The Stony Brook men's basketball team shot 31 percent from the field and made only 17 field goals as it fell to Albany 58-43 Monday night at SEFCU Arena in Albany, N.Y. Leonard Hayes (Voorhees, N.J.) led the Seawolves with 18 points.
The Seawolves' two-game winning streak is snapped, and they fall to 11-15 overall, 6-8 in America East. Albany leapfrogs Stony Brook in the standings at 6-7 and is now 13-15 overall. Stony Brook is tied with New Hampshire for fifth place with the tiebreaker in hand, half a game ahead of Hartford.
"This was our fifth game in 11 days and I thought it showed," head coach Steve Pikiell said. "We didn't play good defense, we didn't make shots and we were outrebounded. I thought we had some good looks at the basket early on, but nothing was going down. Give credit to Albany, they beat us."
Both teams struggled offensively early on, but the Seawolves took advantage of early UA turnovers to take an 8-4 lead after Hayes' three-pointer at 15:51.
Hayes had eight points in the first half, including a power layup off a pass from Dallis Joyner (Norfolk, Va.) that cut Stony Brook's halftime deficit to one, 23-22. Stony Brook was only 9-for-29 from the field in the first half, but was in the game thanks to turning nine Albany turnovers into 12 points.
The Great Danes opened the second half on an 11-2 run led by a pair of Luke Devlin buckets and capped by Tim Ambrose's three-pointer that made it 34-24 UA with 13:38 to play in the game.
Stony Brook cut the lead to seven on Bryan Dougher's (Scotch Plains, N.J.) three-pointer on a kick-out from Joyner, but Albany answered with another 11-2 run that was again punctuated by another Ambrose three-pointer to effectively put the game out of reach.
Stony Brook was 17-for-55 from the field and 4-for-18 from three-point range. The Seawolves were outrebounded 39-30 and got to the free throw line only eight times.
Ambrose led Albany with 22 points. The Great Danes finished 20-for-48 from the field, 7-for-21 from behind the arc and 11-for-13 from the free throw line.
Stony Brook will take a minor reprieve from conference play to host Manhattan Saturday as part of ESPN's BracketBusters event. The game emanates from Pritchard Gymnasium at 2 p.m.
