America East Tournament Preview
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – After three years in Boston, the America East Tournament moves to Binghamton this season. Binghamton put in a strong bid to host last year’s tournament with the opening of its new on-campus Events Center, but Boston University won out to host it for a second consecutive year. Now, it shifts west to the second-newest arena in the conference, behind Boston University’s Harry Agganis Arena.
The conference finished the regular season 15th in RPI, which is among its best placements. It has three teams that have RPI ratings in the top 100, which is almost unheard of, and that could also mean that three teams reach postseason play. But a lot depends on the outcome of the conference tournament; a quarterfinal loss, which two of the top three seeds sustained last year (the same three teams were also the top three seeds last year), might doom NIT hopes for Boston University or Northeastern, or Vermont’s NCAA Tournament hopes despite being ranked 23rd in the RPI according to CollegeRPI.com.
Plenty of teams will aim to knock them off, and all are capable of doing so. The 10th-seeded Hartford Hawks pulled off such an upset last year, so they are certainly capable of doing it again. Binghamton, which finished fifth and has the homecourt advantage, had a strong month of February and enters with some momentum as well.
With all of that behind us, here is a look at news from this week, as well as a look ahead to the conference tournament.
Coppenrath’s third straight Player of the Year headlines awards
On Friday, the conference announced its postseason awards and All-America East teams. Headlining the selections was Vermont senior Taylor Coppenrath being named Player of the Year for the third straight year, joining the late Reggie Lewis as the only three-time winners of the honor.
Coppenrath is joined on the first team by teammate and best friend T.J. Sorrentine, along with two Boston University seniors, Chaz Carr and Rashad Bell, and Northeastern junior Jose Juan Barea, the only underclassman on the team.
The second team features Albany’s dynamic backcourt of sophomore Jamar Wilson and junior Lucious Jordan. They are joined by Binghamton junior Andre Heard, Maine junior Kevin Reed and New Hampshire senior Ben Sturgill.
Two Northeastern Huskies headline the third team, senior Marcus Barnes and freshman Shawn James. James was also named the conference Rookie of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. Joining them are Boston University sophomore Etienne Brower, Hartford junior Aaron Cook and Maine senior Joe Campbell.
Joining James on the All-Rookie team are three other forwards and one guard: Stony Brook guard Antwan Hardy, Albany’s Brent Wilson, Vermont’s Josh Duell and New Hampshire’s Mike Christensen.
Northeastern head coach Ron Everhart took home Coach of the Year honors. This season, he continued to lead the program’s recent resurgence, and they enter the tournament on the verge of their first 20-win season since 1992-93, when they went 20-8.
Terriers know it’s a new ballgame
After winning the regular season title last season and being knocked off in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament, there probably isn’t a team that knows about the importance of the tournament better than Boston University. The Terriers will enter as the third seed this year, but they will be no less prepared to keep winning.
With last Thursday’s win over Maine, the Terriers have won 20 or more games for the fourth consecutive year, marking the first time in school history that has happened. Seniors Chaz Carr and Rashad Bell will leave as the winningest Terriers in the school’s history.
“When you get to the tournament, it’s a new life for everyone,” said Terrier head coach Dennis Wolff. “The tournament rejuvenates teams, it gives them a second life. We know all too well about that, so we’ll spend a lot of time talking about that next week regardless of who we play.”
While Carr and Bell have carried the team, sophomore forward Etienne Brower had a breakout season and junior forward Kevin Gardner continued to be a steady presence inside. Junior guard Shaun Wynn didn’t quite duplicate last season’s numbers overall, but remained a steady contributor and led the team in assists and steals. The Terriers can know what they’ll get from the veterans, but the freshmen are another story.
“I think it’s been an up and down thing with the freshmen, to be honest with you,” Wolff said. “Every one of them has had their good moments, and then their not-so-good moments. Hopefully, we can get games where we get something out of all of them.”
The Terriers will take on Maine in the last quarterfinal on Saturday night.
Huskies have won six straight
Northeastern enters the conference tournament as the hottest team in the conference, as they finished the regular season with six straight wins, all but one by double digits. In fact, no team will enter the tournament on the heels of consecutive wins or with just one loss in their last five games. It certainly indicates that the Huskies may be peaking at the right time.
“I think we overcame a lot of adversity this year as a basketball team,” said head coach Ron Everhart. “I think we’ve come a very long way. I’m really proud of where we’ve come from as a basketball team and how well we’ve improved.”
The Huskies won a couple of recent games with defense, which is not their forte. They finished eighth in the conference in scoring defense and fifth in field goal percentage defense. Helping in the latter category is freshman Shawn James, who ranks second in the nation in blocked shots with nearly 5.6 per game – more than any other team in the conference averages. With James and Bennet Davis both playing well inside, the guard tandem of Jose Juan Barea and Marcus Barnes becomes much more dangerous.
Even as well as the Huskies are playing, they can’t take anyone lightly. Last season, the Huskies were ousted in the quarterfinals by an undermanned Hartford team, which was the sixth seed. They know that teams will be gunning for them once again.
“I just hope that we can keep our edge,” Everhart said. “Last year, I thought having a week off kind of hurt us a little because we had that type of team. I hope that this week, we can come with that type of hunger to where the guys like Jose, who were there last year, remember what a disappointment that was for us, and maybe the new guys, because they haven’t been there before, they want to be excited and hungry to make plays and have some success.”
The Huskies will play against either Stony Brook or Hartford on Saturday evening in the quarterfinals.
Albany has arrived
Expectations were a little higher for Albany this season, and with a fourth-place finish, the Great Danes surpassed them. The coaches picked them eighth in the preseason poll, while most in the media projected them to finish in the second division. They posted a 9-9 record in conference play; the nine wins are more than they had the two previous seasons combined. Now, there’s a little more pressure on the Great Danes to win in the conference tournament.
“Every coach in this league knew who we had, who we signed, who we had coming in, who was sitting out, and they picked us eighth,” said head coach Will Brown. “RPI-wise, it’s the 15th-best conference in the country and we came in fourth. Now, we’ve got to build on that coming into the America East Tournament.”
The Great Danes were led by their stellar backcourt of Jamar Wilson and Lucious Jordan, both of whom were basically not with the team last year. Wilson missed most of the season with an injury, while Jordan could only practice while sitting out as a transfer. Wilson was fourth in the conference in scoring and Jordan was eighth, with Wilson also ranking fourth in assists as he was the primary point guard once Jon Iati went down with a season-ending shoulder injury in December. Levi Levine was again a do-everything player, while Boston College transfer Kirsten Zoellner gave them some size.
The regular season was a good one, and now they want to prove they earned it. Brown knows it won’t be easy.
“We’ve probably got the toughest draw of anybody – we’ve got to play Binghamton at Binghamton,” he said. “There will be 6,000 people in there, probably 5,800 from Binghamton, 200 from Albany, and we’ll see what happens. We like our chances.”
Black Bears can still make run
Although Maine didn’t have the kind of regular season that many observers predicted, the Black Bears are still a dangerous team. They are still a capable group, as they showed in their 87-66 win over Vermont in the regular season finale. Sure, the Catamounts played without stars Taylor Coppenrath and T.J. Sorrentine, but it is a win and it should give them some momentum heading into the conference tournament. With leading scorer Ernest Turner and Chris Markwood approaching better health, the team will enter the tournament in a better state than they finished the regular season.
“We’ve had situations this year where we haven’t had our full roster for quite a while,” said head coach Woodward. “We’re actually starting to get guys back, bit-by-bit.”
Woodward remembers when the Black Bears had a similar season in 2001-02, when injuries decimated the roster and they had some struggles in finishing fifth. In the conference tournament, they knocked off regular season champion Vermont to advance to the championship game, losing at Boston University.
If Turner and Markwood are in better health, the inside game that has come along becomes that much more dangerous – and so does the team. They start off against Boston University in the last quarterfinal game on Saturday.
Last chance for Macarchuk
Stony Brook announced on Thursday that head coach Nick Macarchuk is retiring at the end of the season. He is the only head coach the school has had since moving up to Division I six years ago and has been a head coach for 28 years. Macarchuk will remain at the university as a Special Assistant to the athletic director, assisting with fundraising and community relations.
In six seasons at the school, he has posted a record of 63-107, but his importance has been in more than wins and losses. He has helped the program as it transitioned to Division I and then into America East. The season before they joined the conference, which he was instrumental in accomplishing, the Seawolves went 17-11.
Stony Brook begins the final run under Macarchuk on Friday night in the second play-in game against Hartford.
Tournament Setup (through the quarterfinals)
Play-in round (Friday, March 4, 2005)
No. 8 New Hampshire vs. No. 9 UMBC (6 PM)
No. 7 Stony Brook vs. No. 10 Hartford (8:30 PM)
Quarterfinals
No. 4 Albany vs. No. 5 Binghamton (12 noon)
No. 1 Vermont vs. New Hampshire/UMBC winner (2:30 PM)
No. 2 Northeastern vs. Stony Brook/Hartford winner (6 PM)
No. 3 Boston University vs. No. 6 Maine (8:30 PM)
