Posts Tagged ‘Jon Iati’

Clock Strikes Midnight on Albany’s Cinderella Season

Saturday, March 23rd, 2013

(Philadelphia, PA) – At 2:28 pm Eastern Time, the clock hit 0:00 at the Wells Fargo Center and struck midnight on the Albany Great Danes’ Cinderella season.

Albany, a 15th seed in the NCAA Tournament and perhaps the biggest underdog to ever come out of the America East as the fourth seed in their own conference tournament, fell to second-seed Duke 73-61.

The Great Danes came up short in their upset bid, but walked off the hardwood and out of the bright lights of the game’s biggest stage with their heads held high: For 40 minutes, the bigger, stronger, faster Blue Devils hit Albany with everything it they had – usually in the form of a back-board shaking sledgehammer slam from Mason Plumlee, or a Seth Curry swish – and every time the Great Danes hit Duke right back.

Albany lost the game, but the Great Danes were magnificent in defeat, proving they belonged on the same court as one of the best teams in the country and arguably the most storied program in college basketball history.

“We challenged them. We made Duke work. We made Duke beat us,” said Albany head coach Will Brown.

From the opening tip until the final horn, the Great Danes played the Blue Devils as equals. And this wasn’t a Duke team looking past the Great Danes while playing at walk-through speed: this was a Duke squad still trying to swallow the bitter taste of last season’s upset by 15-seed Lehigh, squarely focused on Albany for revenge.

After spending a year stewing on the Lehigh debacle, Duke came out playing for blood. Albany played even harder.

“We didn’t quit, but we never did all season,” said redshirt freshman guard Peter Hooley. “We were right there with them. I think we are proud of ourselves. We never gave up.”

“We went down fighting against one of the best teams in the country,” said Albany senior shooting guard Jabob Iati.

Iati led the way for the Great Danes, scoring a team-high 15 points on 4-of-9 shooting including 3-of-4 from behind the arc. The smallest player on the floor, Iati was fearless driving the lane and drilling deep three’s with several long arms in his face. Iati, who would be generously listed at 5’9”, added six rebounds and six assists, leaving every last drop he had on the floor in the final game of his career. (more…)

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Shock the World: Mike Black powers Albany to 63-62 stunner over Washington for program’s first win over a BCS opponent and head coach Will Brown’s 150th DI victory.

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

Albany players mob Mike Black after the senior point guard propelled the Great Danes to a 63-62 upset over Washington. The win was the programs first over a BCS school (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Mike Black spent most of the first three years of his career out of the spotlight, taking a back seat and second billing behind one flavor-of-the-month teammate after another. On Tuesday night, the senior point guard took center stage and stole the show.

Black scored a game-high 22 points, the last of which came on a heavily contested lay-up with 3.7 seconds left, as the Albany Great Danes shocked Washington on its own floor, 63-62.

“This is awesome,” Albany head coach Will Brown said in a post-game radio interview. “We played so hard, man. I can’t tell you how proud I am. Nobody thought we had a chance to win this game.”

The win over the defending Pac-12 regular season champions was the first win over a BCS opponent and the biggest regular season win in program history. It was also the 150th Division-I win of Brown’s coaching career. It was a signature win for the Great Danes and the America East Conference, both of which have taken it on the chin during recent seasons.

“It’s my 150th win?” said Brown. “Maybe they’ll give me a raise and an extension. I’ll remember it. We beat a Pac-12 team for my 150th win. I just have to thank those guys for it. I’ve had some great players and some really good teams. Hopefully I’m around to get to 200.”

Black has spent the first three years of his career seeing teammates – Will Harris, Tim Ambrose, Logan Aronhalt and Gerardo Suero – billed as “The Man,” and the program’s best player. If it wasn’t already apparent after last season – a season in which he averaged 13.4 points and 4.3 assists, and emerged as the clear-cut best point guard in the league – it’s now impossible to ignore that the diminutive six-foot senior is the Great Danes’ best player, and quite possibly the best in the league.

Black scored 20 points against fourth-ranked Ohio State in a 82-60 loss on Sunday, and followed it up by scoring 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting Tuesday, while also pacing the Great Danes with team-highs in assists and rebounds, with six and five, respectively.

Black quarterbacked the Danes’ pick-and-roll offense to perfection all night, scoring most of his points blowing by defenders, leaving the bigger Huskies in his dust. The senior closed out both halves with buckets off of slashing drives to the hoop. The first gave the Great Danes a 31-27 lead going into the intermission, the second gave them the game. (more…)

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Welcome Back… Welcome Back, Welcome Back, Welcome-Back! Albany gunner Jacob Iati will return for final year of eligibility.

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

(Albany, New York) – The Albany Great Danes lost a graduate assistant but gained a gunslinger, as Jacob Iati has decided to return to the court for his final year of eligibility.

Iati, who played his freshman season at High Point before transferring to Albany (and following in the footsteps of his older brother, former Great Danes long-bomber Jon), graduated this season with a degree in Business Administration.

Iati spent most of his first two seasons in Albany on the end of the bench; averaging under five points per game during that span.

Pressed into starting action down the stretch, Iati exploded in his first extended playing time, scoring a ten career-high 20 points against Rider on February 18th, only to surpass that point total one game later with 22 in a road win at Binghamton on February 23rd.

Despite his offensive eruption and a year remaining of eligibility, Iati was honored as the lone graduating ‘Dane on senior night, and had already agreed to join head coach Will Brown’s staff as a graduate assistant next season.

Iati once again set a new career mark with 23 points on 7 3’s in Albany’s 89-79 loss to Manhattan in the CIT tournament on March 14th, but publicly, his future still remained unclear.

Privately, the wheels were already in motion as Brown met several times with Iati in attempts to convince the best pure shooter in the program to return.

On Monday, it became official, as Brown tweeted “I hired Jacob Iati as our GA for next year and already fired him! Welcome back to the team Jacob! #opportunity”

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The Will Brown experience: Albany head coach’s press conferences are worth the price of admission.

Sunday, February 5th, 2012

I’ll admit it: I’m a Will Brown guy.

I respect the hell out of what he’s accomplished on the court in his ten years at Albany; turning around the worst program in the country and taking the Danes to back to back NCAA’s. But it’s more than that: The guy is the best quote in the league.

Albany’s head coach since taking over on an interim basis during the 2001-2002 season, Brown currently stands as the longest tenured head coach in the America East, but still hardly looks – or sounds – the part of “elder statesmen.”

The road that took him the youngest head coaches in all of Division I basketball, to present has been a long and winding one to say the least.

Ten years ago, Brown was charged with simply bailing water to try and keep arguably the worst program in all of Division I afloat. During his first few seasons, the Great Danes were handicapped by the 5-and-8 rule (which limited schools to only bringing in 5 scholarship players in one recruiting class and a maximum of 8 over a 2 year span). (more…)

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The smallest dog, with the largest fight

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

Picture yourself wandering through the empty hallways of the Walter Brown athletic complex on one of Boston’s hot, sticky, sweltering summer nights. Through the stale, molasses thick air that hung in the dark corridors of the old building, you’d hear the sound of leather smacking against hardwood and the squeak of sneakers against floorboard.

The sounds of Matt Griffin.

Griffin was there, practicing in the empty and dimly-lit gym in a darkened building, breathing the stale, humid, heavy air. He set the tone for the Boston University Terriers. He laid the foundation for Boston University head coach Patrick Chambers to build his program.

“Nobody works harder than Matt Griffin,” is a quote that Chambers has uttered more times than he can count, and if you spend any time around the Terriers, you quickly learn it first-hand. (more…)

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