All Over Albany

UAlbany headed to the NCAA basketball tournament

Mount St. Mary's refers to itself as "The Mount."

The UAlbany men's basketball team is headed to the NCAA tournament this week after beating Stony Brook 69-60 in the America East championship Saturday at Stony Brook.

UAlbany is a facing quite a challenge. The Great Danes have been seeded 16th in the south bracket -- well, actually, they're the co-16th seed. UAlbany plays Mount St. Mary's -- winner of the Northeast Conference, from Maryland -- Tuesday in one of the "First Four" play-in games in Dayton. If the Great Danes win, they'll then play #1 seed Florida -- the tournament's top overall seed -- on Thursday in Orlando. (Yeah, the fact that you can win your conference tournament and still have to play one one of these play-in games -- as opposed to directly getting the opportunity to be demolished by a #1 seed in the regular field of 64 -- is lame, but such is modern college sports.)

The UAlbany/Mount St. Mary's game is Tuesday at 6:40 pm on TruTV. The potential game against Florida is Thursday at 4:10 pm.

It's the second year in a row the Great Danes are going to the tournament. They lost in the first round last year as a #15 seed in a hard-fought game against Duke.

Syracuse: The ongoing implosion of the Syracuse men's basketball season continues when the #3 seed Orange take on #14 seed Western Michigan Thursday at 2:45 pm on CBS.

UAlbany women: The UAlbany women's basketball team -- which won the America East for the third straight year -- will find out its seeding and tournament matchup when brackets are announced Monday evening.