Albany Great Danes head coach Will Brown can only hope the new year doesn't stunt his club as the Danes polished off the Brown Bears at home 57-50 to end the "unofficial" first half of the season with a sparkling 11-3 record and first place in the America East Conference, one and a half games ahead of second place Stony Brook.

After a mostly stagnant first half both clubs picked up the scoring in half number two.  Jacob Iati, as usual, led that scoring with 12 points in the second half and 16 overall.

UAlbany took the lead for good on a Iati three pointer with just over 15 minutes left. However, Brown, from the Ivy League, proved to be testy the rest of the way. The Bears never fell behind by more then eight and in fact pulled within one with just over three minutes left in the game.

However, the Great Danes were able to hit big free throws down the stretch led by the steady Mike Black. Luke Devlin also came up with a big set of free scores from the line late to ice the contest.

The game started slow, perhaps a result of the team being distracted by the new year coming in. Will Brown hopes his team continues to remain focused as they have won eight of their past nine games. Perhaps adding to Brown's enjoyment is knowledge that the first conference contest comes up on Wednesday against last place UMBC who have lost six straight and 10 of 11.

More From 104.5 THE TEAM