Dismal First Half Dooms UMBC Men's Basketball in Loss to Vermont

Usually able to play games close in the first half this season, UMBC struggled from the start Wednesday night at RAC Arena.

Vermont badly bruised the Retrievers in the paint before halftime, outscoring UMBC 24-6 inside. The Catamounts led 45-23 after 20 minutes, with the Retrievers doing little to slow the Vermont offense and struggling to find shots of their own.

Though UMBC outscored the Catamounts 44-35 in the second half as Travis King provided some late offensive fireworks off the bench, scoring 15 points in the second half and 18 overall, the game was already out of reach by the time the teams went into the locker rooms midway through the evening.

First-place Vermont (20-5, 11-2 America East Conference) beat the Retrievers (5-20, 4-8) 80-67 at RAC Arena before an announced crowd of 1,285.

After being down nearly 30 points, the Retrievers drew within 13 after King converted his fourth 3-pointer of the game with 1:29 remaining. Just over a minute earlier, UMBC had drawn within 14 at 71-57 after Chris De La Rosa scored on a driving lay-up and converted his free throw after a foul.

But Vermont had built too large a lead for the Retrievers to overcome.

“You just can’t get down that many points…and think you can make some kind of fairy tale comeback,” Retrievers coach Randy Monroe said. “You can’t put yourself in those positions.”

De La Rosa led UMBC with 20 points on 8 of 18 shooting and started the game hot, scoring seven of UMBC’s first nine after hitting his first three jump shots. He assisted on the Retrievers’ other scoring play when he drove the lane and passed the ball behind his back to Justin Fry, who layed the ball in at the baseline.

But Vermont guard Brendan Bald and forwards Matt Glass and Sandro Carissimo were hotter, combing to score 25 of the Catamounts’ first 31 points. Glass’ bucket with under eight minutes to play in the first half gave Vermont a commanding 31-14 lead.

De La Rosa finished the first half as the only Retriever in double figures, scoring 10 points on 4 of 8 shooting. Fry had 10 points on 4 of 6 shooting, but didn’t see the opportunities he had received in a 9 of 10, 20-point performance in Sunday’s win at Binghamton.

Monroe had thought the Retrievers would come out playing better against the conference’s top team after that big win on the road, but it didn’t happen.

“I was kind of surprised,” Monroe said. “I don’t think we weren’t ready to play. We just were caught in quicksand.”

Monroe said that while he thinks his team is quicker than the Catamounts, UMBC played at a slower tempo in the first half, when they went down 22 points. Vermont was moving the basketball well and getting better looks, he said.

The Retrievers shot only 37.5 percent in the first half, while the Catamounts sunk 50 percent of their attempts from the floor, many of those coming inside as Vermont corralled rebounds and outscored UMBC 10-0 in the first half on second chance shots.

“The big thing that was killing us was the offensive rebounds,” Retrievers forward Justin Fry said. “We didn’t have five guys boxing out, guys were coming in untouched.

“When you miss assignments like that, giving up easy buckets in the paint, it’s kind of hard to stop them once they’re in there. In the second half, we tried to do a better job controlling, all five guys boxing out. If they can’t get it, just make sure their man can’t get it.”

UMBC outscored the Catamounts in the paint 18-6 in the second half, and dominated on second chance opportunities, scoring 12 unanswered points.

But Vermont had done all the damage necessary in the first half.

Catamounts forward Matt Glass was a force inside before getting shook up in a collision after halftime, scoring 13 points in 23 minutes for Vermont.

The Catamounts had five players score in double figures, including 19 points each for guard Brendan Bald and forward Brian Voelkel.

“We weren’t doing the job we should have communicating,” Fry said.