Four University at Albany seniors will play their final regular-season game at SEFCU Arena tonight at 7, when the Great Danes host America East Conference leader Stony Brook.
The Great Danes (2-11, 7-21) are coming off a 75-62 victory over the University of Maryland Baltimore County last Saturday night. That win snapped an eight-game losing streak, the longest in UAlbany’s Division I era.
UAlbany is in eighth place, a half-game ahead of UMBC, while Stony Brook (11-2, 19-7) has a one-game lead over Vermont, and a two-game lead over third-place Maine.
Center Brett Gifford, forward Will Harris, forward Scotty McRae and backup point guard Michael Johnson will be honored in a pregame ceremony.
The senior graduating with the largest impact on the program is Harris, a 6-foot-5, 230-pound transfer from Virginia. Harris, who averages 12.3 points per game this season, is 14th in the conference in scoring and fifth in field-goal percentage (.469). The tri-captain, who missed a handful of games because of a contusion on his knee, has scored at least 20 points 11 times in his career, and has 708 career points with the Great Danes.
Gifford, 6-11 and 265 pounds, had been a starter for more than half of his career, but has been sitting the bench for the last half of this season. The tri-captain has made 60 starts in 117 career games, and is averaging 2.1 points and 3.2 rebounds per game.
McRae, a 6-8, 220-pound transfer from East Wyoming College, is coming off a career-high 21 points at UMBC. He is averaging 5.8 points and 4.4 rebounds this season, primarily as the Danes’ first big man off the bench.
Johnson, who is still second on the team in assists (2.5 per game) despite playing sparingly in the last half of the season, hasn’t appeared in the last four games.
Harris, junior forward Fran Urli (5.3 ppg), freshman center Blake Metcalf (2.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg), redshirt freshman Logan Aronhalt (5.7 ppg) and freshman point guard Mike Black (6.6 ppg) are listed as the probable starters for Albany, which has road games at Maine and Hartford remaining in the regular season.
Junior guard Tim Ambrose, who is the first player off the bench, tops the Danes in scoring at 13.4 points per game, and he is also the team’s top rebounder at 4.9 rpg. Ambrose, who has scored at least 20 points 15 times in his career, became the 30th player in UAlbany history to reach 1,000 career points on Feb. 3.
Stony Brook has won eight in a row following Tuesday’s 86-72 win at UMBC. The Seawolves lead the America East Conference in scoring defense (62.2 ppg), three-point field goal percentage (.352) and steals (7.5 pg).
Muhammad El-Amin, a 6-5 senior, is fourth in the league in scoring at 16.6 points per game. Bryan Dougher is 10th in the league in scoring at 13.5 ppg, and is one of the conference’s top three-point shooters with 75 in 181 attempts.
Other key players for Stony Brook are 6-5 sophomore Tommy Brenton (8.0 ppg, 9.6 rpg), 6-7, 250-pound sophomore Dallis Joyner (7.8 ppg, 6.7 rpg) and guard Chris Martin (10.8 ppg), who has split time between starting and coming off the bench.
Categories: College Sports
