The Binghamton men’s basketball team dropped its fourth-consecutive America East matchup against Albany on Monday, 69-56, as the Great Danes (20-6, 9-2 AE) collected their 12th consecutive win over the Bearcats (5-19, 2-9 AE) in the SUNY rivalry. Matched up against an defensive frontline, Binghamton struggled to find consistency on offense from tipoff, allowing a 10-0 Albany run before getting on the board.

“That’s a very physical front line of Albany and I thought we competed very well against them,” Binghamton head coach Tommy Dempsey said. “To beat a team of Albany’s caliber, you have to shoot the ball very well and make your free throws and those were the two areas where I thought we fell short.”

Playing catchup, freshman forward Thomas Bruce put up five points in a 6-0 BU run to cut Albany’s lead to four, but the Great Danes responded with a run of their own to push the lead back to 10. With his team trailing, 16-6, sophomore forward Dusan Perovic sank Binghamton’s first three-pointer of the night before swishing two more and a jumper in under four minutes to cut Albany’s lead to two, 21-19. Perovic’s scoring frenzy came as a surprise to just about everyone in attendance, as the 6-foot-9 forward has spent much of his sophomore campaign struggling to return from an ACL injury suffered last season. But there was one person not in the lease bit surprised by Perovic’s 15-point half.

“This has been coming, I’ve seen it in practice, I know how hard he’s working, he’s playing a step faster the last few weeks,” Dempsey said. “It was a matter of putting this kind of game together and hopefully this will give him the confidence he needs to kind of round back into form.”

Following a late dunk by sophomore forward Willie Rodriguez, Binghamton entered the half trailing, 33-31 — outshooting the Great Danes by six in the first 20 minutes. Defensively, Binghamton stayed in the game behind Bruce and Rodriguez — with the former tallying a pair of blocks early in the first half to extinguish Albany’s dominance in the paint. Bruce also had a strong offensive showing, going 3-for-4 from the field and adding 7 points to BU’s halftime total. But the player who was able to stretch the Albany defense and allow Bruce and Rodriguez to shine was none other than Perovic.

“It gave us great spacing,” Dempsey said of Perovic’s play. “It let our guys penetrate the lanes more.”

Albany opened the second half by stretching its lead to seven thanks to a 5-0 run. Points by Bruce and Rodriguez helped to bring Binghamton’s deficit to four before a pair of free throws from Perovic put BU in striking distance, 47-45.

But the Albany offense went to work over the following 10 minutes, with freshman guard Joe Cremo pouring in seven points to propel the Great Danes to a 63-50 lead. Perovic added four in the final moments of the game to push his point total to 24 on the night — and lead both teams in scoring — but the Great Danes ended on top, 69-56.

While Binghamton did not end the night with a victory, Perovic’s performance left no questions of his — or his team’s — ability going forward.

“It’s big, we’re a different team when he plays with that offensive confidence and swagger that he had tonight,” Dempsey said. “It’s been a long year for him mentally coming back from injury and he stuck with it.”

Binghamton is scheduled to return to action on Thursday at Hartford. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m. from Chase Arena in Hartford, Connecticut.