America East Basketball News & Notes Conference Play is Here

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There will be two reasons to ring in the New Year this weekend. First, the normal resolutions that people make, and second is conference basketball here. On Sunday, the America East Conference will begin league play with five games. Over the next eight weeks, the chase is on for the regular-season title and home-court advantage that go with it come tournament time. The league has already put together a pretty good list of non-conference wins that should help them come March and postseason hoops. For now, it’s all about getting to that point, so let the fun begin.

As the league gets started with conference play, five teams have .500 or better records. Vermont once again stands out with a NET ranking of 94. The only team in the league that is inside the top-100 in that poll. Once again the Catamounts (8-4) had a solid non-conference season finishing with a .667 winning percentage for the fourth time under head coach John Becker. Vermont, which has won five of its last seven games, received a career-high 18 points off the bench from Aaron Deloney to beat Colegate 78-68 last Wednesday night.

Albany is one of those teams that picked up a big non-conference win in December. The Great Danes (4-8) got that win at Boston College a couple of weeks ago. It is the kind of win on the road that can change a season from bad to good. Time will tell if that’s what happens to Albany. In the meantime, as the conference season approaches, the Great Danes have won three of its last four games. That includes a 68-52 win over Lehigh last Tuesday night. Perry De’Vondre paced Albany with 18 points in that one.

UMBC (5-6) has lost four in a row. What is worse is they have not been back on the court since December 16 when they were defeated by UNC Greensboro 62-51. They are scheduled to get back on the hardwood tonight for their last non-conference home game vs Radford. At the moment, UMBC is the best offensive team in the league averaging 75 points a game in 11 games played. On the defensive end of the floor, the team is giving up 73 points a night. They are also the best free-throw shooting team in the league at 78% (151-193). They are second in assists with 148 in 11 contests for an average of 13.45 a game.

If there is one team that has been impacted by Covid it would be the UMass Lowell River Hawks (8-4). Their last two games on the road at Long Island University, and at home vs St. Francis of Brooklyn were canceled because of the virus. The River Hawks, who are 4-1 at home so far this season, are #1 in steals in the league with 105 in 12 games for an average of 8.75 per game. They are also number one in assists with 162 for an average of 13.5 a night. UMass Lowell is number one in turnover margin at 3.50 (161 by River Hawks, 203 by their opponents). They have been good on the offensive glass ranking second in rebounding offense (38.4), offensive rebounding (11.2), and rebounding margin (2.7). The River Hawks are number one in both percentages (45.6% 341-748) and percent defense (38% 260-685).

It has been a rough go of it for the Hartford Hawks (2-10) sitting in last place as the week begins. They do have this week’s America East Player of the Week in graduate student Hunter Marks. Last week in their 78-71 road win at Sacred Heart, Marks went for a career-high 31 points on 10-of-14 from the field, and 10-of-10 from the free-throw line. He also had eight rebounds, three assists, and two blocks. He is second in the league in field goal percentages at .549%, number one in free throw percentage at 85% (30-35), and third in minutes played with 33 a night. Marks is one of the holdovers from last season’s conference championship team that went to the NCAA tournament. For Hunter, this is his first weekly award.

For the fourth time this year, Albany forward Justin Neely is the Freshman of the Week. In the Great Danes win at Lehigh last week, Neely had a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds. Neely had a game-high in free throws attempts with nine vs Eastern Kentucky back on November 20. He was perfect from the line against Towson on November 9.

That is all for now from America East. We hope you are looking forward to conference play that gets started on Sunday.