Kyle Singler was 0-10 from the field and ended with 5 points, but Duke still walked away with the win. Duke also has a number of role players that have come up big as of late, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas were great on the offensive boards against Baylor. This is a very tough match-up to call, but I believe that the superior conference will win and West Virginia will be playing Michigan State for a national championship on Monday.

NCAA Tournament Expansion

With all the talk of NCAA Tournament expansion, especially the latest declaration from the Big Ten Commissioner about the Tournament "probably" expanding to 96 teams, I believe this needs to be said:

DON'T DO IT!

Let's start with an overlooked, obvious point: 96 teams will mean the Top 32 teams would all have byes (That would have meant for this year teams like Richmond, Clemson, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, Marquette, Vanderbilt, Temple, UNLV, Texas, Georgetown, all teams that lost in the 1st round this year, would ALL have byes straight through to the second round. If any expansion should happen, it should be to 128, which would leave no teams with 1st round byes.

That being said, I will also say this: If any Tournament changes should happen, the Tournament should be reduced to 32 teams. While all of these upsets in the 1st round are always nice, most people know that 8 times out of 10, these underdogs, like Ohio this year, would run off the court with their tails between their legs halfway through the game because they're down by 50 points. Cutting the field in half gives you 32 teams who all have a shot of winning the Tournament. With 64 teams, you run the risk of teams who have no chance of winning more than 2 games beating the teams who have a shot of winning it all. I say, cut the field in half. And the sooner, the better.

America East NCAA Tournament Update

On Saturday, the Vermont Catamounts defeated the Boston Terriers 83-70 to win the America East Conference Championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

ESPN's Bracketologist, Joe Lunardi, as of 1 P.M EST on Sunday, had the Catamounts as one of the 4 15 seeds, facing Big East Champion West Virginia in the opening round. Should the Catamounts be able to upset the Mountaineers, they would face the winner of the opening round game between California and Old Dominion.

UALBANY MEN'S BASKETBALL LOSES TO STONY BROOK

Last Saturday, the Great Danes lost to the Stony Brook Seawolves in the first game of the America East Tournament. The Danes managed to keep the game close in the first half. Billy Allen hit a 3-point buzzer beater to end the first half which made the score 31-28 Seawolves at halftime. In the beginning of the second half, Albany tied the game up at 36-36 thanks to freshman point guard Mike Black, who hit back to back 3-pointers, but that would be the closest the Danes would get to capturing the lead. The Seawolves won by the score of 68 to 59. On a positive note, Mike Black finished with 17 points, and Logan Aronhalt finished with 16 points. The Dane's end a disappointing season, but have a core group of underclassmen who have gotten good experience this year and will be ready for next season!