A new voter joins this week’s Pipe Dream Power Rankings, but the result is the same. UMBC received all five of the first-place votes and Albany once again got all of the second-place votes. It became harder after that, as the America East had a rough weekend to say the least. Vermont couldn’t even beat Florida, a team that had not one, not two, not three, but four players leave school for the NBA last season.

Biggest gainer: Hartford, from sixth to fourth

Biggest drop: Boston, from fourth to sixth

Team record points last week comments

1. UMBC (6-1) 45 (5) 1: The Retrievers outscored American University 49-27 in the second half of Saturday’s road victory. UMBC leads the AE in points per game with 81 and Brian Hodges, Ray Barbosa and Darryl Proctor rank No. 3, 4 and 5 in the conference in scoring.

2. Albany (4-2) 40 2: The Great Danes lost to local rival Siena in front of 13,000 fans Saturday night. The loss is tough for Albany’s potential dominance in the Capital Region, but keeping it close shows that the Great Danes are ready to defend their conference title.

3. Vermont (2-5) 27 3: The top two scorers in the America East are Catamounts Marqus Blakely and Mike Trimboli. The scored 16 and 23 points respectively in Friday’s 86-61 loss to Florida in Tampa’s St. Petersburg Times Forum.

5t. New Hampshire (3-4) 24 5: The voting gets considerably tougher after the top three. The Wildcats are ranked higher than expected because, unlike other teams in the America East, they have met preseason expectations and beaten the teams they were supposed to.

5t. Hartford (4-5) 24 6: The Hawks were ranked anywhere from third to seventh on the ballots. Wins against teams from the SWAC, MEAC and Patriot League boost Hartford’s RPI.

6. Boston U. (1-6) 23 4: Did anyone expect the Terriers to have the same record as Stony Brook after seven games? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Losing to Manhattan even with the return of Corey Lowe shows that Boston might have been slightly overrated at the beginning of the season.

7. Maine (4-4) 15 7: The Black Bears are in third place, but wins against 0-7 New Jersey Tech, St. Francis and NAIA team Fisher College don’t exactly inspire confidence that the Black Bears are for real.

8. Binghamton 14 (1-6) 8: Things don’t seem like they can get any worse for the Bearcats who lost to both Rider and Cornell this week. One voter actually placed the Bearcats ninth, and for a bunch of homers to put their favorite team eighth, you know things are bad.

9. Stony Brook (1-6) 9: After sweeping ninth place last week, the Seawolves actually grabbed a couple of eighth place votes this week. They dismantled a Dartmouth team that beat Vermont on Saturday. Are things looking up on Long Island? Probably not, but it’s nice for SBU to get a win.

Compiled by the Pipe Dream Sports staff. First place votes in parentheses.