Nobody gets to the top without running into a few falling rocks. Some unlucky bounces can knock a team down or take them out, but for the Terriers, their almost-win-turned-tough-loss to the Retrievers was more an indication of the road traveled than a shift into reverse gear.
Riding high on a five-game winning streak as they flew down south, the Boston University men’s basketball team (10-15, 7-6 America East) saw that streak quickly dissolve at the hands of the first-place University of Maryland-Baltimore County (18-7, 10-2). The 76-73 loss marked a missed opportunity to jump over the University of Vermont (12-13, 7-6), which lost in overtime to league-worst Stony Brook University (5-20, 2-11), in the standings. The Terriers now reside in sixth place behind fifth-place Vermont.
The game was hotly contested the whole way through, with each team exchanging quick scoring bursts: a 6-0 Terrier run wrought from their steamy-shooting (49.1 percent from the field, 52.2 from 3) was often matched by an equal run from the Retrievers. Rebounds, too, fell in favor of the visitors — generally a surefire sign of a Terrier victory. But in the end, it all came down to a few BU possessions going the wrong way, turning into a few for UMBC going right.
With 53 seconds left and the Terriers trailing by one, UMBC junior forward Darryl Proctor missed the front end of a 1-and-1, opening the door for someone to make the play. Freshman John Holland (15 points, five rebounds) — voted America East Rookie of the Week for the third consecutive week yesterday — jabbed his defender right and then wove his way across the lane, pulling up for a 12-foot fadeaway jumper.
The shot rimmed off, but sophomore Scott Brittain was there for the rebound. As he looked for someone to pass to, Brittain pass-faked his defender off, pivoted to face the basket and took a long step into uncontested-air for a layup. The ball bounced off the glass and hung on the left corner of the iron for a split second before falling into rival hands.
“I told [Scott] he played a real good game and the ball just rolled out,” said BU coach Dennis Wolff.
The Terriers had one final chance after senior Ray Barbosa (26 points) made just one free throw to make the score 72-70, and trusting their big man, who put up 13 points and eight rebounds, they went back to him in the post, where Brittain had put on display a number of composed moves. When a kick-out pass to sophomore co-captain Tyler Morris (14 points) dribbled back to UMBC, and the ensuing free throws dropped through, and the game was clinched.
“We went back into him because he’s a good player,” Wolff said. “Maybe he went a little impatient and went a little quicker than he would have liked to.”
Despite the end to the longest Terrier winning streak in three years, the Terriers played as well as they had in any of their previous wins. And competing like they did without sophomore guard Carlos Strong (meniscus tear), even with UMBC senior guard Brian Hodges out — forcing the home team to use a six-man rotation — showed BU that it can now beat the team with the best record in the conference.
“We can beat them with or without Hodges,” Wolff said. “We didn’t have Carlos. Everybody deals with issues. They have settled in a pretty good rhythm with the team they have. This was a very good college basketball game. The ball didn’t bounce our way today.”
The Terriers remain a refurbished, revamped and reborn team from the version that took the hardwood at the beginning of conference play. With team chemistry beginning to peak — evidenced in part by a startling alley-oop play from sophomore Corey Lowe (21 points) to Holland — there is little doubt left to this team’s capabilities.
“I told them this, I want them to be carrying themselves like the college basketball players that they are,” Wolff said. “I told them in the locker room after the game, we can win every game we got left.”