UAlbany To Play Fairfield in BracketBusters Game

Despite battling injuries and fatigue at a crucial juncture in the season, the UAlbany Great Danes will take part in this year's BracketBusters event, which pits low to mid major college basketball programs against one another. The matchups were announced today, with the Great Danes drawing a road date with Fairfield out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference.

BracketBusters, when it was created, was meant for only the top mid major programs in the nation to prove themselves to the nation and NCAA Tournament selection committee against one another. It has become a joke since then, with teams from one bid leagues and irrelevant schools taking part in non-televised games in addition to the marquee games on the ESPN networks. This season, 122 of the 347 teams in Division I college hoops are involved in the event.

This game between the Great Danes and the Stags falls into that non-televised category, as the 17-7 Danes from the one bid America East will square off with the 13-10 Fairfield squad.

In a press release from the University, Great Danes head coach Will Brown said that he is looking forward to the challenge of playing Fairfield, yet before a practice on Monday, Brown said that he would rather have his team just rest rather than play a non-televised game.

Personally, I agree with the version of Brown that wasn't spewing coachspeak and that would rather just have the team rest up. Jacob Iati's Achilles isn't going to be fresher for the America East Tournament after one extra game and, without any possible boost to their seed in the postseason tournament, there is no point to even playing the game.

The game will take place on February 23.