Photo credit: Errol Anderson | Dave Coley of Stony Brook is guarded by Jerome Seagears of Rutgers. (Dec. 17, 2011)
Stony Brook coach Steve Pikiell knows as well as anyone that the sheer magnitude of Madison Square Garden can inspire big efforts. He scored 27 points for Connecticut in his first Big East Tournament game there in 1987. The problem for his team Saturday, though, was that the size of the opponent was more influential than the size of the venue.
Rutgers was just too big for the Seawolves in the Holiday Festival. Its frontcourt players barely allowed Stony Brook to breathe near the basket and its backcourt players put big pressure on Stony Brook's top three-point shooter, Bryan Dougher, in a 67-58 Rutgers win.
This nonetheless qualified as a big occasion for Stony Brook, which had not played at the Garden since 1995, when it was part of a Division III undercard with Western Connecticut. Stony Brook (3-6) clearly brought more spectators than did Rutgers (6-5). Its band had as much oomph as it usually does at tiny Pritchard Gymnasium.
"I thought it was a home game, with all the fans we had," said Tommy Brenton (11 points), whose 12 rebounds helped SBU outrebound Rutgers 40-34. "I felt right at home. It's an amazing arena. At first, you sit back and see where you are, during warm-ups, but once the game starts, it's a home game for us."
Not quite, in one big respect. On campus, the Seawolves generally do not shoot 26.7 percent from the floor or 29.2 percent from three-point range. Chalk it up as evidence of the difference between the America East and the Big East.
Rutgers held SBU scoreless for 7:33 in the first half. The Scarlet Knights clogged the middle against Dallis Joyner, who had only two points, and assigned their energetic young guards to pester Dougher, who missed his first seven three-point attempts and finished 3-for-13 from outside the arc and 4-for-17 overall in a 14-point game.
"He puts the batteries in that offense," Rutgers coach Mike Rice said. "We just focused in on making him put the ball on the floor. We threw different bodies at him and maybe it wore him down a little bit. He's a tremendous player, though."
Dougher did not buy the stage fright-on-Broadway explanation. "It wasn't daunting," he said of his first Garden experience. "We were planning the whole week. We watched a lot of film on them. They pressured everyone and they hit everyone up from the backcourt. We had an idea, but you don't really get the hang of it until the game starts."
It would have been hard to forecast the job done off the bench by Rutgers freshman guard Myles Mack, who shot 7-for-8 from the field and 6-for-6 from the free-throw line and scored 22 points -- five more than Stony Brook's Dave Coley.
"They're a very competitive team in the America East. They have a chance to compete to go to the NCAA Tournament," said Rutgers big man Austin Johnson. "They're a senior-driven team, they're a very good team."
The Seawolves just weren't good enough on the big stage. "You have to play better than that to beat a Big East team on the road," said Pikiell, who once played the second half of an NIT championship game at the Garden with a dislocated shoulder. "But it was a great opportunity. It's great for recruiting, great for a lot of reasons. I'm pleased, and I hope they have us back."
