The Cortland Men’s Basketball team has had its fair share of ups and downs throughout the season, having a record of 6-6 in conference play and an overall record of 9-10 on the season.
As for the two tournaments they have been a part of earlier in the season, they finished with a 2-2 overall record, splitting both games in each of the respective tournaments.
Despite the middle-of-the-pack record, the Red Dragons got a very impressive win in the final game in the month of January, defeating the Oneonta Red Dragons 72-69 in a game that went right down to the wire. Team captains Kareem Lubin and Danny Linehan combined for 29 points while Kendall Arcuri and Aaron Coston chipped in 16 and 21 points respectively to hold off the comeback.
Cortland’s next four games are all away games. They will travel to Potsdam on February 2nd to take on the Bears, followed by the Plattsburgh Cardinals on the 3rd. That will lead into next week back to backs for the Red Dragons, as they face off against Brockport and Geneseo on February 9th and 10th.
With all four of these games being SUNYAC contests, and Cortland having a record slightly under .500, these next two weeks will be crucial in deciding where the team will end up in the rankings. Of the ten teams in the conference, Cortland currently sits 6th while holding the tiebreaker over Oneonta as they have the same conference and overall record as Cortland. Brockport, Geneseo, and Plattsburgh are all directly above Cortland in the standings, making this road trip the most important one of the entire season.
With first-year head coach Maurice Kearney, who was hired in May of 2023 and played for the Red Dragons back in 2010, Cortland is eager to start out this next chapter for the men’s basketball team. Kearney has been associated with the team for more than a decade, as he was the assistant coach directly following the end of his playing career in 2014 and was in that role until 2018 when he was named associate head coach.
With just six games left in the regular season, the Red Dragons need to have a strong four-game road trip before ending it off at home for the final two remaining games. Their previous games against Oneonta and Brockport both ended in overtime losses back in early January, with the Oneonta game going into double overtime in one of the best games of the regular season for the SUNYAC.
If Cortland can avoid repeating history against Brockport like they did earlier this week against the other Red Dragons, they’ll put themselves in a very good position to finish 5th in the conference with room for them to potentially sneak into the 4th place slot. If Cortland can be in control with these next four games, the end of February might look very different for the standings, hopefully favoring Cortland.