STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Frankie Policelli has been a marksman from deep in his first season competing with the Stony Brook men's basketball team.
And Policelli, a Long Island Lutheran product and Dayton transfer, has been as fearless about the location of his three-point attempts as he has been successful draining them.
"Most of the time I don't even know where I am. If I just see an opening, I'm going to take it," Policelli said with a smile. "I can probably shoot close to half-court normally."
Said coach
Geno Ford: "He takes some deep ones. He's obviously got the green light to shoot them, and he's shown the ability to make them. But he's done that in practice. It's not like he comes into the game and tries to work some magic that we haven't seen. He's as excellent a standstill jump shooter as I've had the opportunity to work with or coach in 20-something years. You can't give him space. And he's 6-foot-7, so he can get it off if you're tight to him."
Policelli leads America East with 24 made three-pointers. Among players with double-digit attempts, he leads the Seawolves in percentage made at .407. Policelli is 9-for-20 (.450) in conference games.
That's helped Stony Brook to a five-game winning streak and to now garner votes
in the College Insider Mid-Major top-25 poll.
The program record for single-season three-point percentage belongs to
Lucas Woodhouse (minimum 100 attempts). Woodhouse drained 66 of 144 (.458) from behind the arc in 2016-17.
Makale Foreman, now a graduate transfer at Cal, set the Stony Brook record for three-pointers made last season with 100, albeit in an also program-record 276 attempts.
Policelli's treys have been consequential as Stony Brook sits in first place in the conference with a perfect 4-0 mark as UMBC visits for a pair of games this upcoming weekend.
Policelli drained four first-half three-pointers en route to a team-high 16 points as the Seawolves never trailed in a 73-58 win against UMass Lowell on Sunday. In the previous game against Binghamton, he opened overtime with one of his trademark deep three-pointers and Stony Brook led throughout the extra session en route to an 80-70 road win.
"We can be extremely dangerous because we have so many weapons who can score," Policelli said. "Us being hot from the outside just opens the floor a little bit more."
Policelli continues to polish his game, too.
"He's really working hard to improve his game off the dribble when people close out tight, which will be important as we move forward through the season," Ford said. "He's going to continue to fire them up. And we're going to assume he's going to keep making them."
