Issac Van, shown here in a game earlier this year at UConn, returned from an injury to help the Maine Black Bears upset visiting Albany Friday afternoon. Photo courtesy of Black Bear athletics.
BANGOR- Not many fans from the outside looking in would of given the Maine Men’s basketball team any chance of beating the defending America East Champion Albany Great Danes Friday afternoon. But don’t tell Head Coach Bob Walsh or his group of players that. Issac Van returned to game action for the first time in 7 weeks to score 19 points and lead Maine to an upset victory 81-79 at the Cross Insurance Center.
Van, after missing 12 straight games, had the task of guarding all conference guard Peter Hooley. Hooley would finish with a game high 29 points but it was the defense of Van and the collective effort of the Black Bears that held the Great Danes to 32% shooting in the second half. “Obviously a terrific win for us, so proud of two things I thought about. Our belief, our belief in what we are doing, and our toughness in the second half. We held them to 32%, to hold a team like that, as effective as they are offensively, they never shoot 32%, says alot about how tough we are”, said Head Coach Bob Walsh after the game.
Both teams went back and forth in the first half as Albany began with a 7-2 run but Maine ran off a 10-4 spurt to take a momentary lead at 12-11. Albany took back the lead and opened it up to as many as 11 late in the first half at 41-30 before Kevin Little caught fire scoring 11 of the final 13 points of the half for Maine to cut the Albany lead to 48-43 at halftime. Both teams were scorching hot in the first half as Maine shot 61 percent from the floor and Albany 64 percent.
Van sparked the Bears early in the second half as he would score 7 of the first 9 point to give Maine their first lead since early in the first half at 52-51. But the Great Danes kept battling back as Hooley drained a three to put Albany back on top at 63-60. The battle continued as the score was tied 9 times and the lead changed hands 10 times in the contest.
Aaron Calixte would score on a driving layup to give Maine their largest lead of the game at 72-68 and it looked as if maybe Albany had run out of gas. After Albany cut it down to 75-73 on 1 of 2 from the line for Hooley, Little would score again to push the lead back to 4. Hooley scored on back to back possessions though to tie the game at 77 with just 43 seconds left.
After a Maine timeout, Shaun Lawton would score on his own miss under the basket in traffic to give Maine a 79-77 advantage with 30 seconds to play. Albany could not convert on their end of the court and Maine would call a timeout. On the inbounds play, the Great Danes were able to steal the back court pass and Ray Sanders went in uncontested to once again tie the game with just 10 seconds left.
Maine would get the ball in the hands of Calixte who was fouled away from the basket with just under 5 seconds to play. Calixte would make both free throws to once regain the Maine lead. Evan Singletary would drive all the way to the hoop only to be blocked by Van out of bounds as the buzzer sounded. After review it was revealed that there was .3 seconds remaining but a tip play off the inbounds hit the top of the backboard as the buzzer sounded again to let the Bears escape with the 2 point win.
Calixte when asked about the last 30 seconds of the game said, “Just tried to do everything I could to try and win. We left Shaun (Lawton) alone back there and did a bad job of getting open and we turned in over. We tried to forget about it and luckily I got fouled trying to go to the basket and fortunately made the foul shots”.
Albany, who drops to 14-5 overall and 3-1 in America East, had won 24 of their last 25 league contests. Coach Will Brown said after the game, “I thought Maine played with alot of energy, played very aggressive, thought they were in attack mode on both ends, and I think they deserve to win this game. I have been here at Albany for going on 15 years and that is the worst defensive display I have seen in my time here. I am very disappointed that we didn’t defend at all.” Along with the game high for Hooley Albany got 15 points and 6 rebounds from Singletary, 12 points and 7 rebounds from Mike Rowley and Joe Cremo also chipped with 11.
For Maine, now 6-11 and 2-2 in conference, Little and Calixte each had 16 while Till Gloger also had a strong game off the bench with 11. Overall Maine ended up shooting 57% from the floor (33-58), 8-21 from three point range (38%) and after shooting 0-4 from the line in the first half Maine finished 7-14 with a 7-10 effort in second half. For Albany, they shoot 46% (26-56) from the field, 6-16 (37%) from three point range and 21-29 (72%) from the charity stripe. Total rebounds were in favor of Albany 36-30 and the Great Danes turned it over 15 times while Maine had 14 turnovers.
Maine returns to action at home Monday night by hosting the New Hampshire Wildcats at 7 p.m. Albany returns home Monday as well as they host Binghamton for a 7 p.m. contest.
Albany (79)
Hooley 11-2-29, Singletary 4-6-15, Rowley 4-4-12, Cremo 3-5-11, Stire 3-0-6, Sanders 1-2-4, Nichols 0-2-2 Totals 26-21-79
Maine (81)
Vann 8-1-19, Calixte 5-5-16, Little 6-4-16, Gloger 5-1-11, Lawton 4-0-9, Eke 4-0-8, Bernstein 1-0-2 Totals 33-7-81
UALB 48 31- 79
MAINE 43 38- 81
