Sooner or later, something had to fall.
Luckily for Corey Hassan and the BU men’s basketball team, it was sooner rather than later.
Hassan hit a floating runner with 2.6 seconds left in regulation yesterday, snapping a 41-41 tie and sending the Terriers to a thrilling 43-41 win over the University of Vermont at Agganis Arena.
“It feels great, especially against Vermont,” Hassan said. “I know it’s a pretty big rivalry, so I’m glad we got the win.”
With time winding down, Hassan took the inbound pass from junior Brian Macon outside the arc on the left side. After looking for the long shot and deciding better of it, he penetrated to just outside the lane, where he jumped forward to nail the game-winner.
“I knew that the time was about to expire so my first thought was just to shoot the 3,” said Hassan. “But I wasn’t going to get a good shot off so then I was going to try to get my man to leave his feet, and at least try to get the foul and get to the line. I ended up putting up a runner and luckily it went in.”
Mike Trimboli took the ensuing inbound pass and threw up a desperation 3-pointer as the clock ran out, but it glanced harmlessly off the top of the glass to give the Terriers (7-11, 4-3 America East) their second straight conference win — and Hassan his first career game-winning shot.
“It’s a play that’s designed to get him a shot, but I can’t take too much credit,” said coach Dennis Wolff. “I designed plays for 39 minutes in this game that made us look like one of the worst offensive teams in history, so … he deserves the credit for making a really good play.”
Wolff’s assessment may be a bit of an exaggeration, but for most of the game, it didn’t seem that far off. Held to only 25.4 percent shooting on the game, BU was forced to rely on its rebounding and was able to haul in 25 offensive boards, consistently getting second and third chances off the glass.
The discrepancy showed, as BU outshot the Catamounts, 33-9 in the second half, neutralizing Vermont’s 54.8 percent shooting mark from the field.
“You’re not going to win too many games shooting under 30 percent unless something else is working for you,” said senior captain Kevin Gardner. “In part we got a lot of offensive rebounds because we were missing so many shots, but if they were able to get those rebounds, it probably would’ve been a lopsided loss.”
For a while, that’s exactly what the game appeared to be. Trailing for almost the entire time, the Terriers used their advantage on the glass to whittle the margin down to two points with 7:37 to go.
After a pair of Trimboli free throws padded Vermont’s lead back up to four, senior captain Shaun Wynn nailed a 3-pointer on the heels of two straight Omari Peterkin offensive rebounds.
The Terriers quickly got the ball back, and after Ben Coblyn missed a layup, Hassan grabbed the rebound and drew a foul, hitting the first of two free throws to tie the game at 41-41 with just over a minute to go.
Wynn grabbed the board from the missed second foul shot, and after a Hassan 3-pointer rimmed out from the corner, Coblyn grabbed yet another offensive board with 30 seconds left to set up the game-winner.
“I’ve played a lot of games in my life and coached a lot,” said Vermont coach Mike Lonergan. “I never felt so helpless on the sidelines, to watch a team that I thought was playing pretty good defense just continue to give up offensive rebounds.”
Hassan and Gardner finished with 11 points apiece, while both Gardner and Peterkin grabbed nine boards.
Though BU outplayed the Catamounts on the glass in the first half, the Terriers stepped up their rebounding even more after halftime. Their 18 offensive boards in the second half were almost twice as many rebounds Vermont was able to muster on both sides of the court combined.
“We had a pretty spirited halftime, and we just looked at it as pretty much a turning point for our season,” Gardner said. “We can’t afford to lose too many games, especially at home, and we just knew we needed to come out and shut them down. At halftime we ratcheted it up and got down to our defense.”
In doing so, the Terriers held Vermont to its lowest point total since a 37-34 win over Colgate University back in 1985.
Trimboli led the Catamounts with 14 points, but the Vermont bench provided only four points in 59 combined minutes of play.
“It’s as frustrating a loss as I think I’ve ever had, but I don’t feel badly,” Lonergan said. “We deserved to lose that game and BU is very deserving to win that game for what they did to us in the second half.”
The win propels the Terriers into a third-place tie with Vermont, just one game behind league-leading Binghamton University. BU next takes the court on Wednesday, when it plays host to the University of Hartford.