2010-11 List of Achievements
The Stony Brook men’s basketball team has taken great strides during the six-year tenure of head coach Steve Pikiell, and his 2010-11 squad was a great example of what can be accomplished in the face of adversity. Despite losing 55 player games due to injury, the team reached numerous milestones and set a standard of excellence that the program will look to carry into the 2011-12 season.
The 2010-11 campaign began with a setback in the lineup as All-America East junior forward Tommy Brenton sustained a knee injury in September that would force him to miss the entire season. A few weeks into preseason practice, sophomore guard Marcus Rouse also sustained a knee injury, but he only missed five games.
Nonetheless, expectations were high for the Seawolves, who returned so many key components from the 2009-10 America East regular season championship team. Stony Brook was picked to finish second behind Boston University in America East as voted on by the league’s coaches.
The season began at Connecticut in a homecoming game for Pikiell, who played and coached at UConn for legendary head coach Jim Calhoun. Stony Brook stayed with the Huskies for most of the first half before succumbing 79-52. Despite the loss, the Seawolves could boast that they held All-American guard Kemba Walker to only 18 points, an accomplishment considering Walker went on to average 23.7 points a game. Walker’s effort against Stony Brook was his seventh-lowest point total of the season overall and the lowest against a non-conference opponent. Connecticut went on to win the 2011 national championship.
After cruising to an 80-43 win over Mount Ida, the Seawolves embarked on a tough task: playing at 6 a.m. in the morning as part of ESPN’s College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon. In the program’s first-ever appearance on ESPN’s flagship channel, the Seawolves won at Monmouth, 51-49, on the strength of a late second-half rally that included critical baskets and free throws from co-captains senior Chris Martin and junior Bryan Dougher. Stony Brook had been down 11 points in the second half before soaring to the program’s first-ever win on national television.
Stony Brook next won at Fairleigh Dickinson for its second straight road win before dropping the next three games to Wagner, Lehigh and Columbia by a combined eight points. The Seawolves got back into the win column with a last-second 54-53 win at Holy Cross, thanks to freshman Dave Coley’s driving layup with 1.2 seconds remaining on the clock. It was the fifth time in the season’s first eight games that Stony Brook had played a game decided by five points or less.
To round out the 2010 calendar year, the Seawolves, who began playing without the services of Martin, due to a knee injury, lost to Sacred Heart and Notre Dame and then knocked off Colgate to go into America East play with a 5-6 record.
In the first game of 2011, Stony Brook topped UMBC on the road behind 19 points from Rouse, who was playing a mere 44 miles away from his hometown of Upper Marlboro, Md. Stony Brook went on to lose six of seven games, but there was a bright spot to the tough stretch as Stony Brook witnessed the emergence of sophomore Leonard Hayes. The 6’4 guard had not gotten much playing time in his first 1-1/2 seasons, but on Jan. 22 at Maine, he got into the game and connected on his first six shots en route to a career-high 22-point night. The Seawolves lost the game, but Hayes found himself in the starting the lineup the very next game.
Following the loss to Maine, Pikiell shook up the lineup, and it sparked a strong a finish to the end of the season that saw Stony Brook win eight of its last 13 games. The Seawolves destroyed Hartford 69-35, allowing the fewest points in a game of any team in America East this season and the fewest in the team’s Div. I history. Two days later, the Seawolves dismissed UMBC with a 10-point victory.
The following weekend Stony Brook suffered losses to Boston University and Vermont, but the team bounced back with a road win at New Hampshire and then a thrilling overtime win over Maine in front of a national television audience on ESPNU and a sold-out Stony Brook Arena crowd of 4,423.
After tough losses to Albany and Manhattan, the Seawolves ended the regular season strong with a come-from-behind win at Hartford and a rout of Binghamton at home. The win at Hartford included a game-tying three-pointer from Hayes that sent the game into overtime and nine consecutive points from Dougher in overtime to put the game away. Against the Bearcats, Dougher nailed five three-pointers, and Dallis Joyner was dominant in the post with 16 points and eight rebounds.
At regular season’s end, the Seawolves finished with an 8-8 America East record, the third consecutive season Stony Brook has finished with a .500 or better conference mark. The team earned the No. 5 seed in the America East Championship.
In the America East Championship, held at Hartford, the Seawolves played an intense battle with Albany and came out on top 67-61 behind 18 points, six rebounds and five assists from Martin, who returned late in the regular season from his knee injury determined to lead his team to a title. The following day, Martin again came up clutch with 14 points and three assists to go with Hayes’ 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting as the Seawolves throttled top seed Vermont 69-47 to reach the program’s first-ever conference championship final. They also became just the fourth team in the conference’s 32-year history to reach the tournament final.
On March 12, Stony Brook traveled to Boston University for the America East championship final, and 11 fan buses joined them at Agganis Arena for Stony Brook’s first-ever tournament final with a bid to the NCAA Tournament on the line. The Seawolves jumped out on top early and controlled the game for the most part, but Boston University’s John Holland scored 23 second-half points, including the game-winning free throws with 2.4 seconds left to lift the Terriers past the Seawolves 56-54.
2010-11 Achievements
Despite the disappointing end to the season in Boston, Stony Brook had achieved so much in the face of so much adversity. Below is a list of the program’s accomplishments during the 2010-11 season:
• Advanced to the program’s first-ever conference tournament final by defeating higher-seeded Albany and Vermont and was only the fourth No. 5 seed to do so in America East’s 32-year history.
• Had the ninth-best defense in the nation, according to field goal percentage defense. Stony Brook allowed opponents to only shoot 39 percent. That puts Stony Brook in the 97th percentile among the 335 qualifying Division I teams.
• Stony Brook’s scoring defense (60.4 PPG allowed) and three-point field goal defense (.308) also rank in the top 20 in the nation.
• Junior guard Bryan Dougher was named second-team All-America East for the second consecutive season. He became Stony Brook’s all-time leader in three-point field goals made (248), and is the 21st student-athlete in the program’s history to score 1,000 career points. He is now 10th all-time in scoring.
• Senior guard Chris Martin and sophomore guard Leonard Hayes were both named to the America East Championship All-Tournament team for their fantastic efforts in leading the Seawolves to the finals.
• Stony Brook won eight America East games this season and now has the third-most conference wins among the nine members over the last three seasons (29-19), behind only Vermont and Boston University.
• Stony Brook held Hartford to only 35 points on Jan. 29, the lowest point total allowed in the program’s 12-year Division I history and the lowest overall since Nov. 30, 1992.
• Junior forward Dallis Joyner led America East in offensive rebounding by averaging 3.3 per game. He was also 43rd in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage after 14.1 percent of the available offensive rebounds while on the floor.
• Stony Brook appeared on television a school-record 11 times, including four national broadcasts on the ESPN family of networks. The Seawolves played 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball champion Connecticut on the regional SNY network; they defeated Monmouth on ESPN as part of the network’s College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon; they played at BIG EAST semifinalist Notre Dame on ESPNU; they topped Maine in front of a sold-out Stony Brook Arena crowd of 4,423 live on ESPNU; and they played Boston University on ESPN2 for the America East Championship.
• Stony Brook sold out six of its 14 home games, including five at Pritchard Gymnasium and its one game at Stony Brook Arena. Despite having the smallest home court in America East, the Seawolves finished fifth in the conference in average attendance.
• All of the above accomplishments happened despite the team losing 55 player games due to injury, including junior All-Conference forward Tommy Brenton, who missed the entire season.
