Albany vs Mount St. Mary's LIVE Stream: Great Danes and Mountaineers Officially Get NCAA Tournament Started
ByIf having the most international players on one team was a direct way to win basketball games, the Albany Great Danes would be bound for the Final Four.
They face the Mount St. Mary's Mountaineers Tuesday night in the very first game of the 2014 NCAA Tournament, one of four play-in games. The winner of this game, however, heads to Orlando Thursday to face Florida.
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Albany has four Australians on its roster, one person from the country of Georgia and one from Denmark. While some of the players' parents will fly in for the game, it is not uncommon for some of the international student-athletes' parents to host parties in the middle of the night to watch their kids play in the tournament.
Unlike Mount St. Mary's, Albany likes to play inside the arc by attacking the basket and attempting free throws. If Mount St. Mary's had their way, Albany would have a tough time keeping up with the Mountaineers run-and-shoot offense.
"We're 8-2 when we make seven or fewer 3s," Mount St. Mary's coach Jamion Christian said of his team's offensive game plan, according to the Associated Press. "So it's not all about 3-point shooting for us. The 3-pointer is more of a weapon to allow the pace to get to a level we need."
Mount St. Mary's has played, and lost to, the likes of Villanova, Michigan State and BYU before conference play started. Both teams, however, are coming out of weak conferences and neither is thinking about the prospect of playing Florida either.
"If you win, you go up against a monster like Florida," Mount's second-leading scorer Julian Norfleet said, according to the AP. "But you've got to win the first game. That's all our focus is on right now."
Neither team is expected to continue playing after Thursday, but both would like to seize the opportunity of playing in nationally televised games.