Saturday, January 10, 2009

UMBC 61, Black Bears 59

Down 11 points with 9:39 left, the Black Bears fought their way back into the game, before falling short to host Maryland-Baltimore County. A RAC Arena crowd of 1,238 saw the Retrievers narrowly avoid losing a second straight game at home to open the conference season.

The defending America East champion Retrievers survived a last-second 3-point attempt by Mark Socoby (20 points, 4 rebounds) that rimmed out. UMaine (6-10, 1-2 America East) had four possessions inside the final four minutes with a chance to either tie or take the lead, but missed three 3-point attempts and had one turnover.

UMBC (7-7, 1-1) was led by its two All-America East performers Darryl Proctor (26 points, 8 rebounds) and Jay Greene (11 assists).

Malachi Peay chipped in a career-high 13 points and eight rebounds for the Black Bears. Sean McNally had nine points and six rebounds.

Aided by 12 Black Bears turnovers in the first half, UMBC had an eight-point lead at the intermisssion. UMaine's comeback attempt was slowed by a 61 percent (11 of 18) performance at the foul line.

2 comments:

MattT said...

It hurts to lose by 2 points no doubt, but Maine is showing some spirit and fight. They could've easily packed it in when they were down 11 mid-way through the second half. Progress is being made here. Peay had another great game, but he left 5 free throws on the table. It is nice to see they haven't been blown out in conference. Becoming competetive within the league is the first step in turning things around.

Dan King said...

We'll see. We've developed a habit in recent years of having extended dry spells and turning the ball over too much. After breaking from that at Stony Brook, the Black Bears turned it over 12 times in the first half and went scoreless for almost six minutes late in the first half. And still won the game. So who is the real Black Bears? We're about to find out. A win at Hartford before coming back home is what this team needs.