Albany Shows Holiday Spirit

Albany head coach Will Brown

In one of the more unique stories of the college basketball season, Jeff Goodman of Foxsports.com brought to attention the fact that the Albany men's basketball team, which saw its travel plans for its game against Xavier altered by the weather in the Northeast, agreed to have an extra guest on its bus to Ohio. This extra guest happened to be Mark Lyons, who is a starting guard and the second leading scorer (13.1 ppg) for the Musketeers. Lyons is a native of Schenectady, N.Y. and had no other way of getting back to campus for the matchup against the Great Danes.

Here are some quotes from Albany head coach Will Brown about how this situation came about and how it really was an easy decision to have Lyons join the team on the way to Ohio:

"I was sitting in my office and my director of operations came in and said he had gotten an unusual request," Albany coach Will Brown said. "Then he told me that Lyons was stuck in Schenectady and Xavier wanted to know if he could travel with us on our bus."

Lyons is second on Xavier's team in scoring at 13.1 points per game and a key component to Xavier's success, but Brown didn't hesitate in agreeing to take the local kid along for the ride.

"It's the right thing to do," added Brown. "This time of year, it's what it's all about."

While this game is clearly one of the highlights of the remaining non-conference schedule, the decision by Coach Brown and his staff to help out Mark Lyons is a great demonstration of  holiday spirit. AExtra would like to wish safe travels in the upcoming months to all the fans and teams in the conference, especially as America East play quickly approaches.