Junior guard Evan Singletary scored 14 of his game-high 19 points during a 26-9 run to open the game and regular-season champion Albany never looked back as it cruised to an 83-66 America East quarterfinal victory over the University of Maine on Wednesday night at Albany, New York.
Top seed and two-time defending conference champ Albany (22-8) earned the 17th win in its last 18 games while No. 8 Maine concluded its season at 3-27 under first-year coach Bob Walsh.
Maine has lost 10 consecutive postseason games. It last won a playoff game in 2005.
Singletary, who also cradled four rebounds, was one of five Great Danes in double figures. Ray Sanders had 15 points to go with four steals, four rebounds and three assists; Wheeler Baker had 13 points and four rebounds; and Sam Rowley and Peter Hooley each contributed 10 points.
Rowley grabbed a game-high 11 rebounds and Hooley had five rebounds and three assists for Albany, which is 10-3 at home this season. The hosts outrebounded the Black Bears 40-19 and had a 19-2 edge in second-chance points.
Albany shot 50 percent from the floor and 44 percent beyond the 3-point arc while Maine shot 46.3 and 42.3 percent, respectively.
“They are the most efficient offensive team in the league by a wide margin and we weren’t where we need to be defensively. That’s a bad combination,” Walsh said. “They have four all-league players on their team. They’re really talented. They can hurt you in a lot of ways and they do a real good job getting the ball to the right people in the right spots.”
Freshman guard Aaron Calixte paced the Black Bears with 16 points. He also had three assists.
America East All-Rookie team selection Kevin Little had 14 points and three assists and Zarko Valjarevic, the team’s only senior, capped his Black Bear career with 12 points on four 3-pointers and also had three assists. Till Gloger added 10 points and four rebounds.
Walsh said the rebounding edge could be attributed to the fact “they’re a lot bigger and a lot tougher than us. We had four guards out there and sometimes we had five. And we didn’t do a good job battling on the glass.”
Albany scored the game’s first nine points, the last five by Singletary, en route to the victory.
The Great Danes shot a blistering 60 percent from the floor (15-for-25) and 53.8 percent from beyond the 3-point arc in the first half while the Black Bears shot just 35.7 and 20 percent, respectively.
The Great Danes used an 11-2 run to turn a 15-7 edge into a 26-9 lead.
Singletary capped the spurt with a pair of 3-pointers.
The All-America East first-team selection went 5-for-8 from the floor over the first 20 minutes including a 3-for-4 showing from beyond the arc.
The Black Bears used a 16-5 run to pull within 56-41 early in the second half but the Great Danes responded with a 12-2 flurry to sew up the win.
“We started to make shots. Our offense was crisp. But you have to be able to put stops together to come back and we weren’t able to,” Walsh said.