Burlington, Vt.-- UMBC men's basketball fell in the America East Championship game, 82-43 at top seeded Vermont on Saturday. The Retrievers got the deficit to as little as eight in the first half, but the Catamounts outscored the Retrievers, 45-23 in the second half to win the title.
Darnell Rogers (Baltimore, Md./Indian Land (SC)/New Mexico JC) led the way with 10 points, with Keondre Kennedy (Atlanta, Ga.) chipping in eight and a team-high eight rebounds.
Rogers and
Szymon Wojcik (Wroclaw, Poland) were named to the All-Tournament Team, while
Nathan Johnson (Adel, Iowa) earned the Elite 18 Award for holding the highest GPA in the championship game with his 4.0 GPA in Financial Economics.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
- UMBC got things going early with Keondre Kennedy drilling a three to open the game.
- From there the Catamounts would use runs of 7-0 and 6-0 to build a 16-7 lead at the under 16 timeout.
- The Retrievers would get the deficit down to eight after a Szymon Wojcik layup, but the Catamounts answered right back with a layup to push it back to 10.
- UMBC would battle the rest of the half, but Vermont went on a 5-0 run to end the half to make it 37-20 at the break.
- The Retrievers got out to a fast start in the second half, shooting well over 60 percent in the first four minutes of the half.
- Big buckets from Yaw Obeng-Mensah (Toronto, Ontario) and Wojcik helped cut into the deficit.
- However, the Catamounts held the Retrievers to just 30 percent in the second half, in an 82-43 loss for the Retrievers.
NOTABLE:
- Rogers led the way with 10 points. Matteo Picarelli (Milan, Italy) added nine points off the bench.
- Kennedy chipped in eight points and eight rebounds in the loss.
