By JOSHUA NATOLI
Sports Editor
The saying goes “home is where the heart is,” which has held true for the Golden Knights Men’s Basketball team so far this season, who boast an undefeated record at their Nolan Gymnasium. Such a circumstance is not a bad problem to have; it’s the inconsistency behind the club which draws some concern.
Taking a closer look at their 8-7 record, you see that six of those wins have come at home; leaving only two road wins, with seven loses outside of Albany. That is alarming for a team with NE-10 title aspirations. The toughest games played are the ones one the road, away from the fans, in enemy territory. Even the slightest misconception of how the ball will bounce along the rim comes into play.
Taking a deeper look into the stat sheet I have come up with a few ways the road issue could be fixed. The first one sounds pretty straightforward: score more points. Obviously every team’s goal is to score more than the opponent, but hear me out. In all but one of their eight wins the Golden Knights have scored more than 70 points, the one exception being a three-point victory over Adelphi. A trend as such should be looked into, as only three of the Golden Knights loses finished with more than 70 points for Saint Rose.
Another aspect to look at would be three-point shooting. A good three-point shooting team hovers around .400, the Golden Knights are currently at .330, part of which is due to a very poor display beyond the arc in the win over Pace in which Saint Rose shot 1-11, good for .091. Six of the seven loses have featured a three-point percentage below .400. Bringing the three-point percentage up will definitely help, especially on the road. Or they could take another route, and not shoot as many. They lost Andre Pope last year, who was deadly from behind the arc, it might be time to settle for higher percentage looks.
The emergence of Tyler Sayre has been a huge help for the Golden Knights as the number two scorer to Dominykas Milka. The duo is averaging a total of 38.1 points total per game, 18.2 and 19.9 respectively. Although the two put up fantastic numbers, there is a big drop off. The next highest per game scorer is Kareem Thomas who isn’t touching double figures at 9.3. There needs to be someone else in the lineup to step up and help Milka and Sayre out. Pope played that role last season, rounding out a trio of double-digit scorers. A spark plug sixth-man off the bench would mess very well with this group, especially from downtown.
Rebounding has also been divided amongst the team. Milka leads the team in boards with 11.9 per game, but after him there is a huge drop off. The next highest total is 6.0 belonging to Sayre, and then it gets even worse with Mical-Ryan Boyd with 3.3. This distribution of wealth is terrible. More players need to be involved in crashing the boards, starting fastbreaks, and finishing on the other end.
Milka, a center, is also the leader in another, more unfortunate statistical category: turnovers. He averages 3.6 a game, while the next highest total of 1.7 belongs to Dan Mundweiler, a guard. This is a very unusual circumstance being that guards are supposed to be the ones dribbling and moving the ball, thus increasing the chance of a turnover. Centers are not supposed to be doing either of those, mainly setting picks and putting the ball in the hole. Cutting the turnovers at the position in half could save a few points on the other end, which mean a lot in close games, such as the most recent 85-83 loss at Franklin Pierce.
I have no doubt the Golden Knights can correct these issues and bring in the new academic semester with a bang. As long as they can win on the road they will be successful. Keeping up that home winning streak won’t hurt either.
