UAlbany men’s basketball stumbles down stretch in loss to Merrimack

ALBANY – As quickly as the University at Albany men’s basketball team clawed its way back from a 10-point second-half deficit to tie Sunday’s game against Merrimack at Broadview Center, the Great Danes found themselves on the back foot once again.

This time, they couldn’t find their way out of the hole.

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Merrimack’s vaunted zone defense forced UAlbany into 21 turnovers – 14 in the first half – and the Great Danes watched as the Warriors’ A.J. Lesburt Jr. hit seven 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 25 points as Merrimack pulled away for a 73-60 win.

The loss dropped UAlbany to 2-1 early in the season, as the Great Danes were unable to complete a sweep of their America East-Metro Basketball Challenge games after beating Manhattan on the road on Thursday.

“To be honest with you, I wanted the whole week,” UAlbany coach Dwayne Killings said. “That was our goal, to have a complete week. We did not.”

Merrimack (1-2 overall) coach Joe Gallo’s trademark zone has flummoxed plenty of opponents, and it gave the Great Danes trouble throughout Sunday’s contest.

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UAlbany was often able to get the ball into the soft spot in the middle of the zone, but when the Warriors collapsed on the player with the ball – usually one of Ollie Engen, U-Mier Graham or Erwann Bussing – it resulted in problems the Great Danes were unable to solve.

“It’s their identity,” Engen said of the Merrimack zone. “They practice it really well. They know each of the spots that they’ve got to be in, (they have) active hands. We’ve just got to be more assertive, more confident in our passing and take better advantage of it.”

“I thought the zone kind of sped us up,” Killings said. “We weren’t really fundamental there.”

Despite turning the ball over 14 times in the game’s opening 20 minutes, UAlbany only trailed 30-26 at the half. Merrimack pushed its lead to 40-30 early in the second half, but a 13-3 UAlbany run capped by seven straight points from Zacharie Matulu tied the game with 12:26 to play.

But, Merrimack scored seven straight points out of a timeout to take the lead for good, and when UAlbany had to make lineup changes after both Matulu and Tyler Jones picked up their fourth fouls, the Warriors were able to pull away down the stretch.

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Lesburt, a graduate transfer from Brown, was at the center of most of Merrimack’s flurries. Left open on numerous occasions, he hit 7 of 12 3-point attempts in a 25-point outing.

“We needed to get a stop on defense, but we were focused on the offensive end,” Graham said. “We needed to go back down on defense and get that stop.”

Engen led UAlbany with 17 points, but also committed six turnovers. Graham finished with 16 points and eight rebounds, while Jones added 13 points before fouling out as the two freshmen continued to make an early-season impact for the Great Danes.

With senior Abdoulaye Fall still on a minutes restriction and redshirt sophomore Pedro Santos set to be re-evaluated this week in hopes of making his UAlbany debut during the team’s next stretch of games, the performance of the team’s youngest players has been encouraging. However, Killings stressed that the Great Danes are in need of some experience and maturity on the floor.

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“Those two guys (Graham and Jones), this is the third college game they have ever played,” Killings said. “No excuses, just kind of the reality of what it is. We’ve got to fight through it. I think to do it, we’ve got to have a little bit more composure.”

UAlbany will be back home on Wednesday for a 1 p.m. matinee game against Dartmouth.

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This article originally published at UAlbany men’s basketball stumbles down stretch in loss to Merrimack.

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