On Halloween night the Bearcats shook off the cobwebs, but not before giving the crowd a small scare.
Mansfield, a Division II team, used an 11-0 run early in the game to build up a nine-point lead. With 5:40 to go in the first half, the Binghamton men’s basketball team was down by eight points before going on a 14-0 run to end the half, and would cruise on from there for a 79-64 victory in the first exhibition game of the year. The game was marked by poor outside shooting and sloppy play on both ends of the floor.
The Bearcats shot 41 percent (30-for-73) from the field, including 2-for-18 from three-point land, while turning the ball over 21 times and committing 25 fouls, sending Mansfield to the line 18 times in the second half.
“It wasn’t a good start, but it was a start,” said senior Troy Hailey, who led the team with 15 points in 19 minutes of action.
In the game’s opening six minutes, Binghamton’s defense gave up 17 points while struggling to find a flow on offense, shooting 2-for-7 from the field while committing two turnovers. When the Bearcats cut Mansfield’s lead to three with 7:57 to go in the first half, the Mountaineers applied a 1-2-2 half-court trap, forcing two quick turnovers to extend their lead back up to eight.
But that would be it for Mansfield, as Binghamton’s athletic talent and defense finally took over. The Bearcats shot 7-for-10 in the half’s final five minutes, while forcing eight turnovers to take a 39-33 lead into the locker room at halftime.
“It was just a slow start,” said junior captain Mike Gordon, who had nine points, four assists and three steals. “We needed to pick up the defense and our defense really created our offense.”
Binghamton had 16 steals for the game, forcing 26 Mansfield turnovers. Along with Gordon, freshman Lazar Trifunovic and junior Marvin Lee also had three steals apiece. And as the Bearcats’ pressure-in-your-face defense that the fans have grown accustomed to did eventually show up, the Bearcats would have been better off had the intensity surfaced sooner.
“Our intensity has to be better,” Gordon said. “We have to pick it up and really get in on defense.”
The Bearcats did get a boost off the bench from sophomore center Jaan Montgomery, who had 11 points, six rebounds and three blocks in just 15 minutes. With Ian Milne fouling out early, with 8:25 to go in the game, Montgomery got a bulk of the minutes and worked hard making the most of them.
For Binghamton to be successful this season, Walker knows that the big guys must not only be able to produce but to be physical.
“We know Ian is not a physical player, more of a skilled player, so we need some real toughness from [Duane] James, Gio [Olomo] and Lazar,” Walker said. “Lazar is a tough three or four and that is going to be very important for us.”
It was the first game under the Events Center lights, which showed with some early nerves which may have hindered the performances of the newcomers, but the Bearcats are hoping those nerves are all gone now as they host St. Rose tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. in the final exhibition game of the season. The game was originally supposed to be at 1 p.m. but was pushed back to allow fans to attend the men’s soccer America East final.
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Bearcats picked sixth in preseason coach’s poll.
The story for the Bearcats over the last few years has been being picked to finish in the middle of the pack and then exceeding expectations. Let’s hope that remains the case.
Last season the Binghamton men’s basketball team was predicted to finish fourth in the America East, but they finished second with a 12-4 conference record.
The America East announced on Wednesday the preseason coaches’ poll as well as the preseason all-conference teams, and Binghamton was picked to finish sixth in the nine-team conference. Albany was the favorite to repeat with 64 points and eight first place votes.
“The polls are meaningless,” said head coach Al Walker. “Nobody remembers where you started; it’s where you finish.”
Maine was picked to finish second with 49 points, while Vermont, which made it to the championship game last year, was close behind in third with 48 points. New Hampshire was voted to finish fourth with 45 points and Boston, which got one first place vote, was picked fifth.
After the Bearcats came Stony Brook in seventh with 22 points, then UMBC and Hartford with 15 and nine points, respectively.
Albany’s Jamar Wilson, last year’s Player of the Year, was a unanimous choice for the preseason all-conference team. Also a unanimous pick was UNH’s Blagoj Janev, who is the league’s second-leading returning scorer, averaging 14.4 ppg.
Joining those two on the preseason team are Maine’s Kevin Reed, Stony Brook’s Mitchell Beauford and Vermont’s Mike Trimboli.
Trimboli is the only underclassman on the list, while Beauford, the only junior, is the only player whose team wasn’t picked in the top four of the preseason poll.
Given that they are in the same year and the Bearcats were picked to finish better than Stony Brook, some have questioned why Beauford was selected over Binghamton’s junior guard Mike Gordon.
Beauford is the team’s leading returning scorer, averaging 14.1 ppg, while Gordon averaged 8.5 ppg. However, Gordon was second in the America East in assists with 4.52 per game, second in the league in steals with 1.66 per game — right ahead of Beauford, who averaged 1.64 — and third in the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (2.05). Both were Third Team All Conference.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Gordon said. “They can have that; I want to win the chip [the championship].”