Great Danes On The Rise!
That you, Will? (Bleacher Report)
Uncle Mo’ was on the side of the America East today and UAlbany held up their end of the bargain. The Great Danes upset the Niagara Purple Eagles 75-65 in the second game of a three day round robin in Detroit. Will Brown once again sent out smoke screens through the media as he played Mike Black 33 minutes and John Puk 28 after saying both would sit after the double overtime game. You cannot blame him, Mike Black scored 15 points in the first half and kept the Danes in it early. But the story of the night was Logan Aronhalt, after a miserable 5-22 shooting night in 48 minutes of work against Detroit, he found the stroke in the second half, scoring 23 points second session alone. He finished with a robust 30 points (that’s 25 PPG over the last four) and almost singlehandedly gave the Danes a lead they couldn’t choke away. But not to say they didn’t try. After stretching the lead to 14, the Danes almost instantly turned the ball over 5 straight times as they withered in the face of Niagara’s increased pressure. They managed to overcome the turnover bug and ride out the lead to a ten point victory.
Luke Devlin corralled 4 boards in twelve minutes before reportedly receiving two elbows one to each eye. Ow. I’m not sure how that happened, but I’m thankful I didn’t have to see it live. Hopefully Devlin rebounds quickly. John Puk with another nice effort in the middle, notching 10 boards and two blocks and co-captain Blake Metcalf had a nice contribution with 6 boards and 6 points off the bench in 27 minutes; it’s good to see him get involved. The America East is on notice- the Great Danes are on the rise! And hey, could even pull out two wins from this brutal stint in Detroit.
By the numbers:
| Poss | Off. Eff. | Def. Eff. |
| 66.2 | 113.3 | 98.2 |
It’s no surprise that both UAlbany’s wins have come when they held the opponent below average. Especially now that the offense is coming along, defense will make or break this team.
Purple and Gold Nation 
I can’t believe how banged up this team is and they’re still hanging in there, it’s a different team then last year.
Puk – Achilles
Black – ankle
Devlin – eyes
Logan has to have tired legs – 87 minutes in two nights
It sure would be nice to get one more “W”
bill33 said this on November 28, 2010 at 11:02 am |
can someone explain how those “By the numbers stats” work?
Poss. Off Eff Def Eff
bill33 said this on November 28, 2010 at 11:04 am |
Bill, agreed this is a fun team to root for because they do not give in.
The stats are based on Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper, kenpom uses a similar system and I particularly got a lot of help with the numbers from Hoya Prospectus.
Possessions is the key and can be approximated without a play a play; it adds fg attempts subtracts offensive rebounds, adds turnovers and adds .4 fta (that’s where the guesswork comes in)
Off/Def Eff Ratings are a “tempo free” evaluation of the team; how many points would they score in 100 possessions? So 75 pts / 66 possessions = 113 offensive rating
There’s a lot more I hope to do with the numbers when I have time because they provide great insight from game to game and player performance (where the heavy math comes in) but it’s very logical stuff. I would definitely recommend Oliver’s book if you’re interested.
TheMidRangeGame said this on November 28, 2010 at 3:09 pm |