Milestones Milestones Everywhere

Vermont 55 Albany 45

Sandro Carissimo scored 17 points to lead all scorers and break the 1,000 point mark for his career. This is a special accomplishment and it speaks to Carissimo's tremendous consistency. Carissimo has never been rattled throughout his career and to me it is his calming influence that allows Vermont to feel like they have a chance to win no matter the game situation. It was nice to see Carissimo break out of a mini-slump and now that he has reached 1,000 hopefully the pressure is off and he will be able to go back to being steady Sandro. For Carissimo's high school teammate Brian Voelkel it was also a record breaking night. Voelkel had 8 assists to pass Mike Trimboli for the most assists in UVM history. This is just an unbelievable accomplishment after already becoming the all time rebounding leader just a short while ago. Voelkel is the most unique player in college basketball and has a place in the history of college basketball. Years down the road when another player is putting up similar statistics, Voelkel will be the answer to a trivia question. Who is the only player in NCAA history with 1,000 career rebounds and 600 career assists? Just an unbelievable player and in this game he stuffed the stat sheet with 10 rebounds, 5 points, and 5 steals to go along with the assists. Another point about the records is that Voelkel broke them so early in the season, he is going to put some serious distance between him and second place.  This game was won in the trenches by the Vermont defense. I hope that as people are watching this team play they can appreciate how amazing their defense is. I don't think we will ever see a team who plays defense like this group does. This is a historically dominant Vermont team as they have now held 7 out of their 9 conference opponents under 50 points. UNDER 50. Now that this team rediscovered their defensive identity they are firing on all cylinders. This was never more evident than the hustle plays that helped seal the game. Luke Apfeld, who knows that his knees have given out and is trying to squeeze every last minute out of them, made two hustle plays on offensive rebounds that helped the Cats salt away the game. Apfeld knows what his role is on this team and is doing whatever he can to make sure they come out with a win. The seniors on this team have finally started playing with that sense of urgency that you tend to see on senior laden teams. Candon Rusin was great in the game and even scored going to the basket several times. It is nice to see him score without relying on the three. This game was important and Vermont played like they knew it. Becker called a time out after they fell behind 6-0 and from that point on they dominated the game. With 5 of their last 7 conference games at home, Vermont is set up to basically play Stony Brook for the conference title on February 27th. Much can happen in between but Vermont controls their own destiny now and they are playing like they know it.