America East Basketball News & Notes: Vermont Regular Season Champs

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For the 12th time overall, and the sixth straight year, the Vermont Catamounts (14-1) are the regular-season champions of America East. They become the first basketball team in the country to claim their league title. They have won 16 of their last 17 games. Their NET ranking of 61 is better than teams in six regional conferences. With three games left in the regular season, every league member now knows that the road to the conference postseason championship goes through Burlington, VT. Here is a look at what else is going on in the league.

With Vermont in the driver’s seat as the number 1 seed for the tournament, the chase is now on to see who finishes number 2. As the week gets started, six teams have a good shot at finishing in second place. Four teams, Stony Brook, Albany, Binghamton, and UMBC are all tied at 8-7. Hartford has fought back to get to .500 at 7-7, UNH is one game under .500 at 7-8 but still very much alive in the standings. Stony Brook, because they are leaving the league at the end of the spring semester, is not eligible to play in the league tournament. But they will definitely have a say in how the final standings look as well as how the first-round matchups materialize.

The defending tournament champion from a year ago, the Hartford Hawks are making a late run to be a factor come March. The Hawks are winners of four of their last five games to get back to .500. Their schedule had to be rearranged because of virus issues that plagued this team early on. Head coach, John Gallagher, has done a masterful job of keeping this team together during all of this. Now, with two weeks left in the season, Hartford is starting to look like a team you would rather not face when the league playoffs get started.

Binghamton snapped a three-game losing streak at Lowell on Saturday night. Guard play was a key in the Bearcats getting back in the win column. Guards John McGriff, Jacob Falko, and Dan Petcash combined for 50 of the 78 points that Binghamton needed to get past the River Hawks. McGriff and Petcash were four-of-five from 3-point land while Falko was five-of-eight from the field. He did not try a shot from deep in the game. The trio’s ability to get to the rim, as well as shoot the ball well from the field, was key in the Bearcats getting an important win on the road. 70 or more points is a big deal for the Bearcats. When they reach that number they are 8-1 this year. With three games left, two of them will be on the road (UNH, UMBC). Their lone home game will be against Vermont.

The UMass Lowell River Hawks find themselves in a tough position heading toward the finishing line. They occupy the final spot in the chase for a postseason possibility. At 5-9, they sit in eighth place with a three-game lead on Maine who sits in last place at 3-12. The good news for the River Hawks is they hold the tiebreaker on the Black Bears by virtue of sweeping them in the regular season. Make no mistake about it, this is not the same team that has victories over the likes of Dayton and Geroge Washington in the non-conference portion of the schedule. UMass Lowell has four games left and need wins to make sure they are a part of the postseason.

If there is a team that may or may not have an advantage over the last two weeks it could be Albany. They will play two of their final three games on the road at Maine and Stony Brook, with the last game of the season at home vs Hartford. Albany will head into this stretch with a two-game winning streak. However, they have already lost to the Black Bears and Stony Brook. They own a win over Hartford.

America East Player of the Week is Hartford’s, Austin Williams. He averaged 24.5 points, six rebounds, and five assists in a 2-1 week. He shot 53% from the field (37-of-70), and in the overtime win over Vermont, Williams went for a career-best 34 points, eight boards, and six assists. In Sunday’s win over the Seawolves, he had 16 points, six rebounds, and seven assists. This is Williams’s first career weekly award.

America East Rookie of the Week is Sam Ihekwoaba of Maine. For Sam, this is the fifth time this season he has won the weekly award. In Sunday’s big win over NJIT at home, he came off the bench to score nine points to help the Black Bears get a much-needed win and keep their postseason hopes alive. In two games last week, Sam averaged 5.5 points a game.

That’s all for this week. We will look ahead to the final week of the America East regular season next time.