After suffering their first conference loss at the hands of the University of Vermont Catamounts Wednesday night, 75-60, the Northeastern men’s basketball team (7-6, 3-1 AE) bounced back with a 73-70 win over the University of Albany Great Danes Sunday afternoon.

For the second straight game, the Huskies were without Shawn James, their surprising freshman forward who is leading the nation with an average of 5.6 blocks per game. James, who recorded NU’s first ever triple double with 17 points, 12 rebounds and a school record 11 blocks in the Huskies’ 76-61 win over Iona College on Dec. 30, is suspended indefinitely due to academic reasons.

Against Albany (6-7, 2-2 AE), senior guard Marcus Barnes led the Huskies in scoring with 19 points on 6-for-10 shooting from the floor and 4-for-6 from three-point range. With the Great Danes charging late in the second half, Barnes stepped in and scored 11 of the team’s final 12 points to insure the Husky win.

Junior guard Jose Juan Barea dropped in 17 points for the Huskies. Barea’s four hits from downtown moved him into first place on the Northeastern career three-point list surpassing Lamont Hough who played for the Huskies from 1989-92.

As a team, the Huskies shot 44 percent from three-point range and 50.9 percent from the floor. The Huskies’ 103 three-point field goals are second to Vermont’s 104 in the America East.

The top two three pointing teams in the AE faced off last Wednesday in front of a sold out crowd at Solomon Court when the Huskies played host to Vermont (9-3, 4-0 AE). Despite a back-and-forth first half, the Catamounts pulled away in the second half and beat NU by 15 points. Taylor Coppenrath scored 28 points and was named the America East Player of the Week for the third straight week.

The Huskies were paced by Barea, who scored 22 points and dished out seven assists in the losing effort. Most of his damage was done early in the game, before Vermont assigned 6-foot-5 senior David Hehn to defend Barea. The lanky Hehn used his size advantage to keep the ball out of the Huskies’ leading scorer’s hands and, along with nine points on the offensive end, pulled down a game high 16 rebounds.

The Huskies hit the road for an America East match up with the University of Hartford Hawks before returning home for a 1 p.m. game against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.