Poor shooting, turnovers doom Stony Brook in loss to Vermont
Stony Brook's Jaron Cornish, Elijah Olaniyi and Andrew Garcia walk off the court after losing to Vermont at Island Federal Credit Union Arena on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
It was billed as a matchup of two America East Conference favorites and one of Stony Brook’s biggest tests so far.
Nets star D’Angelo Russell — recruited to Ohio State by then-assistant coach Jeff Boals before Boals became Stony Brook’s coach — came all the way from Brooklyn to sit courtside, and everyone who wasn’t in the packed Island Federal Credit Union Arena could tune into ESPN3 and watch there.
Unfortunately for Stony Brook, that meant a whole slew of witnesses for one of its ugliest games of the season.
Saturday proved to be a night of disappointment and aggravation for a team that hasn’t seen very much of either, as Stony Brook got steamrolled by Vermont, 73-52, to lose ownership of first place in the conference.
Vermont, which ousted Stony Brook in the conference semifinals last year, did it without one of its top forwards, Anthony Lamb (concussion), and against a team riding a seven-game winning streak.
Before Saturday, the Seawolves (17-4, 5-1) were the only unbeaten team in America East play. Now Vermont (16-5, 6-1) sits atop the conference.
The Seawolves shot 30.8 percent from the field and committed 16 turnovers. Andrew Garcia led Stony Brook with 14 points and Vermont’s Ernie Duncan led all scorers with 25.
“I wish we would have given them a better performance to cheer loud about,” Boals said. Turnovers “have been our Achilles’ heel at the start of league play, and you can’t do that against a really good team. Coming in, we wanted to value the basketball because you have to get shots against Vermont. You have to make jump shots against Vermont.”
Trailing 11-6, Stony Brook went on a 15-2 run, with Corry Long’s three-pointer serving as the exclamation point. The Seawolves committed three turnovers in the next 3 1⁄2 minutes, though, and Vermont scored 12 straight points to go ahead 25-21 with five minutes left in the first half. That, along with foul trouble for Jeff Otchere, helped Vermont go up 35-25 at the half after a 22-4 run that lasted the final 8:37. Then the Catamounts scored the first seven points of the second half.
With 6:23 to go and Stony Brook down by 15, Akwasi Yeboah (10 points) committed his fifth personal foul, earning him a seat on the bench. That cost Stony Brook one of its best defenders and further handicapped a team that appeared on its last legs.
“One thing I’ve always been told is you’re only as good as your next game,” said Miles Latimer (10 points). “We’re just going to have to bounce back. It’s just one game and they got the best of us this one night.”
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
