Stony Brook 72 Vermont 61
It was great to see Josh Speidel in Patrick Gym. He is such and important piece to the program. His hard work and determination during his recovery are a tremendous inspiration. Today was a great reminder about life beyond basketball. As fans it is sometimes easy to overlook that all of the players are ultimately young adults going to college and finding their place in the world. No matter what happens on the court these young men are growing and becoming a family. That is the atmosphere that Coach Becker has cultivated and today was one of those moments where you see the importance of all the non-basketball related parts of building a great program. Now on to the game.
Vermont played a tough, hard fought game but struggled to make plays when they needed to in the second half. Much of that was due to Stony Brook turning up the pressure on defense. Stony Brook is a very strong team and should win the title in the America East. Anything less than that and it will be a major failure. The Seawolves are the best team in the league with the best player in the league. Jameel Warney is very good and Stony Brook finally has the supporting cast around him to win the league. Ahmad Walker is very versatile and does all of the little things to help a team win. In the first half Vermont did a great job on the boards and didn't let Stony Brook push them around. The Seawolves came out in the second half and locked down on defense. This caused a 6 minute scoring drought for Vermont to start the second half and from there Vermont could never quite hit the big shots they needed. One of the positives is that the defense is back for the Cats. They played very tough and got plenty of stops. Unfortunately on the offensive side of the ball, Vermont struggled to make shots. The Cats are very dependent on Ernie Duncan and Kurt Steidl hitting threes. Today they could not get the crucial shots to go down and finished a combined 3-11 from the arc. A portion of the difficulties in the game today was the mistakes for Vermont were poorly timed. They only finished with 8 turnovers for the entire game which is tremendous but they were turnovers that led to baskets and turnovers when Vermont really needed a score. Overall it was a good effort by Vermont and they need to shake it off and attack the second half of the conference schedule with the same defensive tenacity they have shown over the past few games. Ethan O'Day in particular played very well in the game today. He finished with a double double of 11 points and 10 rebounds. O'Day also played tough defense without fouling and finished with three blocks. One of the events of the game that made it hard for Vermont to fight back was yet another Dre Wills injury. He called to the bench after what looked like a injury to this thigh. After stretching it out and trying to play through he sat for most of the second half, only playing 6 minutes. Wills is probably the most crucial player on Vermont because he changes both sides of the ball so drastically. I hope that it is nothing serious but it is rapidly turning into a lost season for Wills. Now a game against a Maine team that has been playing very well of late. When I watched Vermont play Maine on the road, the Black Bears looked very weak, especially defensively. Then they beat Albany and are now sitting at 4-4 in the league. With the current struggles at home for the Cats there are no cakewalks. They will have to be focused and ready to do battle for each and every game during the run to March.
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