Freshman guard Zach Chionuma picked the right time to record his first-ever double-figure scoring game for the Boston University men’s basketball team. After a one-minute appearance in last Sunday’s BracketBusters matchup, the Jamesville, N.Y. native made the most of his extended minutes off the bench against the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. 
Chionuma scored a career-best 12 points in 18 minutes, senior guard Darryl Partin netted a team-high 17 and sophomore forward Travis Robinson and senior center Patrick Hazel each chipped in 10 apiece as BU trounced UMBC 73-52 Wednesday at RAC Arena.
“I thought we played well,” said BU coach Joe Jones. “I felt coming into the game that [UMBC] was one of the more improved teams if you look at their scorers and see what they were doing in their last four or five games. They have played very, very well.
“We wanted to make sure we were ready and we were focused, and I thought we were. I thought we played very well as a team, especially on the offensive end. We seemed to share it pretty good . . . I thought overall we did a good job.”
The Terriers (15-15, 11-4 America East) returned to the .500 plateau with the victory, snapping a two-game losing streak in the process and ruining the Retrievers’ (4-24, 3-12 America East) Senior Night.
Chionuma connected on a 3-pointer at 7:47 of the first half to give BU an early 17-7 advantage, and the Terriers never looked back.
With the Retrievers scoreless during a four-minute juncture near the end of the first, the Terriers’ reserves took advantage of their playing time and sparked the offense.
Red shirt freshman Malik Thomas added a putback layup as the lead grew to 15 points, forcing UMBC coach Randy Monroe to call a timeout.
Senior center Jeff Pelage followed up with a tip-in and Chionuma converted a layup, as BU rolled into the intermission with a comfortable 36-20 cushion.
The 16-point lead whittled down to 12 in the opening minutes of the second half behind the efforts of forward Chase Plummer, who tallied a game-high 21 points for UMBC.
Despite the loss, Plummer now has posted 421 points this season, the second-most ever scored by a UMBC sophomore in the program’s 26-year history. Most of the Retriever offense went through Plummer in the final frame, but he didn’t receive much help.
UMBC’s lone senior Jake Wasco, who was honored in the pregame festivities, only had four points and guard Brian Neller was the only other Retriever to score in double-figures on the night, contributing 13 points.
BU stretched its lead to as many as 23 points in the second session on a Hazel jumper, and UMBC pulled no closer than 11 after the halftime break.
The 11 Terriers who were available in the game saw the floor, and all but one of them scored a bucket. Redshirt freshman Mat Piotrowski was the lone player who didn’t, but he recorded a block during his playing time.
Senior forward Chris Kurz scored the first two points of his BU basketball career on a fastbreak layup with 49 seconds remaining, sending the Terrier bench into a frenzy. Kurz was fouled on the bucket, but he couldn’t sink the free throw to complete the 3-point play.
Still, the bench’s reaction to Kurz’s layup spoke volumes of the tightness of this Terrier group.
“Everybody loves Kurz,” Jones said. “He’s such a great teammate. He plays so hard every day. The guys really respect him and really love him. It was good to see him score. I was so happy for him.”
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