UAlbany men's basketball coach Dwayne Killings challenged his new team, his staff and himself with a grueling non-conference schedule to start his inaugural season, as the leader of the university's program. His team started out with seven losses in their first eight games. Maybe, at times even Killings may have questioned this aggressive approach. However, it seems to be paying dividends and Tuesday night in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Great Danes let the Lehigh Mountain Hawks know they were in town with a convincing 68-52 road victory.

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UAlbany, who has won 3 out of their last 4 games, raced out to 24-7 lead over the Mountain Hawks and never looked back. The Danes held Lehigh to just a dozen points in the first half. Dre Perry led the Great Danes' scoring attack with 18 points, while blocking 3 shots and snatching 2 steals on the defensive side. Freshman Justin Neely was a monster on the glass, grabbing 14 boards, while adding 11 points of his own.

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"We'll take the win for sure. I thought we did some good things, but I think we lost our focus at the beginning of the second half. But we got some good minutes. Dre (Perry) did some good things, Chuck (Champion) stepped up with Jamel (Horton) out, and our freshmen gave us good minutes. We challenged our guys to be present before the holidays, and they did a good job of that. I'm happy with it, we'll take the break, and we'll get ready to come back on the 29th."

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The Great Danes will play their final non-conference game next Wednesday, December 29th at 7pm at the SEFCU Arena. If you can't make it to the game, you can hear every UAlbany men's basketball game on 104.5 FM, WTMM, The Team. A big thanks to Taylor O'Connor at UAlbany and Justin Lafleur from Lehigh Athletics for the photographs. Just a programming note, The Drive with Charlie & Dan and Drive the Lane with UAlbany Hoops at City Line Bar & Grill, will resume on Monday, January 10th.

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