Vermont vs Stony Brook 2/14/21

Vermont 61 Stony Brook 57

Some love for the Catamounts on Valentine's Day. 

Vermont scratched and clawed their way to victory, holding off the Seawolves second half free throw party to get the series sweep. A tremendous team win and an impressive sweep coming off a 26 day pause. With everyone struggling from the field it became a one on one battle between Tomas Murphy for Vermont and Juan Felix Rodriguez for Stony Brook. Murphy shot the lights out from three knocking down 5 straight and finishing with 17 points on 5-7 shooting from three. His offensive burst carried the Cats before holding off a red hot Rodriguez. Murphy's offensive explosion is a perfect illustration of how dangerous Vermont's depth can be. Stony Brook made sure that Ryan Davis was not going to be the one to beat them in this game and they were executing that plan perfectly. Vermont made some great adjustments and Murphy picked up the slack. Great chess match between the two coaches. Davis fought hard and finished with 13 points. It was actually the first game all season where he did not make a three pointer. Stony Brook double and triple teamed him throughout and made every offensive touch a battle. Stef Smith had one of his best games of the season. He was very active on defense and really stuffed the stat sheet with 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 assists. Smith finally looked comfortable and engaged on both ends of the floor. The unsung hero was once again Bailey Patella. It wont show up in the box score but he almost single handedly got the last few stops the Cats needed to close out the game. The game was very odd as Vermont couldn't make a shot inside the arc in the first half (4-19, 21% from inside the arc). Then in the second half Stony Brook went eleven minutes and eighteen seconds without a field goal but actually got back into the game during that time by scoring 13 straight points from the foul line. Then after a few close games early in the season where the ball didn't bounce the Cats way, Mo Gueye missed a go ahead dunk with 18 seconds left to all but seal the victory for Vermont. The law of averages usually wins out. Now Vermont has the showdown that seemed inevitable from the start of the season with UMBC. Both teams at 9-3 and atop the conference ready to duke it out for the conference title. With the utmost respect to Stony Brook and Albany, the best rivalry in the America East for the past several seasons is Vermont versus UMBC. Every game is a battle. Couldn't ask for a better series of college basketball.