Turnovers plague men’s basketball in recent losses

  The UAlbany basketball team fell to 6-16 overall and 1-6 in America East Conference play with Sunday’s loss 67-61 loss to Stony Brook.
   Freshman guard Mike Black led the Danes with 15 points and junior Tim Ambrose contributed 14 in the defeat. The loss was UAlbany’s third straight.   
   Last Thursday’s loss to Maine was just one of several losses that have plagued the University at Albany’s men’s basketball team lately.
   Over winter break the Great Danes (6-16, AE 1-6) struggled with a 2-7 record due to turnover troubles. The team turned the ball over 24 times in its matchup against North Carolina and turnovers continued to harm the Danes last Thursday as 18 turnovers led to 25 points for the Maine Black Bears.
   “You can’t turn the ball over. It doesn’t matter what sport it is. Turnovers will kill you,” said coach Will Brown. “I’d rather have us throw the ball out of bounds, so we can turn around and defend. Our turnovers led to baskets for them, and that’s the discouraging think.”aggressive, but obviously I wasn’t playing smart. [I made] careless turnovers, and I feel like I got to get better at that, make better decisions.”
   Another problem for UAlbany has been the absence of scoring leader, senior forward Will Harris, who has missed the last two games with a left knee contusion that he suffered in a loss to Boston University last Tuesday. This has forced the Great Danes to rely on the inexperienced freshmen and sophomores to contribute more.
   “Logan [Aronhalt] and I aren’t guys who are comfortable to take the ball off the dribble a lot and get it inside,” said sophomore forward Billy Allen. “Will [Harris] is one of our leading rebounders too. And that definitely does hurt us, but I think Tim did a good job stepping up tonight. He didn’t have much of a supporting cast behind him. If you don’t make shots and turn the ball over you’re not going to win many games.”
   Coach Brown too realizes how much Harris absence hurts the team.
   “That’s the problem, it’s easier to gang up on Timmy if Will doesn’t play,” Brown said. “And our young guys are just trying to feel there way still. There are growing pains with young kids and that’s why the veterans and the upperclassmen need to really be rock solid for us.”
   Allen believes that opposing teams are scoring too many points against UAlbany and that turnovers are a big contributing factor to that.
   “I think teams are getting too many points against us,” he said. “If we can just buckle down and play some defense and get some stops then we can get some confidence back. In the first half our defense was pretty good. It was our unforced turnovers, the little things, that hurt us.”
   Despite the team’s struggles Brown still believes the team has to stay “upbeat and positive.”
   The league’s wide open, and that’s why we’ve got to start heading in the right direction a little bit because if you give us one week to prepare for any team in this league we can win,” Brown said. “It’s just a matter of right now. You want to put yourself in the best position where you can win games.
   “Right now we’re just worried about Albany and trying to get better tomorrow and get better as quickly as we can.”
   He believes the team is having good practices, but the practices aren’t carrying over to the games. “The one thing they understand is I’m frustrated for them. I’m not frustrated at them. That’s what we’re trying to relay,” Brown said. “I get frustrated for them because I think they know what they’re supposed to. I get frustrated for them because it’s a good group of kids searching.
   “Practices are good. We just haven’t had that carryover. Maybe I need to watch more practice film. Maybe it’s not as good as I think, but the guys are competing, they’ve got good energy. We’ve just got to continue to work.”