NCAA Basketball: Stony Brook Seawolves off to a surprising start for 2018-19

Stony Brook took an unconventional 2-0 start. Can the Seawolves build on their first week going forward?

Plenty of teams won their first two games of the season but not many of them had two more eventful wins than the Stony Brook Seawolves. Head coach Jeff Boals and his team began the season with an opening night game at George Washington, three days later they traveled to SEC country to take on South Carolina.

The Seawolves were picked to finish fourth in America East by the other coaches in the conference and they were the only team other than Vermont and Hartford to have a representative on the preseason All-Conference Team, junior forward Akwasi Yeboah.

Going on the road to face an Atlantic 10 team is a tall enough task as it is on its face but what Stony Brook did is not exactly how you would draw up a victory, never mind one on opening night on the road. The Seawolves didn’t get on the board until there was 10:04 left in the first half, finding themselves down 22-0 at that point. They were down by as many as 23 in the first half but finished the half on a 22-9 run to cut the Colonials lead to 34-24 at the break.

After trading baskets for most of the second half, Stony Brook still found themselves down by 10, 53-43 with 8:53 remaining. Yeboah hit a three with 26 seconds to play, cutting the deficit to three and Elijah Olaniyi, who led the team in scoring with 18 points, made two free throws with five seconds left to pull the Seawolves within two. Poor free throw shooting and a late George Washington turnover allowed Yeboah to make a game-tying layup as time expired. In overtime, the Seawolves took their first lead of the game on a three by Andrew Garcia with a minute into the extra frame, finishing with a 77-74 win.

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In their second game three days later, Stony Brook found themselves in Columbia, South Carolina to face the Gamecocks. While South Carolina wasn’t the same team that made the Final Four two seasons ago, they are certainly a step up in competition.

The game was much different from the team’s first game. This one was a back-and-forth affair, with nine points being the largest lead for either team. The Seawolves led by 1 at the break and led by as many as nine in the second half before a Jeff Otchere block of a potential game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer gave Stony Brook an 83-81 upset. Yeboah and Olaniyi led the team in the upset with 40 points and 20 rebounds, they also got 23 points off the bench from Garcia and Anthony Ochefu.

Yeboah and Olaniyi have led the team offensively averaging 18 and 17 points respectively and grabbing 9.5 rebounds apiece. The 2-0 start is the result of good play and not giving up in the face of adversity, but a bit of luck was also involved as their opponents went just 30-70 from the free throw line.

Next. Mid-major awards for week one. dark

In terms of early-season confidence, few teams in the country have more unexpected confidence than Stony Brook. Can they now parlay that confidence and success into a better season than most expected?

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