Stony Brook was prepared for the biggest party in school history. Instead, everyone went home early once again.
Playing in their third iteration of their biggest game ever, the second-seeded Seawolves fell one win short of their first NCAA Tournament one more time, suffering a crushing 69-60 loss to fourth-seeded Albany in the America East championship Saturday afternoon.
Playing its final game at Pritchard Gymnasium — where the team had lost just three times in the past three years — Stony Brook (24-9) lost the title game on Long Island for the second time in three seasons, the sea of red quickly filing out of the arena, unable to stomach the scene of purple occupation of their home floor.
Albany (18-14) advanced to the Big Dance for the second straight year, having knocked off a top-seeded Stony Brook squad on a last-second layup in last year’s semifinals.
“What everyone’s going to [say is] no NCAA Tournament,” Stony Brook coach Steve Pikiell said. “That’s the whole world that we live in now, and I understand that. You got to win that game.”
That game looked won when Albany’s most dominant player, Sam Rowley (18 points, 9-of-11 from the field) fouled out with his team down six with just over seven minutes to play. But the Great Danes unexpectedly fought back with a 12-2 run, sealing the win on Tournament MVP Peter Hooley’s gut-punch 3-pointer with 59.9 seconds left, which gave Albany a 61-56 lead.
Carson Puriefoy was the only reason Stony Brook remained in the game, scoring 12 of his 13 points in the second half, while his teammates couldn’t shake the weight of expectation and the memory of heartbreaking, head-shaking defeats.
The Seawolves shot 9-of-32 in the second half (28.1 percent) — after hitting over 54 percent in the first half — making just 2 of 14 3-pointers.
“We felt that all the pressure was on them,” Albany coach Will Brown said. “The closer this game was later in the game, the tighter I thought they would be and the more relaxed and loose I thought we would be. … I thought this team came into this game feeling they were the better team and they were going to win this game.”
With the band blaring and the crowd crazed, Stony Brook couldn’t have looked any different than it did in its disastrous home title loss two years ago, opening the game on a 9-0 run, with America East Player of the Year Jameel Warney scoring five points.
The Great Danes looked rattled and ready to be battered, but Rowley began the recovery, asserting himself inside and sparking a 20-5 run, while Warney, who took two shots in the first 1:31, was held without a shot attempt over the 16 minutes.
Stony Brook’s Dave Coley was too distraught to describe his emotions, the senior uncontrollably bursting into tears while trying to reflect on another opportunity — his last opportunity — lost.
Despite three regular season titles and four-20 win seasons over the past five years, Stony Brook will have to wait at least one more year.
Maybe more.
“It’s not our birthright,” said Pikiell, in his ninth year at Stony Brook. “We got to win that game. It’s hard to get to this game and it’s hard to win it and you got to play well. We didn’t and we didn’t make the plays we needed to. Therefore we’re not cutting the nets down.”