“In a lot of ways, it was men against boys out there tonight.”
After giving his players credit for sticking in the game, that’s the first thing Binghamton head coach Tommy Dempsey said following the men’s basketball team’s 62-46 loss to Albany at the Events Center on Tuesday night.
The men were obviously the Great Danes (17-7, 12-0 America East). Not only because of how much bigger they are; they’re stronger, faster and more physical, too. They dominated on the glass, pulling down 44 boards to Binghamton’s 19. Senior forward Sam Rowley alone nearly outrebounded the Bearcats (4-23, 3-9 AE) with 15, and for large stretches of the game, the 6-foot-6 Aussie outscored the entire Bearcat squad, too.
But it’s Albany. It may be a safety school for Binghamton students, but the two-time defending champs of the conference are the force to deal with in the America East. They’re undefeated — 12-0 — in AE play, and head coach Will Brown still said, “We need to get better.”
Okay, Will Brown.
Binghamton, on the other hand, had just nine active players on Tuesday night. Queue up Dempsey’s pride in his team’s performance. Down by as many as 19 through the game, and BU pulled to within seven in the waning minutes. The Bearcats managed to piece together a 14-2 run and force 15 total turnovers out of Albany after a shooting slump left them sluggish and uninspired.
“It’s just a testament to how hard our kids are fighting through a lot of adversity, a lot of obstacles,” Dempsey said. “And Albany did what Albany does. They made the big shots, they made it late in the game to give them the separation that they needed. But you look up with six minutes to go, and we’re in the game. It was just again a little bit of a testament to how much and how hard our kids are fighting.”
The Bearcats paced the Great Danes in the opening 12 minutes, when the SUNY rivals were tied at 10. They were defending the Great Danes down to the wire, forcing contested shots. Rowley was contained, for the time being.
But then Binghamton had to play the role of comeback kids, as Albany — or, rather, Rowley and sophomore forward Dallas Ennema — went on a torrid 16-0 stretch. While Binghamton was doubling up on Rowley, Ennema found a hole in the corners of the floor and shot 3 for 4 from deep, nailing open shots.
When BU addressed that issue, Rowley lit up for eight points, mostly in the paint.
“We doubled [Rowley] in the first half, and that opened up the court for Ennema,” Dempsey explained.
“Then doubling [Rowley] wasn’t that effective and not doubling wasn’t that effective,” he continued. “That’s why he’s First-Team All-League.”
During that stretch, Binghamton only got three shots off. The Bearcats may have pushed their visitors into taking forced shots behind a cohesive defense, but Albany — who got 14 offensive boards — would just grab the ball and reset the clock, keeping possession and draining BU’s energy. Given that four Bearcats logged 37 minutes or more, that was crucial.
“When they missed their shots, they were getting a lot of boards and that really killed our excitement of the game,” BU sophomore guard Yosef Yacob said. “We were playing good defense for 30 seconds, you force them to take a shot and they get the board. Then you got to play another 30, and they were doing that all game. And I felt like that was the biggest thing that they did during that stretch.”
BU tempered the margin to 31-17 heading into the half. After a slow start to the second period, the Bearcats rallied. They dug themselves into a 19-point hole and 75 percent of the game had gone by, but it wasn’t over yet.
Switching to a full-court press, the Bearcats started forcing turnovers, drawing fouls and finishing their looks. Two from the charity stripe from Yacob, a steal and a 3-point play from sophomore guard John Rinaldi and a 3-pointer from sophomore guard Marlon Beck II and it was a nine-point game, 44-35, with 8:44 to go. Then freshman forward Willie Rodriguez forced a turnover and charged down the floor to slam in a two-handed dunk and it was a seven-point game, 44-37, with 8:13 left.
“Our mindset was, we’ve been here before,” Beck said. “Especially in conference play, we’ve been in moments where we dig ourselves into a deep hole but then we fight our way to come back … We were just thinking we can definitely get it … we’ve got to get ourselves back in this game, especially on our home court.”
A series of timeouts quelled BU’s fire, however. Out of its swing, Binghamton fell back into a shooting slump, misfiring on its next five shots while Albany extended its lead back to double-digits, eventually taking the game, 62-46.
On the night, Binghamton shot just 32 percent from the floor to Albany’s 46 percent clip. The Great Danes accomplished that without their leading scorer in junior guard Peter Hooley, whom Brown referred to as “the best guard in the conference.” Rowley took his stead, posting a dominant double-double with 20 points and 15 rebounds, not to mention four assists. Ennema followed up with 18 points and six boards.
For Binghamton, Beck and Rodriguez finished with 13 points each. Beck shot 4 for 7 from 3-point range and recorded two steals while Rodriguez pulled down a team-high six boards. Yacob finished with nine points and freshman guard Romello Walker registered eight points and four rebounds.
Next up for Binghamton is a Saturday road match against University of New Hampshire. Tip-off is set for 1 p.m. at Lundholm Gymnasium in Durham, New Hampshire.