BALTIMORE – The host UMBC men's basketball team cruised to a 92-69 victory against the Morgan State Bears on Wednesday afternoon at Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena. Senior guard
Marcus Banks Jr. led a balanced scoring attack with a team-high 14 points and six rebounds.
"We came out with a mindset to play as a team today," UMBC head coach
Jim Ferry explained. "We guarded the heck out of them early and were connected defensively. Offensively, 21 assists on 29 makes is how we dream of playing basketball here. That's two games in a row now that we've been able to play our style, and hopefully, we continue to build on that."
The Retrievers led 37-26 at intermission and then outscored Morgan State (3-6) by 23-5 margin over the first 5:18 of the second half to put the game away at 60-31.
Leading 40-28 at the 19:12 mark, Banks Jr. scored eight straight points to spot UMBC with their first 20-point lead. Classmate guard
Bryce Johnson (11 points, team-high six assists) then got into the act by connecting on a pair of triples while graduate student forward
Louie Jordan also swished a trifecta.
UMBC led by as many as 32 points, the latest coming with 4:35 remaining after sophomore forward
Alpha Chibambe's conventional three-point play.
In the opening half, Morgan State took their final lead of the game, 10-8, with just under 14 minutes left. UMBC responded with seven straight points, capped by a trey by junior guard
Chaydon Stone from the left wing.
The Retrievers widened their lead to 23-12 after back-to-back long-range bombs from sophomore guards
Ace Valentine and
Ashton Reese.
UMBC took their biggest lead of the first stanza at 34-22 after senior guard
Devan Sapp (10 points) converted a pair of free throws with 1:45 left.
The Retrievers hit 14-of-26 three-point field goals for a 53.8 percent clip while going 29-for-60 (48.3 percent) overall.
UMBC had 21 assists in the contest, their second-highest total of the season (31 vs. Valley Forge).
Wynston Tabbs and Amahrie Simpkins each scored 16 points to lead Morgan State.
UMBC will take on Georgetown on Monday evening at Capital One Arena.
