Before the Binghamton men’s basketball team traveled to Stony Brook, coach Tommy Dempsey revealed a bit of his team’s strategy heading into the game against America East (AE) leading SBU (18-4, 9-0 AE).
“Our goal is to try to go up there and take them out of their comfort zone, be stingy on the defensive end,” Dempsey said in his pregame press conference on Monday. “They’re top-notch defensively and they’ve given us some problems. But, we’ve done a pretty good job against them with our defense as well.”
For one half on Wednesday night, it appeared that that strategy would lead the Bearcats to the upset.
Binghamton (5-17, 2-7 AE) led for the last five minutes of the first half against the AE favorites and took a one-point lead into halftime. But Stony Brook showed its prowess in the second half, outscoring the Bearcats, 49-23, in the period to run away with a 76-51 victory.
“They just wore us down and imposed their will in the second half,” Dempsey said.
Throughout Dempsey’s four years at Binghamton, the Bearcats’ defense has done a solid job of slowing down Stony Brook senior forward Jameel Warney — the two-time reigning AE player of the year and one of the best players in conference history. In the teams’ first match-up this season on January 6, BU varied its defensive alignments against Warney and limited him to 13 points — five below his season average.
“We don’t guard him too much one-on-one,” Dempsey said on Monday. “I think we’ve done a good job of really limiting his touches, pretty much ever since we’ve played against him. Sometimes, the best way to guard against a player of that caliber is before he even gets it. Then, when he does get it — because they’re trying to get it into him — we just try to bring crowds.”
The Bearcats again disrupted Warney’s game in the first half of this match-up, holding him to just six points in the period, which kept the Bearcats in the game.
After a 3-pointer by SBU sophomore guard Bryan Sekunda put the Seawolves up, 17-8, just eight minutes into play, the Bearcats increased both their offensive and defensive intensity. The Bearcats played primarily a 2-3 zone against Stony Brook’s multiple offensive weapons, not allowing their stars to find a rhythm early.
Binghamton, led by the sharpshooting of junior guard Marlon Beck, finished the half on a 20-10 run and headed into the locker room with a 28-27 lead. BU shot 46.2 percent from the field in the half and forced seven turnovers. Beck hit three 3-pointers in the period and finished the game with 12 points.
Coming out of the locker room, however, Binghamton failed to sustain the momentum. Seven minutes into the half, a jumper by SBU sophomore forward Tyrell Sturdivant gave the Seawolves a two-point advantage and 37 seconds later, junior guard Lucas Woodhouse hit a 3-pointer to extend the lead to five and from there, the score ballooned. Woodhouse finished with a team-high 14 points and hit four of his five 3-pointers.
SBU picked apart the Bearcat defense in the half, hitting 8-of-11 3-pointers while shooting 57.6 percent from the floor.
“Our zone was slower and I don’t know if it was fatigue, but they moved the ball and seemed to make every shot and we just didn’t respond.” Dempsey said.
The win was Stony Brook’s 14th in a row, the longest current winning streak in NCAA Division I.
The Bearcats are set to return to action on Saturday against New Hampshire. Tip-off is scheduled for 4 p.m. from the Events Center in Vestal, New York.